The NameExoWorlds global project has received international interest, participation and media coverage. Thousands of names have been submitted to respective national campaigns to name a designated exoplanet and its host star.

 

In June 2019, IAU100 launched the NameExoWorlds global campaign that allows any country in the world to give a popular name to a selected exoplanet and its host star. The aim of this initiative is to create awareness of our place in the Universe and to reflect on how the Earth would potentially be perceived by a civilisation on another planet.

 

In participating countries, a national committee has been specially created to carry out the campaign at the national level. The national committee, following the methodology and guidelines set up by the IAU100 NameExoWorlds Steering Committee, is the body responsible for providing the conditions for public participation, disseminating the project in the country and establishing a voting system.

 

Each of the national competitions opened a call for proposals. This collection of proposals is still ongoing for countries such as Burkina Faso and Senegal. These large collections of proposed names are then down-selected by the national committees. Some countries, such as Trinidad and Tobogo and Canada, are currently down-selecting these proposals. Many countries are now pursuing the final voting phase in which the public can vote on the final list of candidate names, as is currently being done in Argentina, Belgium, Brunei, and Poland. 

 

The status of all national competitions can be explored on the respective pages for most of the national committees.

 

The winning names will be used freely in parallel with the existing scientific nomenclature, with due credit to the persons that proposed them. The global results will be announced in December 2019. 

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