Ok so our home PLANET is called Earth, our GALAXY the Milky Way. Then what do we call our SOLAR SYSTEM? It can't simply remain the 'Solar System' as there are gazillions of them out there -- even as of yet undiscovered they may be

Many many many years from now when we populate other solar systems, would they still refer to the original as the Solar System? I think not

Ok i just found 2 other possibilities...

One is that our solar system is called 'Sol'. But Iv also head that's what we call our sun?

The other: Monmatia (according to the The Urantia book)

Solar Systems are usually named after the name of the star, so ours will be called the Sol System.

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

-Arthur C. Clarke

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All words, phrases, definitions and theories provided in the above post are, unless otherwise stated, the property of Champion Munch © 2005.

Sign up to sue the Sun

I had never heard of the Urantia book until now, and I would have much preferred if that had stayed thus.
I don't think taking the name of our solar system from a book which says that the Earth was 2.5 biilion years ago only a tenth of its current size is a good idea...

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

Luna works for me.

Sol is Roman god of the Sun, its also Roman for Helios the Greek god of the sun.
Sol=Sun

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

-Arthur C. Clarke

Same for me. Luna is Latin for Selene the Greek/Roman goddess of the moon.
Selene in Greek means moon.

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

-Arthur C. Clarke

Agreed!

I got a long list of things that don't work for me. Nasal and Ear hair chief among them. It quite possibly could be the only non-aethestic thought in my belief system. Hair in your ears or nose that constantly pokes out after you've reached a certain age in life might possibly be proof that there is a creator, and he's a real jerk!
But all in all, the feelings I have on the subject matter not, thats the way it is. We live on the third planet in the Sol system. Our moon is called THE moon or Luna for the simple reason that we only have one. If we had been fortunate to have two moons, we'd probably have a more distinctive name for each defining them away from what they are.

Makes you wonder though, when we run into a different race of critters, will they name their system after their sun? The most prominent sun or the biggest, or after ear hair which although a real pain seems to be a growing constant in my personal universe.

We return you now to sanity...

You might be gaining hair in odd places, but im rapidly loosing them where it matters!

Does anyone use those in casual conversation? "Luna is full tonight." "Did you see Selene last night? She was a thin crescent close to Venus." "What's Luna's phase on Halloween?"
If you do that....blanks stares will result.

Ah! The semantical quagmire. "Solar System" is the name of our stellar system. Stellar system being the generic term. There are no other Solar systems; those are stellar systems. Specific names might be siriusian, Miran, betelgeussian...etc.

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

hehe there we go

Good lad!
ta

Astronomy/space writer tend to use the term "solar system" to describe these systems of extrasolar planets. But most of the discovering astronomers (Marcy, Butler, others) use "planetary systems," not solar or stellar. Occasionally I'll see one using solar system, but usually it's planetary. See these two articles for examples. I'm sure other writers do it differently, too.

It's sort of like the moon/satellite debate. Some people insist that our chunk o' cheese in the sky is the only one that should rightly be called a moon, everything else around other planets are merely natural satellites and don't deserve the name moon.

It's a shame we don't personify our celestial bodies anymore. I like the idea of the big guy Helios riding his chariot across the sky, and lovely Selene singing to Endymion as he lies in eternal sleep. Something rather impersonal and unpleasant happened to language when we added the definite article, when we gave ourselves THE Sun, THE Moon, and THE Earth; it makes them sound... dead. I have to say though, that there seems to be something of a double standard at work here; we never say "the Mars," or "the Jupiter," after all.

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It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

we can call our solar system - "The Living Spot" since earth is a planet in our solar system which supports life.Earth can be considered superior and we can name the solar system after it - "Eartho Solar System"

Scientists are there to give more better names but i thought of this at the moment.

http://www.space.invisionplus.net

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"We have to explore n explore"
http://www.exploreuniverse.com

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Ay, amor
Dime como debo hacer
Para arrancarme este deseo
Que no me deja ni comer
Y que me da cuando te veo

"Silence--The Moon sleeps with Endymion/And would not be waked." (I may have that quote wrong, but I'm almost certain it's from The Merchant of Venice.)

I tend to capitalize Moon and Earth and sometimes even Sun. After all, they are places; those are their names. That makes them proper nouns. I think that helps remind me that they are still the places that have held such wonder for humanity for so long.

Then again, I'm an English major, so I may just be pedantic.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

It took me awhile to get used to that--but I like it fine now. Its an aquired taste. If we name star systems after the planet that has life and has staked a claim in its home system--then we would call our home...

The Terran System.