The Academy for the Hebrew Language, which makes official decisions regarding Hebrew usage, has completed its drive to give Hebrew names to the planets Uranus and Neptune.

The names of the other planets are listed in the Talmud (Tr. Sabbath, page 156a). They are Kokhav (meaning “the star,” i.e., the closest star to the sun; Mercury); Nogah (light, Venus); Maadim (from the word meaning red, Mars); Tzedek (Justice, Jupiter), and Shabtai (Sabbath, the seventh day, just as Saturday is named for Saturn, then considered to be the seventh planet).

However, Uranus and Neptune, discovered in 1781 and 1846 CE, respectively, well after the Talmud was redacted, have remained without Hebrew names – until now.

Reut Barzilai, who coordinated the campaign to give the new names, explained to IsraelNationalRadio’s Yishai Fleisher about the winning choices. She said that Neptune has now been named Rahav, after a sea creature mentioned in the Book of Job, and Uranus received the name Oron, which both sounds like Uranus and means “small light,” referring to its dim illumination as we perceive it.

Uranus is the 7th planet from the sun and is named for the Greek deity of the sky; Neptune is the furthest planet from the sun, and is named for the Roman deity of the sea.

Some 650 names were nominated for each of the two planets, many of them including explanations and Biblical quotations, but in the end they were pared down to only two each. In the end, in a vote carried out via the internet, Oron beat out “Shahak,” meaning heaven, for Uranus; for Neptune, Rahav out-scored “Tarshish,” a seaport mentioned in the Book of Jonah and a precious stone on the Priestly Breastplate that is of the same greenish-blue color as Neptune.

The “name the planet” drive was launched by the Unit for Science Oriented Youth in Tel Aviv University and the Academy for the Hebrew Language, in honor of UNESCO’s International Astronomy Year of 2009.