1555: Exoplanet Names 2

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Exoplanet Names 2

Title text: I'm going to drive this Netherlands joke so far into the ground they'll have to build levees around it to keep the sea out.

Explanation

This comic is a continuation of 1253: Exoplanet Names, and was published the day after NASA announced the discovery of a number of planets, including a planet called a cousin to Earth, Kepler-452b. Black Hat proposes naming it Pluto, both to commemorate the flyby of the dwarf planet of that name by NASA's New Horizons earlier the same month, but also to end the discussion about the status of Pluto, which is subject to debate among both scientists and laypeople over whether-or-not it should be considered a planet. Pluto was considered a planet for a long period of time until, in 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) created a new definition for the word 'planet' designed to exclude Pluto and similar objects, resulting in much debate (The IAU is the organization that takes responsibility for naming celestial bodies like planets, stars, and much more).

It may appear that, with Black Hat's suggestion, the answer to the question "is Pluto a planet?" will therefore always be "yes", regardless of the status of the Pluto in our Solar System according to the IAU. However the same IAU official definition that excludes Pluto also states that a 'planet' has to orbit our sun, so according to the IAU, nothing in this comic is a planet (the IAU definition only allows them to be exoplanets, which, like dwarf planets, are not planets). Hence, the debate indeed becomes 'a little more confusing'. This is in line with Black Hat's characterization as a mischief-maker.

The title text is referring to the planet name entry Netherlands VI for the star EPIC 201912552. Randall continues his references to the Netherlands taking over the Earth, Mars, and Pluto after Earth's oceans have been transferred to Mars. The joke started in two consecutive what if? articles, Drain the Oceans and Drain the Oceans: Part II, and it was referenced again in Dropping a Mountain and in 1551: Pluto a week before this comic came out. New Netherland was actually a Dutch colony with New York City, formerly known as New Amsterdam, as its capital. In the title text Randall mentions he will continue with this joke driving it so far into the ground (meaning way beyond the point where it stops being funny) that the Dutch will have to build levees around it to keep the sea out.

Table

This table explains each entry in the comic table. The "Status" column refers to the comic 1253: Exoplanet Names and indicates if the entry was already in the older comic (Old), if it has been updated (Update), or if it's a new addition (New).

