Trini Dingolay, Ramajay among the stars

THERE is a star 515 light-years away and nine billion years old now known as Dingolay and its exoplanet, Ramajay.

University of the West Indies linguistics lecturer Dr Jo-Anne Ferreira's two submissions won the local vote in a competition designed by the International Astronomical Union's (IAU), giving each country and many territories an opportunity to name an exoplanet (a planet outside the solar system) and its hosting star.

The elaborate competition, held globally in commemoration of the IAU's 100-year anniversary, had a 10-person national organising committee, which was chaired by UWI's India-born former head of physics, Dr Shirin Haque. The committee comprised members from all astronomy societies in TT.

"Dingolay means to dance, twist and turn in elaborate movements, symbolising the culture and language of the ancestors of the people of Trinidad and Tobago," while, "Ramajay means to sing and make music in a steel pan style, representing the love of culture and languages of the ancestors of the people of Trinidad and Tobago," the global website explained.

You can view a hypothetical representation of the exoplanet, Dingolay, here.

Part of the naming criteria was that it should be of people, places or things of long-standing historical, cultural or of geographical value to TT worthy of being assigned to a celestial body.

The star, numerically identified as 96063 is a yellow, giant star located in the Leo constellation.

According to nameexoworldstt.com, the local campaign website, "while (the star) cannot be seen with the naked eye, it is easily visible in small telescopes and binoculars.

"HD 96063's mass is similar to our Sun; however, its radius is almost four times greater and it has an effective temperature of 5308 Kelvin (5034.85 °C). Calculated to be twice as old as our sun at nine billion years, HD 96063 has at least one extrasolar planet in orbit around it. That planet is HD 96063b.

HD 96063b was discovered in 2011, orbiting around its star at almost the same distance the earth orbits around the sun.

Apart from Ferriera's choice of names, she was also awarded a grand prize of an Orion SkyQuest XT6 PLUS Dobsonian Reflector telescope.