Talk:Ceres (dwarf planet)/Archive 6

This is an archive of past discussions about Ceres (dwarf planet). Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 6

Archive 7

The 25 January animation doesn't look as pretty on my screen as it could. I've tried 3 different web browsers, and the results are the same: extra noise is introduced in the animation when it is shown at a resolution lower than the native one, like it currently is. Is this a known bug/issue? --Njardarlogar (talk) 22:01, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I see it too. It is annoying. ——Nikolas Ojala (talk) 22:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

A webm or apng would be nice. Starks (talk) 01:03, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Hopefully we will have better images soon.--agr (talk) 01:36, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Worst visual impression from any serious image I've experienced on Wikipedia in my time! It's like if anyone spreads perfectly gray butter on a glass window and we're observing it from the underside. A still like on http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia19167_main.png should be preferred. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 08:09, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Since so many had the issue and no fixes have been provided (yet, anyway), I switched to a single frame. The raw frames are having a bigger and bigger Ceres though; so soon we should be done with animations for the infobox. --Njardarlogar (talk) 10:03, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

This is def some foreign object because its not there then its there, and the fact is njardarlogar, there is ice all over the planet without a hint of shimmer. Ice that clear can not be simply created. This is a ufo. From my ifo vantage pt right now is a picture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.27.70 (talk) 21:53, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

This page says that Ceres is in a near 1:1 orbital resonance with 2 Pallas, though that is likely just a coincidence. However, on Pallas' page, there is a confirmation about the 1:1 resonance, but there is also mention of a couple near resonances with Jupiter (5:2 and 18:7). Doesn't it seem likely then, that Jupiter is responsible for the resonances of both objects? Has there been any research on this? 2620:72:0:52F:15:12A9:209:AF12 (talk) 15:02, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

A 5:2 Jupiter resonance is about 4.74 years, and 18:7 is about 4.61. Ceres' orbit is shorter than both, but closer to 18:7. However 18:7 is such a weak resonance (about 0.007) that it's likely this resonance is coincidental. Similarly, Pallas takes slightly longer than Ceres to orbit, and its inclination relative to Ceres suggests that (don't quote me on this) they were perhaps once gravitationally interacting, but are no longer. However, curiously , Pallas's orbit puts it exactly on the 18:7 Jupiter resonance, deviating by a value so small that gravitational perturbations between it and other asteroids would be larger than the distance between it an an 18:7 resonance. This could be the cause of its high inclination, instead of gravitational relations with Ceres, or it could be a combination of both. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 20:12, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

There seems to be some contradicting information on the Ceres page. The first paragraph states: "it was the first asteroid to be discovered, on 1 January 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi in Palermo, though at first it was considered a planet. "

Then under the DISCOVERY heading, later in the article, we read: "...in 1800, a group headed by Franz Xaver von Zach...Although they did not discover Ceres, they later found several large asteroids.[30]"

My point is that if the team found several large asteroids in 1800, without finding the planet Ceres, then Ceres can not be the first asteroid discovered, as stated in the first paragraph.

If the statement in the first paragraph simply implies that it was the first asteroid discovered by G.Piazzi, then that should be moved to the wiki article for G.Piazzi, as his accomplishment is irrelevant to the Ceres article. It is more important in the Ceres article that its position of discovery with other asteroids is clear and accurate.

At least, the contradiction or perceived contradiction should be clarified so that it clearly implies other asteroids were discovered before Ceres. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.136.152 (talk) 22:46, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Read again. They didn't find any asteroids in 1800. — kwami (talk) 23:11, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

The web is saturated with the claim that the bright spot seen by Dawn was seen previously by Hubble. But Dr. Phil Plait, who worked many years on Hubble, reports that "Joel Parker, who was part of the team that observed Ceres using Hubble, has told me that the bright spot seen in the Hubble image is not the same as the bright spots in the Dawn images, and in fact the new bright spots weren't seen by Hubble."^[1] I assume this is correct for two reasons: (1) Plait has a long history of being quite accurate and correcting his errors quickly, that is what he is doing here, as he earlier said that Hubble had seen these spots; and (2) Parker was on the team and he should know. I can think of no better place to try to stop this mistake than here. If you think Parker is wrong, then please find a reference at least as good. It should speak to Parker's assertion and be later than May 11th else you will just be parroting the error. Nick Beeson (talk) 14:08, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