Star	Planet	Status	Suggested Name	Explanation
Gliese 667	b	Old	Space Planet	A very unimaginative name, since every planet is in space.[citation needed]
	c	Old	PILF	Pun of MILF, i.e. Planet I'd Like to Fuck. Planet c is a relatively hot planet, within the habitable zone.
	d	Old	A Star	"A Star" is obviously a bad name for a planet. A* (pronounced "A star") is already used in astronomy, for example the Milky Way's black hole core is Sagittarius A*. "A star" is also the name for the character asterisk and the name of the popular A* search algorithm in computer science.
	e	Old	e'); DROP TABLE PLANETS;--	Mrs. Roberts is probably trying to use SQL injection like in Exploits of a Mom, in which her son Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;-- caused the school a lot of trouble when his name was put in. The idea here is that the IAU would enter the name into their system and promptly lose all of their data pertaining to planets. Note that Planet e is located in the habitable zone of the star system.
	f	Old	Blogosphere	Weird blog-related terms are a recurring theme in xkcd. See, for instance, comic 181.
	g	Old	Blogodrome
	h	Old	Earth	Planet candidate h is about the mass of the Earth, and described as "tantalizing": A dynamically-packed planetary system around GJ with three super-Earths in its habitable zone. See also (1231: Habitable Zone). Like several other names below, naming a second planet Earth would be highly confusing.
Tau Ceti	b	Old	Sid Meier's Tau Ceti B	This refers to the game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
	c	Old	Giant Dog Planet	VY Canis Majoris is one of the largest known stars at our galaxy and belongs to the constellation Canis Major, Latin for "greater dog". The constellation further contains Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, also called "Dog Star".
	d	Old	Tiny Dog Planet	cf. Canis Minor, Latin for "lesser dog", another constellation.
	e	Old	Phil Plainet	A reference to Phil Plait, a.k.a. The Bad Astronomer.
	f	Old	Unicode Snowman	The Unicode character ☃ may be a reference to the planet's estimated surface temperature of -40 °C (-40 °F). However, this name would be pronounced differently (being a symbol, not a word or name) in different languages. Planets in our solar system are assigned to astronomical symbols like ♁ for Venus or ♂ for Mars.
Gliese 832	b	Old	Asshole Jupiter	This massive planet orbits a red dwarf star at the longest known period of 3416 days at this category. Many exoplanets are described as "Hot Jupiters" because they are high-temperature gas giants; if one were to read "hot" as a description of attractiveness rather than temperature, one might generate names like this one.
	c	New	Waterworld starring Kevin Costner	Waterworld is a 1995 film starring Kevin Costner about Earth almost completely covered in water. The surname was previously spelled incorrectly with a 'K'.
Gliese 581	b	Old	Waist-deep Cats	Waist Deep is an action film from 2006, and the Lolcat meme does not need explaining. The name may also simply be a reference to being "waist-deep" in (i.e. surrounded by many) cats.
	c	Old	Planet #14	About 200th discovered exoplanet (in 2007); reported to be the first potentially Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of its star, though that is in doubt now. The joke might be that like "Space Planet", "Planet #14" is a generic and unoriginal name, although it could plausibly be a reference to Planet 14, a potential homeworld of the Cybermen in the long-running science-fiction series Doctor Who. Also of note is that this is the 15th entry in the original table so the numbering is zero-based. An interesting (?) coincidence is that the 14th and 15th Minor planets (then called asteroids) were discovered in 1851; see see List of minor planets: 1–1000. If they were to be counted among the planets of the Solar System, as was sometimes done then, the 14th known planetary body would be Iris (discovered in 1847, a year before Neptune).
	d	Old	Ballderaan	A crude pun on the planet Alderaan from the Star Wars universe.
	e	Old	Eternia Prime	Eternia is a fictional planet, venue of the Masters of the Universe animated series and toy collection.
	f	Old	Taupe Mars	Kim Stanley Robinson's award-winning Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars after various stages of terraformation). Taupe is a brownish-grey color.
	g	Old	Jelly-Filled Planet	Possibly a reference to the conjecture that this tidally locked planet has an isolated habitable zone under the substellar point, akin to the pocket of jelly in a jelly doughnut.
Epsilon Eridani	b	Old	Skydot	SkyDOT is the Sky Database for Objects in Time-Domain run by LANL for the U.S. Dept. of Energy and includes data for Epsilon Eridani that can be used to constrain the orbital parameters of ε Eri b. It may also refer to how objects in space may appear as bland, bright dots in the night sky.
