Talk:Small Solar System body

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject Solar System
Solar System Portal

This article is within the scope of the Solar System WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the Solar System.
Stub This article has been rated as stub-Class on the assessment scale.

Contents

[edit] Smassbos?

The idea is a good one, get rid of the confusing concept of 'Minor Planet' for floating rocks. But the name is a bit long-winded, nine sylables. Some shortening needed. --GwydionM 19:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, a reasonable idea! So it will never be taken! Now, the SSSB:s include (of course) CCBO:s (carbon chemistry based organisms) on the SBRP (silicon based rock planet) Earth (RTH), which of course includes SSD:s (solar system dynamicists), and they will never accept any idea that follows the rules of English, or makes any sense. Said: Rursus ☻ 10:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect required

Disagree. Should remain Wikipedia standard. But i could probably be convinced after a quick google search. Maybe this item should be discussed more fully? --Exodio 02:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I think confusion - he meant redirect from SSSb, not redirect Sssb to SSSb; not changing the capitalisation, just adding a caps redirect (because there's a lot of variations)... Shimgray | talk | 08:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The actual spelling used in the resolution text was "Small Solar-System Bodies". Whether there is any technical relevance to either the capitalization or the hyphen I do not know. RandomCritic 08:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Extrasolar bodies

I wonder what term should be used for extrasolar equivalents to this class... Does anyone know of a term preferred by the IAU? 132.205.93.19 02:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd suppose that it would be just the same in another solar system. it is also likely to be decades before we can spot even Dwarf Planets in other solar systems. --GwydionM 17:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
We've actaully already spotted one a few years ago. PSR B1257+12 has an object (D) around it that is less than 1000km across, projected size. Perhaps it's a minor planet, dwarf planet or (major) planet. It is not known to have not cleared its neighborhood, in the upper mass range, it certainly could be rounded... If it's not round (which would mean it falls into the lower portion of its estimated mass range) it would be an extrasolar small solar system body -equivalent. There do not seem to be indications that there is anything else in its orbital zone... so it would be a major planet if its in its upper estimated mass range. But it's so small at the upper limit of that range, that it's many times smaller than Pluto ... 132.205.45.148 22:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
D remains unconfirmed, and is likely located in a some sort of asteroid belt according to its discoverer. If we generalize the definition to cover extrasolar planets, planet D may indeed be an extrasolar dwarf planet and the planet A, which is less massive than Moon, would become the smallest known planet (unless it is located in an undetected asteroid belt).--JyriL talk 15:08, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging

The article minor planet covers exactly the same thing as this one. The term "small solar system body" is and official term whereas "minor planet" is not.--JyriL talk 00:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Clarification: Wikipedia considers comets, asteroids, TNOs etc. as subgroubs of minor planets: That is why this page is redundant because SSSB cover same objects.--JyriL talk 20:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
"Wikipedia" need not consider anything, it just needs to describe the state of science; anyway it is what you and me make of it. Astronomers thusfar have always made a distinction between comets and minor planets (=asteroids), only now they lumped them together under SSSBs. Tom Peters 23:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I've several times arguest against including comets in the minor planet article. Because we already have an article for asteroids, minor planet article becomes obsolete in its current form.--JyriL talk 23:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that the most common name is minor planet (or planetoid) ... which according to Wikipedia, is the way we name things... I have no objection though to the merger. 132.205.93.19 02:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
'Minor Planet' has an historic meaning, covering some of what are now being called Dwarf Planets. I think it needs to stay and more added here. --GwydionM 06:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Keep "minor planet" as a historic term (it's not like we're going to stop using it), use this page as an overall summary. Shimgray | talk | 09:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I reckon: move minor planet article to SSSB, point out that they are the same thing in the first sentence, and make minor planet a redirect to SSSB. Deuar 13:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Support merging. Most stuff in this article should be moved there. This article should be about historical term.--Nixer 12:18, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Largely agree with merging, two concerns though: first, whether the 'old' term 'minor planet' encompassed both the new term 'Small Solar System body' and the term 'dwarf planet'? second, did the IAU really intend to include comets in this (I think so, but it's all been done in such a rush ...)

Change to Small solar system body (do not capitalize - Wikipedia standards). That is the official term. --Exodio 02:19, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Pluto has never been a minor planet. Situation of 2003 UB313 was unclear before the definition. Ceres was (is?) an asteroid and therefore a minor planet. But on the other hand, asteroids are small solar system bodies, which excludes dwarf planets. Either not all asteroids/minor planets are small solar system bodies, or Ceres is no longer an asteroid/minor planet. My point was that both terms encompass the same thing (give or take Ceres) which does not justify a separate article. Minor planets must go, because it is not an official IAU term.--JyriL talk 15:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
No, this is what Brian G. Marsden, head of the IAU's Minor Planet Center, wrote me:
" The term "minor planet" continues to exist. It is precisely synonymous with "asteroid" and "planetoid".""
And:
" Given now the definition "dwarf planet" (for want of a better term), clearly applicable to Ceres and Pluto, I don't think we should continue to speak of these objects as "minor planets" (or "asteroids" or "planetoids"), ..."
Tom Peters 19:06, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Does this mean that Ceres' number 1 is now up for reassignment? :) Until new rules are promulgated for the nomenclature of "dwarf planets", they would still seem to be clsssed with the MPs for at least that purpose.RandomCritic 08:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Oppose I recommend that "Minor planet" be retained as a historical article covering the various uses of the term. Much of the content of "Minor planet" could be valuably merged with SSSB, however. RandomCritic 16:43, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Oppose merging, as well as deprecating "Minor planet"s and moving its contents here. SSSBs is a superclass that contains minor planets, comets, and possibly meteorites. The subclasses should keep their own lemmata, this page should just refer to the various subs. Tom Peters 19:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
We already have an article for asteroids. I don't see reason why have articles for both asteroids and minor planets. Or should we keep minor planets as a superclass including "normal" asteroids, centaurs and Kuiper belt objects? Isn't that a bit redundant?--JyriL talk 23:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, the Wikipedia should treat them "asteroids" and "minor planets" what they are in astronomical usage: synonyms (and SSSBs are a superclass also containing comets). However, a) merging would make a very long article, b) this contains various distinct types of objects that each merit their own article, only we need to find a proper name for each. Tom Peters 06:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article name

If the formatting of and assertion made in the opening words of the article ("A Small Solar System Body (SSSB) is a term defined in 2006 by the [IAU]...") are correct, should the article's name be Small Solar System Body (i.e. "body" also capitaliz/sed)...?  Unsure, David Kernow (talk) 15:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but see the discussion about "Redirect" above. Tom Peters 15:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Footer

is it possible to add links to all small solar system body pages?

JPL has a databse of these objects, accessible at small-body database browser which takes paramaters, ie. http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=xxxx where xxxx is the number of the minor planet etc. i don't know what the status of the data is, but it ought to be feasible to automatically add a link in the shared templatye's footer? it would require translating underscore characters to spaces before putting the page name in as the paramater or extracting the minor planet number and using that alone. m3tainfo 19:35, 1 April 2007 (UTC)