What Do Plankton and Planets Have in Common?

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Image result for plankton
Cute Plankton (from 123RF.com)
Image result for planets cartoon
Cute Planets (from videoblocks)

 Turns out, a Greek root!

The words Plankton and Planet share a Greek root: "plan-" which means something along the lines of "wander". What does wandering have to do with plankton and planets, you ask?

Although most people associate plankton with microscopic water life, the word actually refers to all creatures that cannot swim against a current. So, in addition to microscopic creatures like the predatory copepods and glassy diatoms, jellyfish are a type of plankton too! Anyhow, since they can't swim against a current, they just wander around! Hence the root!

Planets are wanderers too! While the distant stars appear in fixed positions relative to one another because they're soooooooo far away, the much closer planets move relative to them! (To see why this is, just stick your finger out in front of your face with one eye closed. Move it a small amount with it close to your face and move it the same amount with it far from your face. Which looks like it moved more? You can imagine that if your finger were light years away like the stars you probably wouldn't notice it moving ;). Anyhow, the Ancient Greeks (who lived in what is now known as Southern Europe roughly 2000-3000 years ago) called these points of light in the sky "planētes asteres" meaning "wandering stars" or just planētai meaning "wanderers" for short.

 So now you know why Plankton and Planet sound similar! Not mere coincidence!

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