	c	Old	Laser Noises	A Laser does not produce noise in the signal sense; it only works at a well-defined frequency. In science fiction films, however, laser weapon discharges are usually accompanied by sound. Sun-like Epsilon Eridani became a popular setting for science fiction after its publicity as a target of the Project Ozma experiment.
Gliese 176	b	Old	Pandora	The mythological name Pandora fulfills most of IAU's guidelines and has been popular for planets in science fiction; most recently and famously is the venue of James Cameron's Avatar (although actually it is not a planet but just a moon of a gas giant in Alpha Centauri A). It is also a hellish planet from Frank Herbert's WorShip series of novels, a jungle planet in Brothers Strugatsky's Noon Universe and the planet used in Borderlands Games.
	c	Old	Pantera	A near homophone of Pandora, possibly named for the heavy metal band, which was named for the Italian sports car, which was named for the panther. Could be a reference to the Avatar movie by James Cameron. The band was ALSO referenced in Terraria, due to the Plantera boss.
Kepler-61	b	Old	GoldenPalace.com	A gambling website, known for paying to have their name in unusual places (like forehead tattoos, species names...).
Groombridge 34A	b	New	Hot Mess	This is a reference to the phrase hot mess, meaning a person who is dishevelled but nevertheless attractive.
Kepler-442	b	New	Seas of Toothpaste
Gliese-422	b	New	This one weird planet	Most likely a reference to clickbait articles found on the internet.
EPIC-201367065	b	New	Sulawesi	An island in the Indonesian archipelago. Including it in non-Earth maps is an xkcd running gag.
	c	New	Huge Soccer Ball
	d	New	Geodude	Geodude is a Pokémon characterised by its ball-like shape. It resembles a clump of rocks.
Kepler-296	b	New	Kerbal Space Planet	Kerbal Space Program is a game where model rockets are launched on a scale version of the Earth. It has been referenced in xkcd a number of times (in the title text of 1106: ADD, in 1244: Six Words, as a part of 1350: Lorenz and in 1356: Orbital Mechanics). Note, though, that the actual planet corresponding to the Earth in the game is called "Kerbin".
	c	New	A$aplanet	Most probably a pun on the rap group A$AP Mob and their most prominent member A$AP Rocky. May also be a pun on Kesha, also written as Ke$ha. In that case the c of the planet's designation would belong to the name.
	d	New	Jurassic World	Jurassic World was the most recent movie in the Jurassic Park series.
	e	New	This Land	Reference to Wash's dialogue in the pilot episode of Firefly. Or perhaps the folk song "This Land is Your Land", written and made famous by Woody Guthrie.
	f	New	Springfield	The name of the town in which animated sitcom The Simpsons is set; possibly a reference to the running joke that the state in which Springfield is located has never been named.
HR 7722	b	New	Betelgeuse	Betelgeuse is a star in the constellation Orion. It is commonly (at least by speakers of English) pronounced as "beetlejuice". Beetlejuice, however is a film directed by Tim Burton from 1988. Similarly to Dune/Arrakis (see Gliese 180) and the two Uranuses (see Kepler-283), naming two planets with names that are generally regarded to be identical would cause severe confusion in astronomical discussions.
	c	New	Beetlejuice
EPIC 201912552	b	New	Netherlands VI	The title text references this entry. See the explanation of the title text above the table entry.
Gliese 3293	b	New	Antispit	In the comic Homestuck there is a luminous moon named Prospit.
	c	New	Google Earth	Google Earth is a service, similar to Google Maps, which projects satellite data on a 3D globe that can be zoomed in on. Other features, such as models of buildings, can also appear.
	d	New	Planet of the Apes (disambiguation)	The way a Wikipedia article would be titled, for example, to distinguish from the the original novel, the first film, the Tim Burton remake and the reboot series. In each adaptation, a group of astronauts lands on what is believed to be a "Planet of the Apes", which turns out to be a post-apocalyptic Earth. A Wikipedia page for this planet would itself conflict with an existing disambiguation page, possibly requiring a second-level disambiguation page to be created.
Kepler-283	b	New	ˈjʊərənəs	Two alternative pronunciations (written in International Phonetic Alphabet) for the planet name Uranus; the first one translates as "YU-ri-nus" ("urine-us"), while the second translates as "yu-RAIN-us" ("your anus"). The first pronunciation (being the same as how the Greek god is pronounced in English) is preferred by astronomers, but both are commonly heard. Similarly to Dune/Arrakis (see Gliese 180) and Betelgeuse/Beetlejuice (see HR 7722), naming two planets with names that are generally regarded to be identical would cause severe confusion in astronomical discussions.
