Should they really be called "Solar Panels"?

[Holo]

The sun is called the sun in game. Hence, solar panels.

[Sirrobert]

Tiny point of pedantry, the Moon's correct name according to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) (who are the recognised people who name things outside of Earth) is... the Moon. The 'the' is important but still a very dull name.

Likewise the Sun is the Sun, not Sol. Heck, the Milky Way is correctly called the Galaxy! So very, very dull names...

Article here which includes linkage to the IAU:

http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/the-moons-real-name-and-others-too/

Luna and Sol are old names right?

Atleast I remember that Luna was the goddes of the moon. And you always see Sol in Sci Fi storys, when humans talk about theyr own star. It would get kinda weird if you talk about all stars as suns, and than name your own star The Sun. Better give it a name

[Lexif]

Luna and Sol are old names right?

Atleast I remember that Luna was the goddes of the moon. And you always see Sol in Sci Fi storys, when humans talk about theyr own star. It would get kinda weird if you talk about all stars as suns, and than name your own star The Sun. Better give it a name

Luna and sol are the latin words for moon and sun. I don't know why everyone wants to call it Sol all the time, every single language should have a word for it. It's a bit like this nasty trend of forming the plural of some latin-derived proper english word with -i (or -ii). As in Airbus -> Airbii. I shudder every time I read that...

[Brotoro]

It's a well known fact that the ancient Ephebian Empire on Kerbin used the name 'Sol' for Kerbol, so that's why they sometimes refer to photovoltaic panels as solar panels. You can find this out by reading "The History of the Ephebian Empire," a classic work written by Volta Kerman (who was also famous for his early work on electricity).

[Kamsko]

Photovoltaic panels.

/thread, is not enough characters

[tygoo7]

Nope, if you tab to the sun, it says Sun. Also part description for the small panels refer to 'sun-tracking'.

I personally think Kerbol is a terrible name, it's too close to Kerbal, and I think making up every name just by adding a K or Ker on the front of things is lazy and lame. You may as well put a Kerpsule on your Kocket, in the Kehicle Kersembly Kuilding, Kignite the Kengines, Klaunch into Kerbit, Klot a Kerjectory to another Kernet, enter the Kermosphere, Kerploy the Kerbachutes and Klanding Kergs, Klutch Klown on the Klerface, and then plant a Klag.

A new drinking game! Drink everytime he says something with a K in it!

[Thourion]

And then the Klingon arived...

[Kasuha]

Just recently I was contemplating how uninventive "Kerbol" is as a name and how much out-of-line of planet names it is.

I was thinking what other name would match it, using the system how names of other planets were created. The first I came up to was "Hell".

Not that it wouldn't be funny but I don't think it's a good name. The problem is I can't remember now what was the other name I found. I just remember I thought it would be really good.

[Dun Kirk]

splitting hairs panels

[WafflesToo]

Photovoltaic panels.

I'm with you

[GROOV3ST3R]

It looks like more and more people are leaning towards Photovoltaic Panels ^^ Therefore I think they should be called that.

After all, Kerbal language or not, the game would surely be translated into English from Kerbal (if there had been a language barrier to make things unrecognizable to us).

[SuperBigD60]

splitting hairs panels

This is definitely the most accurate

[99jeeptj]

The 2x3 and 1x6 panels are Photovoltaic Panels, but the biggest panel is the "Gigantor XL Solar Panel".

[Geoff-AU]

splitting hairs panels

wasting time on a forum rather than playing KSP panels!

*loads KSP*

[Spatzimaus]

Luna and sol are the latin words for moon and sun. I don't know why everyone wants to call it Sol all the time,

Also, Luna was also the name for the Roman goddess of the Moon, their version of the Greek goddess Selene. Likewise, Sol was the Roman god of the Sun, known as Helios by the Greeks.

