Naming conventions?
I'm not up to speed with naming conventions but from what I can work out, 'a' is usually used for a system's star and successive letters for every newly discovered planet. But in this case of a binary star, why aren't the stars named Kepler-47-a and b, with the planets being c, d, e? Or is 'a' reserved for stars with binaries being called a1 and a2?
And I can understand the logic of naming planets in successive order of discovery, but it could also lead to some confusing outcomes, as in this case the planets from inside to out are named b, d, c. Not that I have an easy solution for this, just curious if there is anything I'm missing.
Also, as an aside, surely the odds are quite low that a planet's orbital plane is edge-on to Earth so that they can be seen by this method. I would hazard to guess that pretty much every star has planets, we just can't see most of them because they don't pass in front of their star
Biting the hand that feeds IT