	c	New	jʊˈreɪnəs
Second half of the table:
Upsilon Andromedae	b	New	Fourthmeal	Taco Bell has an ad campaign adding a meal after dinner. Possibly also a reference to Hobbits and seven daily meals. This entry was misspelled Andromidae in the first comic (and also in the first released version of this one, see trivia.) Although the star was mentioned in the previous chart, this entry "b" was not. In that comic the chart was shown as a part of a list. And the b entry was above the cut-off line. So the next object was also called "c" in the previous chart.
	c	Old	Stampy	The name of the elephant from the Simpsons episode Bart Gets an Elephant.
	d	Old	Moonchild	The name Bastian gives the Childlike Empress in The Neverending Story.
	e	Old	Ham Sphere	HamSphere is a Ham Radio simulator program. Ham radio uses designated radio frequencies for non-commercial exchange of messages and more. A pun of Hemisphere.
HD 20794	b	Old	Cosmic Sands	A pun on the name of the font Comic Sans. (See also: 590: Papyrus.)
	c	Old	Legoland	Legoland is a chain of theme parks owned by the Lego Group. Potentially a reference to the movie The World's End, in which the protagonist Gary King tells the alien invaders to "get in your rocket and fuck off back to Legoland".
	d	Old	Planet with Arms	A reference to the early covers of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Could also be a reference to "Birds with Arms" meme.
HD 85512	b	Old	Lax Morality	Possibly a parody of science fiction in which certain planets are suggested to be uniformly lax in morals (i.e. full of sex, drugs, etc.). See the TVTropes listing, and related. Or, possibly a reference to GCU Grey Area.
HD 40307	b	Old	Good Planet	Similar to the above, except with good planets. May also be yet another non-descriptive name, like "Space Planet" and "Planet #14".
	c	Old	Problemland	See above. Also may be a reference to Iceland/Greenland naming scheme[1], where Problemland may actually be a better place to visit than "Good Planet."
	d	Old	Slickle	This is a reference to "[https//zdarsky.tumblr.com/post/2837139960 The Petals Fall Twice]" (possibly NSFW), which was made as a humorous example of bad fan-fiction. The word itself is a portmanteau of "slowly", "licked", and "tickled".
	e	Old	Spare Parts	This suggests that the planet is "worthless" or "junk". This is false, of course. May be a reference to the fact it is a planet with nothing much different from the other planets.
	f	Old	New Jersey VI	Refers to the state of New Jersey; may be an insult to either.
	g	Old	How Do I Join the IAU	This implies that the user "got lost" on the IAU website and thought that the "planet name suggestion" input was for general queries.
Gliese 163	b	Old	Neil Tyson's Mustache	Neil deGrasse Tyson is a famous American astrophysicist and science communicator who does maintain a distinguished mustache.
	c	Old	[email protected]	Similar to "How Do I Join the IAU", this implies that the user confused the "planet suggestion" text box for a new email they are trying to send.
	d	Old	Hair-Covered Planet	Refers to the well-known Hairy ball theorem of topology.
Pi Mensae	b	Old	Moon Holder	Jupiter has more than 60 discovered moons, and still counting... A planet ten times more massive must also be a Moon Holder.
HD 189733	b	Old	Permadeath	A well-characterized "Hot Jupiter" at a temperature range of 973 ± 33 K to 1,212 ± 11 K. The name refers to the feature of Permanent death common in many RPGs and roguelikes. Or may reference permafrost, which has also been discussed in the comic.
Kepler-22	b	Old	Blue Ivy	Blue Ivy Carter is the daughter of musicians Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
KOI-2474	b	New	Store-Brand Earth	A Store brand is a line of products branded by a retailer. They have a reputation for being lower quality than other brands, and are often marketed similarly to other brands. This is implying that this is a cheaper version of Earth. (This entry replaced the completely different entry Kepler-3284b Blainsley from the previous chart).
Kepler-437	b	Update	Unicorn Thresher	As far as we can tell, Kepler-437b is in the vicinity of the constellation Monoceros, aka the Unicorn. (This was labeled Kepler-3255b in the previous chart)
KOI-2418	b	Old	Spherical Discworld	The Discworld is the fictional setting for British author Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of humorous fantasy novels; it consists of a large disc supported by four elephants themselves standing on top of a turtle flying through space. The joke being that the planet could not be spherical and disc-shaped at the same time. (Was listed as Kepler-2418 in the previous chart).
Kepler-438	b	Update	Emergency Backup Earth	This candidate planet has an Earth Similarity Index of 0.89, making it one of the most habitable Kepler object of interest. The name suggests that it could be used as a backup in case something happened to our current planet. (Was listed as Kepler-1686 in the previous chart; Kepler-1686 b was proven to be a false positive by NASA in 2015).
KOI-3010	b	Old	Feeeoooooooop	Possibly the onomatopoeia for something getting sucked into a black hole.
Kepler-442	b	Old	Liz	Just a regular name (for a person, not a planet). Maybe a reference to the Magic School Bus.
82 Eridani	b	New	Horsemeat Surface	A reference to the 2013 meat adulteration scandal, where horsemeat was found in burgers alleging to contain beef. This planet's name suggests that the surface of the entire planet would also contain improperly declared horsemeat.
	c	New	The Moon	This name would cause confusion with the Earth's moon, which in English is called The Moon. It is also a poor name choice as 82 Eridani c is not a moon, but a planet.
	d	New	Constant Saxophones	May refer to the fact that there are lots of different kinds of saxophones. A Constant Saxophone may only be able to play one note, while several Constant Saxophones tuned to different notes could assemble the tone range of either normal saxophone. Constant Saxophones could also imply that Saxophone music is played constantly, everywhere on the planet. This could get tiresome for the residents of the planet.
HD 102365	b	New	Little Big Planet	This refers to the videogame LittleBigPlanet.
Gliese 180	b	New	Dune	Both references to Frank Herbert's Dune book series. The planet Arrakis (informally referred to as 'Dune') is the central planet in the mythology, where the mind-enhancing substance 'spice' comes from. Use of spice enables, among others, supercomputing-like mental computation as well as hyperspace navigation. Having two neighbouring planets with names that are historically used to refer to a single planet would sow further confusion in the already extensive catalog of planet names. This is similarly to Betelgeuse/Beetlejuice (see HR 7722) and the two Uranuses (see Kepler-283).
	c	New	Arrakis
Fomalhaut	b	New	Swarm of Bees	From Wikipedia: Fomalhaut b could be a conglomeration of rubble from a recent collision between comet-to-asteroid-sized bodies and not actually identify a planet.
Kepler-62	b	New	Sporty	A reference to the Spice Girls. See also the previous comic, 1554: Spice Girls, where Megan was unable to list the members of this pop group. In this case the names are correct, and would give Megan a new and interesting reason to remember them. Kepler-62f is a super-Earth-size planet, that may be potentially habitable. Kepler-62e is a possible water world.
	c	New	Baby
	d	New	Scary
	e	New	Ginger
	f	New	Posh
HD 69830	b	New	Planet.xxx	.xxx is a controversial top level domain (like to .com and .net) that is intended to distinguish porn sites from other types of website. Planet X is the name for a still undiscovered planet in our solar system, a common theme both in real science and fiction. The search for "Planet X" lead, by chance, to the discovery of Pluto.
	c	New	Novella	A novella is a form of prose with length between a short story and a novel. Common examples of novellas are romance literature centering around intense lustful encounters in cheap paperback books, though also 'serious' literature may be in novella form.
	d	New	Sexoplanet	Like the other two planets orbiting this star, the "69" in the stars designation has lead to a sex joke: All planets in this comic are "exo-planets", planets not orbiting our sun. Adding a single "s" in front results in immature humor.
Gliese 682	b	New	Verdant Hellscape	A contradictory name. "Verdant" usually signifies to be lush with green plant life, while "hellscape" describes a desolate landscape destroyed by heat and cataclysm.
	c	New	Unsubscribe	On YouTube, "subscribers" (people who get updates on a person's channel) are highly valued, and to "unsubscribe" from anyone is deemed to be offensive. "Unsubscribe" is also the command one sends to Electronic mailing lists to stop receiving said mailing list. In this sense it may imply a desire to no longer be bothered with these silly discussions around planet-names. Like "[email protected]" and "How do I join the IAU", "unsubscribe" is a frequently seen accidental message on the Internet in contexts where it is not going to work as a command.
Kepler-452	b	New	Pluto	This is the planet Black Hat is referring to at the top of the table.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Black Hat points with a stick at a slide showing an image of a planet with unknown features marked by questions marks.]

