{"id":7663,"date":"2025-09-14T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=7663"},"modified":"2026-07-04T17:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T17:54:10","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-su-ta-gar-the-star-and-exoplanet-with-basque-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2025\/09\/14\/basque-fact-of-the-week-su-ta-gar-the-star-and-exoplanet-with-basque-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: Su ta Gar, the Star and Exoplanet with Basque Names"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">I have a dream of slowly migrating the original parts of this site \u2013 the parts you can find with the menu on the left of each page \u2013 to the more modern blog format of the newer version of Buber\u2019s Basque Page. One of my first forays was to copy\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/on-basque-astronymy-by-mg-ramos\/\">my translation of MG Ramos\u2019s\u00a0<em>De<\/em>\u00a0<em>Astronom\u00e1stica Vasca<\/em><\/a>, a treatise from nearly 100 years ago about the Basque names for the sun and moon. In doing a little searching on what new information there might be, I stumbled upon this cool story about how a star and its exoplanet were given names in Euskara, a first for the language.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-31.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-31-300x169.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7664\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-31-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-31.png 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An artist\u2019s schematic of the structure of the exoplanet Su. Image from the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iac.es\/en\/outreach\/news\/gliese-486-b-rosetta-stone-study-exoplanets\">Instituto de Astrof\u00edsica de Canarias<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iau.org\/\">International Astronomical Union<\/a>\u00a0has, amongst other functions, the authority to assign names to celestial bodies, including stars and planets. Founded in 1919 and headquartered in Paris, France, the IAU holds a regular contest called\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/NameExoWorlds\">NameExoWorlds<\/a>\u00a0with the goal of naming a selection of exoplanets that have been discovered.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Exoplanet\">exoplanet<\/a>\u00a0is any planet that resides outside of our solar system. The first confirmed discovery of such a planet was in 1992, when two such planets \u2013 now called\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/PSR_B1257%2B12_C\">Phobetor<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/PSR_B1257%2B12_B\">Poltergeist<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 were discovered orbiting a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pulsar\">pulsar<\/a>\u00a0called\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/PSR_B1257%2B12\">Lich<\/a>. As of today, nearly 6,000 exoplanets have been discovered.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The star now known as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gliese_486\">Gar<\/a>\u00a0was previously designated as either Gliese 486 or\u00a0Wolf 437. Residing in the constellation\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Virgo_(constellation)\">Virgo<\/a>, it is a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Red_dwarf\">red dwarf<\/a>\u00a0star that is about 26 light years away from Earth.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In 2021,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mpia.de\/news\/science\/2021-05-gliese486b\">an exoplanet was discovered<\/a>\u00a0orbiting Gar by a team led by Trifon Trofonov with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mpia.de\/en\">Max Planck Institute for Astronomy<\/a>. This planet, now named Su, has been studied using the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Webb_Space_Telescope\">James Webb Space Telescope<\/a>\u00a0which has found that the day time surface temperature is in excess of 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. This suggests Su has little to no atmosphere. It is about 3 times as massive as the Earth but is rocky.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A team from the University of the Basque Country, led by Itziar Garate-Lopez, proposed the names Gar and Su during the 2022 NameExoWorlds contest in part because the exoplanet had been discovered from observations made in Spain, with key contributions from the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.caha.es\/\">Calar Alto Observatory<\/a>. It\u2019s also a fiery ball of rock, which inspired the name Su.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In Euskara, Gar means flame and Su means fire. The Basque phrase \u201csu ta gar\u201d means literally \u201cfire and flame,\u201d but is used to indicate passion and enthusiasm.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sutagar.com\/en\/\">Su Ta Gar<\/a>\u00a0is also a heavy metal band from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2021\/10\/24\/basque-fact-of-the-week-the-basque-city-of-eibar\/\">Eibar<\/a>, Gipuzkoa.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">A full list of all of Buber&#8217;s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/basque-fact-of-the-week-archive\/\">Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Primary sources: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.agenciasinc.es\/Noticias\/Dos-sistemas-planetarios-reciben-nombres-en-euskera-y-catalan\">Dos sistemas planetarios reciben nombres en euskera y catal\u00e1n<\/a><\/em>, SINC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have a dream of slowly migrating the original parts of this site \u2013 the parts you can find with the menu on the left of each page \u2013 to the more modern blog format of the newer version of Buber\u2019s Basque Page. One of my first forays was to copy\u00a0my translation of MG Ramos\u2019s\u00a0De\u00a0Astronom\u00e1stica [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[836,14],"tags":[4187,4188,4189,4190,1199],"class_list":["post-7663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-euskara","tag-exoplanet","tag-international-astronomical-union","tag-lich","tag-pulsar","tag-su-ta-gar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-31.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1ZB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7665,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7663\/revisions\/7665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}