A Planet by Any Other Name Would Still be A…Planet?

In an effort to get the creative juices flowing, and inspired by one of the latest posts I happened to be casually browsing on 9gag (yes, we teachers check it too!) I asked my students what they would name the seven new planets that NASA discovered recently. Since their creative answers had me laughing so hard I decided I simply had to share what they came up with! (with their permission of course):

1.“New Planet, New Planet 2.0, New Planet 3.0, New Planet 4.0, New Planet 5.0, New Planet 6.0, Frank” ~ Joelle Oussta.

2.“As mentioned on the nasa.gov website: ‘In contrast to our sun, the TRAPPIST-1 star – classified as an ultra-cool dwarf – is so cool that liquid water could survive on planets orbiting very close to it, closer than is possible on planets in our solar system.’ So since it's an "ultra cool dwarf", then why not name the planets as the seven dwarfs? Dopey, Bashful, Sneezy, Sleepy, Happy, Grumpy, Doc. And the Sun could be called Dwarf.” ~ Aya Abou El Zoulof

3.“The seven deadly sins: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Gluttony, Lust, Sloth, Greed” ~ Fidel Badran.

4.“So you know how the planets in our solar system were named after Roman gods and goddesses? Now they should name the new planets after their Greek equivalents:

• Zeus - The Roman king of gods was actually "Jupiter", & they named the planet Jupiter after him. Now they should name one of the new planets after his Greek equivalent, Zeus (the Greek king of gods)

• Poseidon - Roman equivalent: Neptune

• Cronos - Roman equivalent: Saturn

• Ares - Roman equivalent: Mars

• Aphrodite - Roman equivalent: Venus

• Hermes - Roman equivalent: Mercury

• Hades - Roman equivalent: Pluto (but then they'll discover Hades was never a legit planet)

PS: The sun, however, shall be named Apollo (god of the sun).

Makes perfect sense!” ~Nour Nasrallah

5.“I would've named the planets the following: Winterfell, Casterly Rock, Pentos, Castle Black, Kings Landing, Riverrun, The Eyrie. And finally I'd name the sun Khalesee or Deneris (a.k.a mother of dragons). All of these are city names in Game of Thrones, except for the sun which is named after the queen.” ~Abed El Rahman Kibbi

As for me, to be quite honest, Fidel’s answer is exactly the first thing that crossed my mind too: I thought of the seven deadly sins. But, and because I actually went ahead and bothered to blog about this subject, I figured I might as well take this to the next level by actually researching the significance of the number “seven” in world literature. After quite a few unexpected and hectic hours of research, I realized that in retrospect, I’d name the seven planets after the “seven ages of man”: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, Pantalone (exceptional greed/money in the commedia world), and old age (facing imminent death), in reference to a monologue from one of Shakespeare’s most frequently quoted plays As You Like It:

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

In this excerpt (and play overall), the world is compared to a stage, and life, to a play that is categorically divided into a series of ages. And while Shakespeare did adapt this philosophy and succeed in doing so, the concept of the seven ages of man actually predates the famous playwright. Renaissance humanist Erasmus, for example, in his work The Praise of Folly first printed in 1511, once noted: "For what else is the life of man but a kind of play in which men in various costumes perform until the director motions them off the stage."

A bit bleak, perhaps. But until human knowledge of the universe progresses faster than the speed of light – till now, a definite impossibility – everything remains uncertain, with the fine exception of the certainty of those seven stages from cradle to grave.

Too macabre for you? Then leave me a comment below and share what you would have named the seven planets yourself!

References

1) NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-telescope-reveals-largest-batch-of-earth-size-habitable-zone-planets-around/

2) 9gag: http://9gag.com/gag/aKVx2v6?ref=tp