 Done - added mention of this (w/ ref)^[1] in the "Ceres (dwarf planet)#Observations by Dawn" section of the "Ceres (dwarf planet)" article - *entirely* ok w/ me to rv/mv/ce of course - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 15:06, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

That doesn't quite make sense. Region 5 was visible to Dawn at lower resolution than Hubble (see [1] and [2]), so why would not Hubble have seen it? A more detailed explanation would be nice. --Njardarlogar (talk) 09:44, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, details are good. Like it's possible the features are not persistent and change over the years, so a different spot was visible in 2004. Tom Ruen (talk) 13:03, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Hegelians say that Hegel predicted/discovered/dreamt-up Ceres. It is probably some numerological nonsense. Can anyone investigate?137.205.183.86 (talk) 10:23, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Looks like you just volunteered. Nyth63 11:09, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

See Talk:Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel#Astronomy and Talk:Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel/Archive_2#Whim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.125.155 (talk) 11:22, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the comment about Ceres being the 33rd largest object in the solar system belongs in the article. Keeping an ordinal accurate is an exercise in frustration. That number is going to change continuously as more discoveries are made and more precise measurements become available. If we have to specify something, we should say it is the largest non-planetary non-moon object inside the Kuiper Belt, and mention that there are at least a dozen moons larger than Ceres. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 21:29, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree. And there is a possibility that known objects turn out to be larger or smaller and displace Ceres. Moreover, I can't see the information value of saying it. --JorisvS (talk) 22:18, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

What is the point of keeping a list of every type of object all listed together by size if if you are not going to have a way of succinctly stating where they show up in that list? Of course the list is going to keeping changing. A large number of lists in wikipedia are like that. They are just updated as new information is available as is any other wiki article including this one as evidenced by the new imagery being added. That is not a good excuse to not have rank or index. Nyth63 22:45, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

"where they show up in that list" is the size itself. Tbayboy (talk) 23:37, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Maintaining such a list as a page by itself is good and useful, especially when you can show all the objects of similar size to help draw comparisons and perhaps include information on the uncertainties in list order. However, including a rank index on each associated page adds little value and would need to be frequently maintained. I don't really see the point. Dragons flight (talk) 23:46, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Again, the argument that adding the rank would add little value is weak and I disagree strongly. It would be very useful to have a simple number to look up in the table. I see that the name column has just been changed to sortable and that is somewhat helpful. The further argument that it would need to be frequently maintained is also weak and sounds like laziness to me. Any updates to information in the table is maintenace including changing the order if new size information requires it. It would be a very minor addition to change a couple of rank numbers. Nyth63 11:37, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

So how would you use it? --JorisvS (talk) 11:58, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Calling it thirty-third largest (numbers should normally be spelled out, not written as numerals in text, unless they're inordinately large) does make Ceres sound a bit trivial. But it's a useful comparison. And stringing together odd hyphenated adjectives like "non-planetary non-moon object" is confusing and technical. A sentence like that could be worded much better, without leaving the reader uncertain as to why a "dwarf planet" is "non-planetary" (and frankly, "non-moon" strikes me as an absurd adjective to apply to "anything that isn't a moon"; surely we can do better).

May I suggest a compromise along the lines of: "Ceres is the largest body orbiting the sun that is not classified as a major planet, a moon, or a Kuiper Belt object, and the thirty-third largest known body in the solar system." Here, I've used "major planet" to avoid confusion about how a "dwarf planet" isn't planetary (or a planet); you just can't call it a planet in one sentence and not in another. And rather than combine dissimilar adjectival phrases such as "non-planetary non-moon" and "inside the Kuiper Belt" (which itself is confusing, since although it's within the area circled by the Kuiper Belt, so is the rest of the solar system; it's not in the Kuiper Belt, which could be inferred from inside), I've converted this into the same type of reference. I'm not happy with using "body" twice, but with "Kuiper Belt object" becoming standard terminology, I'm not sure there's a better alternative to avoid repeating the same word three times in the sentence. P Aculeius (talk) 13:04, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Eris is not in the Kuiper belt either, at least according to the definition of the Minor Planet Center, which is used on Wikipedia. And then there is the nearly completely uncharted territory beyond the scattered disc (e.g. the sednoids) with likely larger objects. All these populations are trans-Neptunian, whose antonym is "cis-Neptunian". Moreover, "orbiting the Sun" already disqualifies "not classified as a moon". Incorporating this, it becomes "Ceres is the largest cis-Neptunian body orbiting the Sun that is not classified as a major planet, and the thirty-third largest known body in the Solar System." --JorisvS (talk) 13:18, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I believe any mention of the ordinal in rank is futile and an invitation to future editing hassles - take out the "thirty-third largest" mention. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 16:31, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't really mind. I was opposed to the original way in was put in the article (still am), but I can see some value in this "compromise" wording, with the difference in those numbers (largest cis-Neptunian non-planet, but only 33rd overall), though the exact value does not mean much. --JorisvS (talk) 17:07, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

