re: 20,000 LY to Earth
I remember a Star Trek TOS episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" where Kirk, Spock, and Checkov were talking about Sherman's planet and Spock corrected Checkov about a Royal Astronomer by the name of "George Burk?" who had discovered Sherman's Planet in "Old Britain at the time."
I keep expecting to hear somebody say something similar one of these days about some planet found by a British Astronomer.