NAMING EXOPLANETS

Assigning formal names to celestial objects is the responsibility of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The organisation’s basic approach with exoplanets is to take the name of the host star and append a lowercase letter – starting with b for the first planet discovered, then c and so on. But the IAU also runs naming campaigns around the world to assign more memorable names to selected exoplanets, many of which are based on science fiction.

Exoplanet HD 100777 b was named Laligurans, after the national flower of Nepal