As said before, the proper name in English is "the Moon". There's a long history of authors, playwrights, etc. making things sound more pretentious by using Latin or Greek names even when there's a proper name within your current language, but that doesn't make it official. The way I heard it, using "Luna" for the Moon really took off with certain science fiction writers who wanted to make it sound less bland, or to illustrate that the story takes place in a far future where the official name was changed to Luna. (Maybe because with many settled planets, calling one of the many satellites THE moon is a bit pretentious; maybe it's because picking a name from a dead language is more acceptable in a story where the world has been unified under one government. Or, as was said in Schlock Mercenary, maybe it was just to differentiate it from a bare butt.)

The same goes for the Sun; calling it "Sol" is mainly something done by modern science fiction writers. That doesn't make it an officially recognized name. The simple fact is, the names of most stars, galaxies, etc. in the sky are placeholders based on outdated naming schemes in the first place, so we try not to get too attached to the Latin/Greek versions. Alpha Centauri (or Rigil Kentaurus, depending on your language preference) gets its name purely because it's the brightest star* in a specific constellation as seen from Earth (the Centaur), even if it's nowhere near the other stars in that constellation when mapped in 3-dimensional space. If and when we establish colonies there, that name is unlikely to stay, but for now we use it.

*- Alpha Centauri is actually three stars in a single system; two more-or-less Sun-sized stars orbiting each other, and a much smaller star orbiting around those two at a much, much larger distance. But the ancients who named the things couldn't tell that, so it got one name.

And it's not just about ancient constellations. A French astronomer named Charles Messier catalogued 110 interesting bright objects in the sky back in 1784, most of which were either nebulae or nearby galaxies. While many of the objects within our galaxy later received better names, a lot of the galaxies are still referred to by their place in his catalog, like "M83" or "M31". (Although modern astronomers tend to prefer the NGC names for these instead when doing anything official, where NGC is an unimaginative name of "New General Catalogue". So M83, a large spiral galaxy seen in the Southern Hemisphere, will be "NGC 5236" in most scientific papers. Or they might instead just call it "J1337-29", meaning it's the object at right ascension 13h37m and declination -29 degrees, which is a naming convention that's becoming more popular since it has the benefit of telling you exactly where to look for it.)

[Whatshtisthis]

I personally call them Easily Broken Power Generators Running on Magic.

[Felsmak]

Well, "solar panel" is the name that the component in question is commonly known under, so that's what people will use. It's not like it matters, anyway; the solar panels are usually more important than the star they're collecting energy from.

Edited November 21, 2013 by Felsmak

[Kialar]

I vote for "light collection and energy conversion panels" aka LiCE panels. ^^

[Luckless]

Yes, if we were to launch a probe to another star, and that probe had solar panels onboard, would the panels common name require changing?

There are many things in our world that are named for things from the past that have little to no relevance to their current form.

A bigger issue for the solar panels than their name is the units used for the power they generate isn't listed in the same units as all of the things using power.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Nope, if you tab to the sun, it says Sun. Also part description for the small panels refer to 'sun-tracking'.

I personally think Kerbol is a terrible name, it's too close to Kerbal, and I think making up every name just by adding a K or Ker on the front of things is lazy and lame. You may as well put a Kerpsule on your Kocket, in the Kehicle Kersembly Kuilding, Kignite the Kengines, Klaunch into Kerbit, Klot a Kerjectory to another Kernet, enter the Kermosphere, Kerploy the Kerbachutes and Klanding Kergs, Klutch Klown on the Klerface, and then plant a Klag.

That sounds innapropriate.

[Starwhip]

How about "General Light Absorption and Director Of Current"? (GLAaDOC Panels)

[NASAFanboy]

I refer to Kerbol as "Sun", "Mun" as Luna/Moon, and such in all fan writing and art/my flight logs.

Is there a problem?

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

How about "General Light Absorption and Director Of Current"? (GLAaDOC Panels)

Yes! For !SCIENCE!

Or I would prefer a non-K kerbal name, like the Mün, with umlauts or other obscure characters (ô, ï, ú Come to mind)

[gtmattz]

So go do a find/replace on all of the part files and replace 'solar panel' with 'photovoltaic panel'. OCD satisfied...

[Holo]

Yes! For !SCIENCE!

Or I would prefer a non-K kerbal name, like the Mün, with umlauts or other obscure characters (ô, ï, ú Come to mind)

úerbol? hiden