While the overall rank, may seem trivial, I feel that it can provide a little perspective in the overall scale amongst all the objects in the system. Maybe it would be better mentioned later in the article rather than in the opening section? Nyth63 19:42, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Another point is that by creating a size ordered combined list, they are already being de facto ranked. Omitting an index column from the table is just forcing the reader to manually count the rows in the table. An inconvenience that can be easily resolved. Nyth63 19:59, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Please, let's avoid hypertechnical terms such as "Cisneptunian" (much less barbarisms like "cis-Neptunian") that can't possibly be used without requiring immediate explanation. Equally hypertechnical is the notion that "moons don't orbit the sun." Of course they do. Any satellite of a body orbiting the sun is also orbiting the sun. "Trans-Neptunian" is also a technical term that would require immediate explanation. The goal should be to make the sentence immediately understandable to any reader with even the slightest acquaintance with astronomy; so if some of the other dwarf planets aren't Kuiper Belt objects, then we need to refer to all of them in a way that doesn't require further explanation.

There are, of course, multiple options. For instance:

• "Ceres is the largest of the minor planets within the orbit of Neptune, and is currently the thirty-third largest known body within the solar system, following the sun itself, the eight major planets, the fifteen largest moons, and several minor planets beyond the orbit of Neptune."
• "Ceres is the largest of the minor planets within the region of the solar system occupied by the eight major planets, and is currently the thirty-third largest known body in the solar system.
• "Ceres is the largest asteroid, and the largest of the minor planets within the orbit of Neptune. It is approximately the thirty-second largest body known to orbit the sun, following the eight major planets, the fifteen largest moons, and several minor planets beyond the orbit of Neptune."

I note that while the mean diameter of Ceres has been pinned down to a very narrow range, the List of Solar System objects currently includes three other bodies that could be either larger or smaller than Ceres, due to the current margin of error. So in fact it could be anywhere from thirty-first to thirty-fourth, including the sun; but I think it makes more sense not to include the sun itself, since including it requires yet more explanation, which could easily be avoided by including the phrase "orbiting the sun" or something similar. P Aculeius (talk) 21:23, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Ranking does not give any perspective: it doesn't show the distribution of sizes. A ranking in the top 5 or 10 can signify some notability (hence "the largest object in the asteroid belt"), but otherwise it signifies little. There are significant gaps in the size distribution at the top end, but Ceres is past those gaps and just one of the smoothly shrinking tail of the distribution. It's ranking is not notable, and ranking by itself has no utility; nobody has to count rows to find the ranking, because there's no reason to know the ranking. And, no, a sorting is not a de facto ranking (sort by name, or sort from smallest). Tbayboy (talk) 03:19, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I disagree. We're making a point of saying how large Ceres is compared with other solar system objects, and how it's the largest asteroid, and the largest minor planet inside the orbit of Neptune (my understanding is that there's no definitive list of "dwarf" planets, and no consensus as to whether Pallas or Vesta should be included; if not, then Ceres would be the only dwarf planet inside the orbit of Neptune). So it's perfectly relevant to note that this still doesn't make it all that large compared with the major planets or their largest moons. I agree that there's a point beyond which the exact number of larger objects becomes relatively unimportant, but this isn't it; not when you're talking about the largest or one of the largest objects within certain classes of objects, which is still considered a sort of planet, albeit "minor" and "dwarf." P Aculeius (talk) 04:09, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

The largest centaurs could turn out to be dwarf planets. Dwarf planets and especially minor planets are not considered 'a sort of planet'.

