Corruption is a form of dishonesty which is undertaken by a person or an organization entrusted in a position of authority, in order to abuse power for one's personal gain [1].

Consider the NameExoWorlds 2022 project of the IAU. The idea of the project was that every country could name one star and its exoplanet with the goals of creating good names and involving the general public in astronomy. While, in general, these goals have been fulfilled, some issues most likely demonstrate an abuse of power.

Two of Spain’s proposals were selected, while all other competitors got at most one. One of its naming pairs for the star GJ 486 and its planet was “flame” and “fire”. This strongly contradicts the history of the constellation Virgo, which, from the dawn of humanity, has been associated with agriculture and Earth [2]. Spain also acted differently during the competition: they published their selected proposal and backups, while other countries were asked not to do that. While we embrace transparency, this could also mean that they knew of their success in advance. Representatives of another country informed us that, unlike Spain, they had no technical possibility to submit backup proposals. With 91 countries vigorously competing to name 20 systems, we have no reason to assume that there was a lack of good proposals. While this decision is clearly against the general public’s benefit, diversity and equity of the participants, we have also found an undisclosed conflict of interest.

In the working group of the IAU responsible for selecting the final names, one of the members of the organizing committee is affiliated with Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucía in Spain [3]. That institute is one of the two owners of the Calar Alto observatory, with which the planet GJ 486b was discovered, and it is present in the affiliations of the command proposing the “fire” and “flame” naming [4]. Open information shows that the status of that member in the IAU was much higher than that of most other members of the working group.

Another star in Virgo, HAT-P-26, got a name after a male hero Guahayona, which contradicts the constellation name meaning: “maiden”. He was also associated with the planet Venus, named after the goddess of beauty, love and sexual intercourse. We could not discover any personal interest in that naming, but it strongly undermines trust in the professionalism of the IAU working group. It is worth mentioning that from the beginning, the best 15 outreach activities were each promised a telescope [5]. Still, there is no information on who was eventually awarded them, as well as any publicly available financial reports on the website of the IAU.

Diversity is not when there is a central body which tries to act most «diverse», but when there is no such central body. The IAU regularly mentions that its namings are not obligatory and will not replace the existing scientific alphanumeric designations. Cooperation between countries and cultures could be better than a competition. In IAU100 NameExoWorlds in 2019 each participating country named a star and an exoplanet. There are many astronomical objects, and if the IAU can not name them properly, it could renounce that function, clear the lists of accepted names and focus on its other roles like communicating astronomy with the public. On the other hand, it has already performed much work on that and developed useful rules for naming astronomical objects.

And speaking of the rules, the competition had a rule that “names already used (or rather “in use”) for specific celestial objects... in a given language were to be excluded” [6]. In the final selection, however, we can read: “Guahayona was a Taíno mythological hero who was “the one who shone with his own light” and is identified with the morning and evening “star” Venus.” While Venus is the third-brightest object in the sky after the Moon and the Sun, the star HAT-P-26 is 40 orders dimmer and invisible with the naked eye, and such association inevitably creates a hierarchy between the extinct Taíno and the contemporary Western culture.

According to our information, a European participant connected with an indigenous community and proposed to create a naming in their language, and joined the created command. That command won, and that is how he exploited their culture. He was also a discoverer of that planet, which was used by his command to win the competition, which means that commands were not equal, which means that the competition was not fair.

As corruption does not mean that someone is stealing everything, also inequality does not mean that it is always evident. However, inequality can easily reveal itself in crucial moments or within a competition. While the NameExoWorlds project was mostly non-monetary, the competition was very active and winning that was prestigious for a country. The winning commands got media attention and increased their status; in some countries, scientists are also monetarily rewarded for being mentioned in media. The ultimate resource was our cultural heritage in the sky, which belongs to all people, that is why the IAU should be accountable for its decisions to the public.

Seeking and receiving information is a human right that can act as a safeguard against corruption and increase trust in decision-makers and public institutions [7]. The rules of the competition favoured namings connected with the constellations and with the properties of the stars and the exoplanets. With other grades equal, the pair “fire” and “flame” would much better fit the proposed system in another constellation. With the main focus on “indigenous names” and “long-standing cultural, historical, or geographical significance”, it was more comparison of cultures than that of systems, the rules were imprecise, that is very subjective and extremely vulnerable to power abuse. We were not able to get any explanations from the working group and the chair of the competition for these dubious namings. We appreciate openness of the president of the IAU Debra Meloy Elmegreen, but we believe that a public project of the International Astronomical Union must be more open. Another reason why the general public can not fully evaluate the results of the competition is that the contest demanded the participants not to disclose the results of its national stage, which most of the participants obeyed (except Spain). We proposed a talk named “Corruption in astronomy: example of the IAU” to the “Accessibility, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Astronomy Communication” section of the IAU conference CAP 2024. Though the IAU clearly lags behind modern practices in anti-corruption issues, our contribution was rejected, which either means that corruption is not being paid attention to at the union or that the IAU is not willing to solve it within itself.

We, undersigned, appeal to the International Astronomical Union to:

• initiate an independent anti-corruption investigation of the project NameExoWorlds 2022,
• reinforce anti-corruption practices in the IAU based on its independent examination,
• improve transparency, openness and accountability before the public. In particular, publish financial reports of the IAU.

Sources

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption
[2] https://www.change.org/p/iau-reconsider-star-and-exoplanet-namings-in-nameexoworlds-iau-outreach-iau-org
[3] http://web.archive.org/web/20230426094541/https://iau.org/science/scientific_bodies/working_groups/331/members/
[4] http://exoterrae.eu/gar+su.html
[5] https://twitter.com/IAU_org/status/1600369723434319876
[6] http://web.archive.org/web/https://www.nameexoworlds.iau.org/2022naming-rules
[7]  https://www.transparency.org/en/what-is-corruption

Figure: Virgo with palm frond and scales. Aberystwyth Folios, vellum, 11th century AD, collection of the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth (Wikimedia).