Just last week, NASA announced the discovery of seven new planets, all of which are about the size and shape of Earth, orbiting a star 40 light-years away. And most exciting of all is that three of the seven are located in a "habitable zone"—a.k.a. they might actually be able to support life as we know it.
"Answering the question 'are we alone?' is a top science priority, and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the habitable zone is a remarkable step forward toward that goal," said Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C., in a press release.
So it seemed perfectly reasonable that this week NASA asked Twitter to chime in with ideas for what to name the new planets, which currently are known solely by the monikers TRAPPIST-1b, TRAPPIST-1c, TRAPPIST-1d, TRAPPIST-1e, TRAPPIST-1f, TRAPPIST-1g, and TRAPPIST-1h. Surely, the Internet could come up with better than that. And while the suggestions Twitter raised weren't totally scientific, well, they certainly weren't boring.
X content
There were Friends references:
X content
X content
And an homage to the Jackson 5 (and other Jackson siblings):
X content
Respect was paid to the Fast and Furious franchise:
X content
And to the Harry Potter books:
X content
With plenty of other Potterworld references:
X content
And, of course, the history of the iPhone was suggested:
X content
Others used this as an opportunity to get political:
X content
X content
While some sought vindication for recently un-planeted Pluto:
X content
Of course, there had to be a Game of Thrones reference:
X content
And it wouldn't be the Internet without a classic like this:
