- IAU: International Astronomical Union. The IAU represents
astronomers throughout the world.
- The only celestial objects named after their discoverers are
comets: icy minor planets with eccentric orbits that sublimate (melt).
- Minor planets not belonging to special dynamic groups (e.g.,
Kuiper belt, trans-neptunian objects, Trojan asteroids, comets)
otherwise known as asteroids.
- The moons of Uranus are named after characters in the writings of
William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope's "Rape of the Lock".
- One name would be based on catalog entry number and the other on
position: RRSS 1, RRSS 152032+4530 (or variations of this
position)
- alpha Tauri, this star is better known as Aldeberan (the eye of
the bull)
- epsilon Orionis, this star is also known as Alnilam (the middle
star of the belt)
- The IAU has designated 88 constellations most inherited from the
ancient Greeks
- "al" means "the" in Arabic. The Arabic "al" was retained
when the start charts of Mesopotamia were inherited by the
Persians then the Greeks by conquest. The Greeks retained and
combined "al" with all these names (e.g., Aldeberan = al deberan = the
follower).
- NO, the IAU does not sell or endorse the selling of names for
celestial objects. Let me know if you want to perpetrate this
scam!