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Buy A Star

If you are at all like me, than you are probably wondering what the deal with this whole buy a star thing is. People are actually paying out hard earned cash to "purchase'" a ball of nuclear fusion hundreds and even thousands of light years away from us?

The thing I'm baffled about most with the whole buy a star concept is why didn't I think of it first! Here you have a product that costs nothing to make as it has already been made, is guaranteed for life, doesn't need to be delivered, stored, packaged, or anything, and people are willing to pay money for it. It's brilliant!

All joking aside, I think the idea to buy a star is actually kind of cool. The attraction to buy a star is that you get to name it whatever you want. So, you don't really buy a star of course, as how can you own a flaming ball of helium so far away that the light you're seeing from it was emitted back during a time when man kind was just beginning to realize you can plant seeds in soil. When you buy a star, you buy the right to name it.

Of course, the market for people wanting to buy a star is largely people in love wanting to name stars after their lovers. It's a romantic notion that is becoming a popular way to tell someone you care about how you feel.

While it's a neat and romantic idea in theory, I'm never going to do it. The reality of it is something a little too close to a clever scam. The name you choose when you "buy a star" is not in anyway official, and will never be used or even known by the scientific community at large. The only people that will ever know that you named that star will be you, the people you tell, and the people you paid your hard earned cash too. All you actually get is a piece of paper that basically says you're an idiot.

The buy a star concept is therefore just a symbolic gesture, but really you don't have to pay any money to name a star after someone. Just look up at the sky, pick a start, and say outloud "I hereby dub that star to be named (state desired name here) from now on". There you go!