The Thunder Bay chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada is taking its place among the stars.
The local stargazing group’s suggested names for a star and planet in the Andromedae 14 System won the online NameExoWorlds contest.
The star will forever be known as Veritas and its orbiting planet will be called Spes.
When the International Astronomical Union notified the group its suggestions were the most popular among Internet voters, the last line in the letter read, “thank you for this proposal, which will now be remembered by humankind for generations.”
Group chair Maureen Nadin feels it puts Thunder Bay’s stamp on the universe.
“Excuse the pun, we are over the moon. This is very exciting, it’s thrilling, it’s an honour and it’s a legacy,” Nadin said.
“This is something you can’t measure in money. Our centre, our group and our city has become part of history.”
In Greek mythology, Andromeda is chained to a rock and fed to a sea monster to punish her mother Cassiopeia for boasting of her daughter's beauty. Perseus' heroism and nobility of character in saving her forms the inspiration for the suggested names.
“We looked at the mythologies and the themes of honour, nobility and courage, then we took that one step beyond and looked at truth because that’s what the discovery and the search for scientific knowledge is all about. And we chose the Latin term Vareitate,” Nadin explained.
“For the planet, we asked ourselves what was going to accompany that and we chose hope because in discovery, there’s hope for finding new worlds, finding our place in the universe and finding we’re not alone, even.”
Since August, local astronomical society vice president Dave Gallant led a social media campaign to mobilize voter support. He credits those efforts for the group’s names garnering more than 2,000 votes, twice as many as their closest competitor.
Gallant added, however, the names stood on their merit.
“The names we chose and the story we put together to go with the names would be very convincing to me if I was just reading a list of names without knowing where they’re from,” he said.
As a bonus for winning, the International Astronomical Union has offered the group the opportunity to name an asteroid in our solar system, an honour usually reserved for people who discover them.
The name must be submitted by Jan. 4, 2016 but the working title is “Thunder Bay,” a nod to the group’s hometown.
