The IAU clarifies

The IAU has a new planet-naming contest out, NameExoWorlds, which I also wrote about here in the context of whether the IAU would involve the discoverers of exoplanets in its process, as per its own rules set down by Commission 53.  I found the IAU’s initial response on the issue wanting — it appeared to be saying that it was going to ignore the Commission’s rule.

To recap, IAU Commission 53, partly in response to Uwingu’s exoplanet naming contest, laid down rules for the sort of contest that it would be willing to endorse officially.  Anything that charged anyone was right out (sorry Uwingu), and Rule 6 stated:

the process must be respectful of intellectual property: it must have the formal agreement of the discoverers, who may participate in the process

I was pleased to read this rule when it was written, but always thought it would be very difficult to get a name approved because of it.  There are lots of complications about who, exactly, a “discoverer” is.

For instance, I am a late co-author on the refereed paper announcing 55 Cancri f, but I would hardly call myself a discoverer of it, and it seems silly that anyone should need my “formal agreement” to name that planet.  But who should get “veto power”?  Just Debra Fischer?  The first four authors?  To complicate things, Jack Wisdom presented evidence for the f component in the previously published Keck data for 55 Cancri in a poster at a DPS meeting 3 years earlier.  Who decides whether the IAU needs Jack’s “formal agreement” to name that planet?

The list of complications go on.  HD 2092458 b, the first known transiting planet, was announced in papers submitted on the same calendar day by two different groups (on either side of the daily submission cutoff — that’s why Henry’s paper has a submission date one day prior to Charbonneau’s paper.  I have a write-up with Scott Gaudi about these heady days of discovery here).  The planet was first detected, though, not by its transits but by radial velocities, independently by the Geneva and California teams, who are co-authors on the two papers.  So I would say this planet has 8 discoverers; others might argue for just Greg Henry.  Who decides who gets to require their “formal agreement”?

And this doesn’t even get into cases where the first refereed paper is not by the group that discovered a planet, who announced it by press release but never published.  Who draws that line?

Then, once we decide who the “discoverers” are, what does “formal agreement” mean?  Do they all have to agree?  A majority?  How do we count abstentions?

So I foresaw that Rule 6 would be a high hurdle to clear.  I was surprised, then, that the IAU seemed to be ready to ignore it when it came to its own contest, which would make naming these planets considerably easier.

Well, Thierry Montmerle put me in touch with Alain Lecavelier des Etangs, the president of Commission 53, who assured me that the IAU is considering these issues and taking them seriously (I don’t want to quote his email directly without formal written permission, so I will give my understanding of it instead).

He assured me that the IAU does recognize and respect the intellectual property of the discovers (which is not how I would frame the issue, but has the same effect).  He wrote it would be the Exoplanets for the Public Working Group (which includes some discoverers) that will contact the discoverers once the contest enters its final phase.

I specifically asked Dr. Lecavelier des Etangs who would deal with the complex issues I outline above, and he told me it would be the Executive Committee, which includes both exoplanet experts and people with nomenclature experience from the Solar System community.  He told me that the IAU would be following Commission 53’s guidance, which recommended using the timestamp of submission to a refereed journal to establish discovery priority (and he acknowledged the difficulties such a rule would bring up for 209485b).

Finally, he told me that he hopes to get consensus and approval from all of the discoverers so that the issues of vetoes I brought up earlier does not have to even be addressed.  I agree that would be best for all involved.

In the last round, I personally found the original statement by the IAU about naming exoplanets wanting, and the Commission 53 clarification (here and here) thoughtful and satisfactory.  I feel the same way this time around.

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