Kepler-452b

Black Hat: NASA has announced the discovery of a (super-)Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of a sun-like star.

Black Hat: I suggest we name this planet "Pluto", both to celebrate the great work by the New Horizons team, and to make the stupid "Is Pluto a planet" debate a little more confusing

While we wait to hear from the IAU,

here's a revised and updated list of

planet name suggestions (see xkcd.com/1253)

New or updated entries in red

[The table is in three separate columns. There is a small arrow pointing at the second column, named "Planet", indicating the planet's name corresponding to the star at the first row. The third column shows the planet name suggestions.]

Star	Planet	Suggested Name
Gliese 667	b	Space Planet
	c	PILF
	d	A Star
	e	e'); DROP TABLE PLANETS;--
	f	Blogosphere
	g	Blogodrome
	h	Earth
Tau Ceti	b	Sid Meier's Tau Ceti B
	c	Giant Dog Planet
	d	Tiny Dog Planet
	e	Phil Plainet
	f	Unicode Snowman
Gliese 832	b	Asshole Jupiter
	c	Waterworld starring Kevin Costner
Gliese 581	b	Waist-deep Cats
	c	Planet #14
	d	Ballderaan
	e	Eternia Prime
	f	Taupe Mars
	g	Jelly-Filled Planet
Epsilon Eridani	b	Skydot
	c	Laser Noises
Gliese 176	b	Pandora
	c	Pantera
Kepler-61	b	GoldenPalace.com
Groombridge 34A	b	Hot Mess
Kepler-442	b	Seas of Toothpaste
Gliese-442	b	This one weird planet
EPIC-201367065	b	Sulawesi
	c	Huge Soccer Ball
	d	Geodude
Kepler-296	b	Kerbal Space Planet
	c	A$aplanet
	d	Jurassic World
	e	This Land
	f	Springfield
HR 7722	b	Betelgeuse
	c	Beetlejuice
EPIC 201912552	b	Netherlands VI
Gliese 3293	b	Antispit
	c	Google Earth
	d	Planet of the Apes (disambiguation)
Kepler-283	b	ˈjʊərənəs
	c	jʊˈreɪnəs
Upsilon Andromedae	b	Fourthmeal
	c	Stampy
	d	Moonchild
	e	Ham Sphere
HD 20794	b	Cosmic Sands
	c	Legoland
	d	Planet with Arms
HD 85512	b	Lax Morality
HD 40307	b	Good Planet
	c	Problemland
	d	Slickle
	e	Spare Parts
	f	New Jersey VI
	g	How Do I Join the IAU
Gliese 163	b	Neil Tyson's Mustache
	c	[email protected]
	d	Hair-Covered Planet
Pi Mensae	b	Moon Holder
HD 189733	b	Permadeath
Kepler-22	b	Blue Ivy
KOI-2474	b	Store-Brand Earth
Kepler-437	b	Unicorn Thresher
KOI-2418	b	Spherical Discworld
Kepler-438	b	Emergency Backup Earth
KOI-3010	b	Feeeoooooooop
Kepler-442	b	Liz
82 Eridani	b	Horsemeat Surface
	c	The Moon
	d	Constant Saxophones
HD 102365	b	Little Big Planet
Gliese 180	b	Dune
	c	Arrakis
Fomalhaut	b	Swarm of Bees
Kepler-62	b	Sporty
	c	Baby
	d	Scary
	e	Ginger
	f	Posh
HD 69830	b	Planet.xxx
	c	Novella
	d	Sexoplanet
Gliese 682	b	Verdant Hellscape
	c	Unsubscribe
Kepler-452	b	Pluto

Trivia

• The IPA character for stress is a vertical line ˈ, but Randall uses a slanted line similar to acute accent ´ or prime ′.
• In the original version of this comic, there were three errors, but they were corrected later the same day:
  • Waterworld starring Kevin Kostner (instead of Costner)
  • Upsilon Andromidae (instead of Andromedae)
  • Formalhaut (instead of Fomalhaut)
• After the initial release of this comic Randall added a jumbled version of the address to this page. It's viewable in the HTML-source or here: https://xkcd.com/1555/info.0.json. The text is: "Full explanation & dissection & transcription available http:\n\nwww.explainxkcd.com\nwiki\nindex.php\n1555", with \n characters replacing the backslashes instead of the JSON-specific \\.

