Who makes up these crappy planet names?

Photo Credit: National Geographic

I don't know if it was listening to some old space-age music I made, my recent review of my photos from my trip to Kemet (Egypt), or my Geography class at with professor Mark Rauzon, but I've been contemplating the Universe a lot lately.

"Respect the Universe." That's what I wrote on my Facebook status a week ago. I then began to spell out my name with the first letter of a series of sentences that came to me.

It's not quite astrophysics, but this morning, I even woke up and listened to Afrika Bambataa's Planet Rock three times. As I headed to class, light, dark clouds in the Eastern sky let me gaze right at the Sun.

There were plenty of other signs throughout the day that made me think about the Universe beyond our planet. Then strangely enough, I just read that astronomers and experts believe they found a habitable planet, Gliese 581g, some 20 light-years away from Earth.

I've always thought to myself: If you were asked to travel off into space, and if there was a possibility that you may never come home, would you?

If you could travel 20 light years to Gliese 581g (crappy name), would you? And, finally, who gave such a crappy planet name out.

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