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List of proper names of exoplanets

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of proper names of exoplanets
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Proper names for planets outside of the Solar System – known as exoplanets – are chosen by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) through public naming contests known as NameExoWorlds.

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Proper names of planetary systems often follow common themes – for example, the planets of the star Copernicus are named after European astronomers

Naming

The IAU's names for exoplanets – and on most occasions their host stars – are chosen by the Executive Committee Working Group (ECWG) on Public Naming of Planets and Planetary Satellites, a group working parallel with the Working Group on Star Names (WGSN).[1] Proper names of stars chosen by the ECWG are explicitly recognised by the WGSN.[1] The ECWG's rules for naming exoplanets are identical to those adopted by the Minor Planet Center for minor planets.[2] Names are a single word consisting of sixteen characters or less, pronounceable in some language, non-offensive, and not identical to existing proper names of astronomical objects.[3] Copyrighted names, names of living individuals, and names with political or religious themes are blacklisted by the ECWG.[4] In addition, the discoverer of a planet reserves the right to reject a proposed name for it.[5]

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Questionable planets

Like the hypothesized Solar System planet Vulcan, which was named but turned out not to exist, a few named exoplanets have been challenged or refuted.

  • Dagon, thought to be the first extrasolar planet discovered by visible-light imaging, was found in 2020 to be a debris cloud from a collision of asteroids rather than a planet.[6]
  • Orbitar, detected by radial velocity (RV), was found in 2025 to be due to intrinsic radial velocity variations in its host star.[7]
  • Tondra was detected by radial velocity, so initially only a minimum mass was known. A 2020 study found a true mass large enough to be a star rather than a planet, though with a large margin of error, so its nature remains uncertain.[8]
  • Thestias,[9] Spe, and Arkas[10] have been questioned in the literature; they may also be due to intrinsic stellar RV variations, but they have not been conclusively disproven.
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