And non-Binary Uniqueness

[1042 words]

Last year the first ever solar system with planets on perpendicular orbits was observed (charmingly known as HD 3167). Such a contrary and unique system immediately made me think of the neurodiversity spectrum, and whether we could get it named for us! #3167HD4Diversity #Star4ASD #Star4ND

Why a Named Star?

Cultural Acknowledgement

A Star for NeuroDiversity and ASD

Autistic Pride and the neurodiversity movement might be new, but we have been here at least as long as people have been sorting rocks and classifying stars.

The neurodiverse
Last year the first ever solar system with planets on perpendicular orbits was observed (charmingly known as HD 3167). Such a contrary and unique system immediately made me think of the neurodiversity spectrum, and whether we could get it named for us! #3167HD4Diversity #Star4ASD #Star4ND

Why a star for us? Why are the Neurodiverse a culture? More here, and more images.

Can you think of a good name for the Star? Tell us in the comment as you sign.

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Although Autistic Pride and the neurodiversity movement might be quite new, very few Adults on the spectrum doubt we have suddenly appeared because of vaccines or any other conspiracy theory, but have been here at least as long as people have been sorting rocks and classifying stars.

“In ‘The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention‘ Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen makes a case that autism is as crucial to our creative and cultural history as the mastery of fire. Indeed, Baron-Cohen argues that autistic people have played a key role in human progress for seventy thousand years, from the first tools to the digital revolution.

How? Because the same genes that cause autism enable the pattern seeking that is essential to our species’ inventiveness.”

We challenge the status quo because often we don’t have the same investment in it, and tend to think outside the box.

Let’s have a star as unique as us named in honour of all we’ve achieved, acknowledged and not.

Just because our culture is newly acknowledged doesn’t mean we don’t have a rich history of being uniquely different in so many different ways.

I took some more liberties with reality here… and slide to see why?

Uniquely Diverse

Many people don’t realise how different people on the Spectrum are from one another, and that included me a few years ago, going off stereotypical fictional representations, which are inaccurate and focused on typical cis-male traits as opposed to cis-female traits.

As Dr Stephen Shore, an autism advocate who is on the spectrum, said, “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” We’re all different, and we tend to think well outside the box, and those of us with ADHD may not see the box to begin with. Or a better metaphor.

Fictional portrayals do seem to be getting better these days, and I particularly like when characters on the spectrum are in fact, played by people on the spectrum. Then they cancelled Everything’s Gonna Be OK.

Why HD 3167?

Orbital Movements

No not just your eyeballs! Planets I mean, and in particular erratic orbits. Pluto in our solar system is of course no longer classified a planet, but it is out of the standard flat planar orbit.

Our solar system shows Pluto’s 17 degree tilted orbit above the line, or plane, where the eight planets orbit. Credits: NASA

HD 3167 has two planets on a Polar orbit, which we are beginning to see as not so unusual these days, particularly around binary stars (so yes some planets really do have two suns like Tatooine).

The third on though, on a more ‘standard’ planar orbit, is not just out of this world, solar system, etc, but so far unique.

Even better, we don’t know why! It is possibly due to another larger planet yet to be discovered, but that is just a theory. More plausible than vaccines causing it though.

Naming Stars

Of course anybody can ‘buy’ a name for a star system, but those registries are just unique to that company, and most don’t even let you chose which system to name.

Who really names them?

Well, no-one, except for the International Astronomical Union, who “supports a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) which is cataloguing the names of stars from the world’s cultures, and maintaining a catalogue of approved unique proper names (e.g. Sirius, Proxima Centauri, etc.). After ongoing investigation of cultural star names from around the world, the WGSN may adopt “new” official IAU star names from this list for those stars currently lacking official IAU names. This will help preserve astronomical heritage while providing new unique names for the international astronomical community.“

Name it what?

No idea! NeuroDiversity? DiversiT? Greta? Yeah, not so great, put something in the comments and let me know. I came up with the idea, you guys gotta help out too!

Help come up with a good unique name for ‘international astronomical community.‘

Cultural Names

I made a bit of a start to a claim why we are different and deserve recognition as a culture, but hopefully some other people, perhaps from Wrong Planet may be more eloquent than me. Maybe we should try and get the oddball planet “HD 3167 b” called Wrong Planet too 🙂

Claiming Space

No, I’m not proposing we put a flag on the planet or anything else.

Whose got the time to travel 150 light years? If we could!

I’m talking about claiming space for us neurodiverse people.

It is hard enough just staying present in this world, on the Spectrum we’re expected to die by age 54, more often than not by our own hand.

I want better than that for me and every neurodiverse and person on the spectrum.

I’m Autistic and proud of my neurodiversity

References + Sources

for your further reading!

Astro Diverse-ity