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Discussion

"This Land" is a Firefly reference. Keavon (talk) 05:11, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

This land is also track n6 of The Lion King, I think Randall is also a fan of this.--NeoRaist (talk) 14:54, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

What is with Kepler-283? 108.162.214.137 05:09, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

283b is the phonetic spelling for Uranus (your-a-nus) and 283c is the phonetic spelling for Uranus (your-ay-nus) 141.101.104.77 05:33, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

In table explanation, "'YU-ri-nus'...being the same as how the Greek god is pronounced in English" is misleading: Wikipedia's "Uranus (mythology)" page specifies both pronunciations as options. (And when we studied Greek mythology in high school we did in fact use jʊˈreɪnəs.)108.162.216.101 02:19, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Netherlands

.. I almost feel like that titletext gives enough reason for there to be (some) pages about the What If? series, but ehhhh... Pixali (talk|contribs) 05:02, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Thought about that and Randall's "promise" to use this joke more often: Do we need a "Netherlands" category for comics/articles? Having said that, maybe this was the very last reference to this joke, because of this promise... Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 12:06, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Kostner

Is there a pun I'm missing by spelling Kevin Costner as "Kostner"? 198.41.241.7

Randall fixed it. I don't know how to update the file here, though. P1h3r1e3d13 (talk) 20:15, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I got it - the file's been updated, but I had to go all the way to the image and force a refresh on my browser for it to appear correctly. :P KieferSkunk (talk) 00:34, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Novella

I'm not 100% sure what "Novella" refers to, aside from the dictionary definition of the word (and if that's the case I'm unsure of the context), but in case it's not widely-known on this wiki, I want to suggest the possibility that it's a tribute to the Novella brothers, who are among the co-hosts of the popular science podcast The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. - 108.162.241.175 04:43, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Seems like a cool podcast, sadly I don't have time to listen to 10 years Witt of podcasts. Any specific ones I should listen to and where should I start for new ones? 173.245.55.63 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The podcast is very topical, often talking about current news items. It is OK to start with new ones, and back-fill as desired. Blaisepascal (talk) 18:57, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Considering the sex-themed names Novella it is grouped with. I will assume it is a joke on 60/70's exploitation/B-movies, some of which had names or leadcharacters named something..-ella. In this case the prefix is just particularly confusing ;) 188.114.110.47 08:51, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I assumed this was a reference to the SGU, perhaps because I was primed by the Phil Plait reference (who has been a guest on that podcast a few times), and because of their enthusiasm for space news. 141.101.99.57 20:04, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

It could also be interpreted in this context as the diminutive form of "nova," like a stellar nova. - 173.245.56.165 15:09, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

A$aplanet

Is a pun on the rap group A$AP Mob and their most prominient member A$AP Rocky.

Included that possibility. Thanks. Didn't know of A$AP, before. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 13:21, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Somehow I just read this as "a dollar a planet", maybe refering to a donating scheme ("a dollar donated for every planet found" or even more along the lines of "a dollar a day", meaning: donate 1 dollar to save this planet) or a sale advertisement ("just $1 to buy a planet", which is very likely to be a scam as it would not be possible with current technology to visit another planet outside of our solar system) 198.41.242.253 15:15, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Planet of the Apes (disambiguation)

I think the suggestion here is to actually put the "(disambiguation)" in the name of the planet, thereby creating a problem in the wikipedia entry, since there's already a wikipedia page with that title. They would have to create a meta-disambiguation page, which is why this is funny. 141.101.98.235 13:39, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

