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Comment by wonderyak | Hacker News Reader

Yes, 'Solar' refers to our sun, Sol. So there is only one 'Solar' system which is our own.

I think 'star system' is acceptable as well.

I'm not disagreeing, but genuinely curious: what do astronomers call the "solar wind" in other systems? Referring to every wind by the star's name would seem odd.

Just replace solar with stellar.

This seems like yet another case of unnecessarily Earth/Sol-centric terminology, much like "apogee" being Earth specific such that you have to use "apoapsis" if you want to be generic. I mean, do we really need a new word for every planet, the sun, a star in general, a black hole specifically, and galaxies? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apsis#Terminology

We should declare terminology bankruptcy to wipe out our existing terminology/language debt, then pick sensible terms for everything. While I'm the topic, we should also do "kilogram"->"grave", "gram"->"micrograve".

When talking about orbits it's very useful to be able to make a distinction between apogee and lunar or solar apoapsis.

You inadvertently gave the solution: "lunar apoapsis", "solar apoapsis", "earth apoapsis".

Much easier than "aposelene/apocynthion/apolune", "aphelion", "apogee".

Shouldn't that be "milligrave" if you're using SI prefixes?

You are absolutely correct.

So, what gets to be "mg"?

I'm not against the idea, but please don't have the new base also start with "g".

Hence "terminology bankruptcy", all existing terminology debt will be erased ;)

I once had a stellar wind, about near blew the doors out my house...

So you see, probably does not work so well.

solar : stellar/star :: coke : soda

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