Hi 10kniwilc,
loving the questions!!
So the Romans and Greeks names our plants.
In those times, you could see the planets really well (because we didn’t have much air pollution which stops us seeing the night sky). The Romans names these planets by their movements …so Venus which is the brightest planet was named after the Roman goddess of Beauty. Mars was red and big and so was seen as angry and was named after the god of war.
These names the Romans gave to them carried on through time and now they are still used today in science 😀
So if we could rename now, what would you rename them as?
Hannah has got it covered. As scientists discover more and more planets the names are getting a bit more random. Recently the actors from the original Star Trek tv series were trying to get a newly discovered planet named Vulcan.
The planets were named by the Greeks and Romans and they were named after their Gods. The stargazers in those days couldn’t see very far into space at all, compared with our modern day abilities. But they could see the way the planets moved and they reminded them of the Gods. This website lists how all of them got their names – it’s really interesting how they associated the planets’ movements with their Gods:
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