Stargazers around the world will soon be able to look up into the sky at night and witness Bahrain’s history sparkling brightly ... thanks to students passionate about astronomy.
Pupils at Ghazi Al Gosaibi Secondary School for Girls’ have won a contest to name the ‘WASP-121’ star, located in the constellation of Puppis, as Dilmun, and its planet, labelled ‘WASP-121 B’ as Tylos. Both suggestions have been approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
“We hear a lot about Dilmun and Tylos, and we would like the world to know the historical and cultural roots of the Kingdom of Bahrain,” said the founder and president of the Bahrain Stargazers Astronomy Club and the IAU national outreach co-ordinator for Bahrain, Myriam AlQassab. “Choosing Dilmun and Tylos as names for a star and planet will spread this knowledge in astronomical and scientific circles around the world.”
The names were agreed upon by the national panel of Bahrain, including Ms AlQassab and Bahrain Astronomical Society and vice-president of the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Sciences Dr Shawqi Al Dallal, in co-ordination with the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach.
Dilmun was an ancient East Semitic-speaking civilisation in Eastern Arabia mentioned from the third millennium BC onwards. It was located in the Arabian Gulf, on a trade route between Mesopotamia (Iraq), in the east by the civilisation of Melukha in the Indus Valley (India), and in Egypt by the civilisation of the Pharaohs.
It was an important centre and according to some modern theories, the Sumerians also regarded Dilmun as a sacred place. It was mentioned by the Mesopotamians as a trade partner.
The Sumerians knew it as the land of paradise as well as the ‘land of immortality and life’. Their tale of the garden paradise of Dilmun has also been linked by academics with the Garden of Eden written about in religious texts.
Bahrain is famous for its vast necropolises containing thousands of burial mounds, where most of the items on display were found, both locally made and imported products. Chief among the latter are carnelian beads from the Indus Valley and copper and soft stone objects from the Oman Peninsula. Dilmun’s Burial Mounds were included in the 2019 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation World Heritage List.
Meanwhile, after the conquests of Alexander the Great, the culture of Bahrain, known in Greek sources as Tylos, continued to open to external influences. Tombs from that period still testify to the richness of the grave goods and sometimes to their distant provenance.
“From this standpoint, the choice of the two names Dilmun and Tylos was in response to the civilisational role that Bahrain played during its ancient history, as well as to the various circles interested in the cultural heritage of Bahrain,” explained Ms AlQassab. “It also met the conditions set by the IAU for naming the stars and planets belonging to it.”
The exostar WASP-121 and its planet WASP-121 B were originally discovered by Laetitia Delrez who is an Astrophysicist at university of Liege.
Other bright suggestions came from the Bahrain Stargazers Astronomy Club.
“Over the past 10 years, humans have been able to discover thousands of exoplanets,” explained Ms AlQassab. “These discoveries encouraged the IAU to undertake the NameExoWorlds project, which started in 2015. The IAU is the only organisation that approves stellar naming and the winning names will not replace the scientific alphanumeric designations but be additional names.”
The IAU’s NameExoWorlds 2022 contest selected 20 pairs of names for exoplanets and their host stars. The contest was organised within the framework of the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO).
With 603 entries from 91 countries, including Bahrain, the campaign attracted more than 8,800 individuals working in teams, who put forward outreach initiatives that stimulated the direct participation of almost 12 million people worldwide.
The aim was to propose a name for one of the 20 exoplanetary systems, each with one known exoplanet and its host star. The star and planet names were to be connected by a common theme, allowing other planets, if discovered in future, to be named following the same theme.
According to Ms AlQassab, the IAU has adopted several names proposed by Arab countries over the past few years. For example, Iraq suggested the names Warka for one of the stars and Babel for its planet, Syria suggested Ebla and Ugarit, Jordan went with Petra and Wadi Rum and the Emirates proposed Sharjah and Barajil.
As for Bahrain, she added: “The proposed names from both teams were excellent but we had to choose the names that were compatible with the IAU naming rules and the names that represent Bahrain’s history very well ... and the school team did just that.”
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