That's definitely the joke. But Wikipedia is actually already prepared to deal with this. When the Prince and the Revolution cover band "Prince (disambiguation)" tried to add a page for their band, editors pointed out that it should be listed as "Prince (disambiguation) (band)", with that "misnamed for technical reasons" template at the top explaining that the band's proper name is "Prince (disambiguation)", and possibly a disambiguation page at "Prince (disambiguation)" could point to it as well as to "Prince (musician)" and various other things. (But of course the band is completely non-notable, so the page was just deleted anyway). (I may be misremembering the details; it may have been a similarly-named cover band for a similar artist.) So, this would just be "Planet of the Apsa (disambiguation) (exoplanet)". 162.158.255.52 17:17, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Kepler-438b

In the previous comic, Kepler-438 was named Kepler-1686 (which does not seem to exist...) and was updated to the current Kepler-438b. It even is colored red to show the update. 162.158.23.198 16:34, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Hot Mess

Why is Hot Mess an Arrested Development thing? The phrase is in general use, not just limited to viewers of that show. 108.162.237.189 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Air Bud Pluto #9 Reference

A few strips back, in Rulebook, we were debating whether the "9" on the dog's jersey may have been a subtle jab at the Pluto debate. I argued that there was a strong possibility of that, given the timing of that comic immediately after the New Horizons flyby, the strong relationship between dogs and the name Pluto, and Pluto's former status as the 9th planet. There was no way to prove that that was what Randall had in mind (short of him personally confirming it), but I think this strip could lend some credence to it. What do you think? KieferSkunk (talk) 17:50, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

What I think: #1 I don't think just the mention of Pluto is enough to support the relationship between Air Bud and Pluto; #2 read my commentary on 1552: Rulebook. GuiRitter (talk) 23:01, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Definition of Planet

What about the fact that the new definition of planet made by the IAU says it has to be around the sun. None of these would fit the definition of planet then and the answer to "is Pluto a planet" would still be no.Agent0013

Here's a link to the IAU resolution which defines a planet (and confirms Agent0013's comment): IAU 2006 General Assembly Results. 173.245.50.150 19:35, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

<Here used to be nonsense, sorry> Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 12:51, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Planet with Arms

(I just added this to the 1253 talk. Adding it here too.) I think Planet With Arms refers to both Hitchhiker's and to Galileo describing Saturn as a 'planet with ears' when he discovered. it. --173.245.54.26 13:12, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

A few more possibilities for you:

• "Skydot" - a reference to Carl Sagan's famous "Pale Blue Dot" of Earth.
• "Seas of Toothpaste" - possibly referencing the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" with its various peculiar "Seas" (e.g., "Sea of Phrenology", "Sea of Holes")
• "Moonchild" is a generic hippy name, and also the title of a 1917 novel by Aleister Crowley and songs by King Crimson and Iron Maiden. The King Crimson song, perhaps importantly, is the fourth song (i.e., "song d") on their debut album.
• "Planet With Arms" also follows on directly after "LEGoland" as a pun, as well as referencing Galileo's description of Saturn as a planet with ears.

Grutness (talk) 01:48, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Planet with arms could also probably be a reference to the 'birds with arms' meme. 108.162.249.169 09:12, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

It's probably not intentional, but Spherical Discworld reminded me of an aspect of the Pratchett novel, Strata (pre-Discworld-series, i.e. very early work, and arguably a bit rough around the edges, but you still might want to peruse it some time). Although I'm not wanting to go into any more detail lest I spoiler the very interesting thing that I'm talking about. 141.101.98.168 21:18, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I am vaguely disappointed that none of the Eridani planets got named "Planet of the Fish Assholes"... -Pennpenn 108.162.250.162 23:46, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Can we talk about how this comic is the fourth time the island Sulawesi was mentioned without any reason? Sulawesi appeared in comic 273 as part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and physically in both Online Communities maps I and II? 108.162.225.133 09:55, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I vote for a Sulawesi category. GuiRitter (talk) 23:01, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Was unicodesnowmanforyou.com made before or after this comic came out? 173.245.54.51 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)