Writing "Cisneptunian" would be like writing "Transneptunian". The normal way to write it is "trans-Neptunian" and also easier to parse for those less than familiar with the term(s). Moreover, the initial capital letter is wrong regardless, and it is properly "Solar System" and "Sun" because these are proper names. --JorisvS (talk) 08:07, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're taking a stance against grammar, logic, and common sense in each of these arguments. You can't call something a "minor planet" or a "dwarf planet" and then ignore the word "planet" as if it weren't part of those designations. It makes absolutely no sense to say "the largest dwarf planet is smaller than all of the planets," because then you have to stop and explain why you used a term that seems to mean one thing when you apparently mean something contrary. You can't use an ambiguous term in an unclear context and call it useful.

It also makes no sense to object to placing Ceres in context of its size relative to other objects in the solar system solely because other objects not yet discovered or precisely measured might turn out to be larger. If that proves to be the case, then you modify statements like this to reflect new discoveries. You simply provide the best description you can based on the latest available information.

Grammatically speaking, you do not hyphenate words beginning with prefixes such as trans or cis. If the words formed with these suffixes are proper nouns, then they're capitalized. Grammar knows nothing of words with capital letters in the middle; capital letters go at the beginning, or not at all. So you can have Cisalpine Gaul, transparency, Transylvanian wine, etc. But you do not have cis-Alpine, trans-Sylvanian, etc. The reason there are arbitrary coinages such as "Trans-World Airlines" is because they're not properly formed words. I suppose "Transmundan" or "Transterran" didn't strike anyone as marketable.

Both sun and solar system are common nouns that may be treated as proper nouns at the writer's discretion. This is especially true of the sun, which like earth and the moon are often not capitalized even when used as proper nouns. But it is also true of "solar system." Percival Lowell and Arthur C. Clarke didn't capitalize it; Carl Sagan sometimes did and sometimes didn't; and some people capitalize "solar" but not "system." Insisting that other people use the style you prefer is pedantry. P Aculeius (talk) 13:33, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

So a sea lion is a kind of lion? That's what you're arguing. And those words are adjectives, not nouns, let alone proper nouns. And "Sun" and "Solar System" refer to specific objects, not classes of objects, which makes them proper nouns/names. --JorisvS (talk) 16:08, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you're unaware, but by the IAU definitions a dwarf planet is not a planet. They voted to explicitly create the exclusion that a dwarf planet is not a kind of planet. Minor planets (defined as those things with minor planets numbers, which includes dwarf planets) are also not planets. The terminology sucks (planetoid would have been better), but it's par for astronomers. E.g., how star-like is an asteroid? Tbayboy (talk) 17:29, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

OH, YOU PUNY INSIGNIFICANT HUMANS! THE UNIVERSE CARES NOT ABOUT YOUR NAMES AND GRAMMAR. IT WAS FOR OUR OWN AMUSEMENT WE PLACED THESE GLORIOUS, MAGNIFICENT OBJECTS RANDOMLY THROUGHOUT THIS SYSTEM. THAY ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL AND YOUR FEEBLE ATTEMPTS AT DIVIDING THEM INTO THESE "CATEGORIES" DOES NOT DIMINISH THEM IN ANY WAY! Nyth63 16:54, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I was trying to make a point with prose but some editors here appearently have no sense of drama or humor. Nyth63 17:14, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

This whole topic has devolved into a argument about grammar and not talking about the main topic. From college chemistry classes I though that trans meant across and cis meant on the same side but that was more than 30 years ago and besides, I don't think that the average reader will understand what those prefixes mean anyway. Nyth63 17:19, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Undoubtedly the main issue is that the definitions of planetary orbits, their physical characteristics, and other data, is outdated and overly complicated, and the only way to easily fix that would be a complete redefinition of the meanings of Minor Planet, Asteroid, Dwarf Planet, KBO, TNO, SDO, etc, etc. However that's left up to the IAU to solve, even though it doesn't seem to see a need for this, as its last major change to this definition that I'm aware of was the 2006 introduction of the word 'Dwarf Planet', succeeding in doing nothing but confusing it further. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 17:32, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Also I believe this may be of some use:

exoplanetaryscience (talk) 17:34, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

This is a bit off-topic for this page, but I'm not sure that diagram is correct. I should comment on its talk page. Jonathunder (talk) 18:15, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

So what would be wrong with it? --JorisvS (talk) 18:34, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

My point was that we should avoid using confusing terminology in the sentence intended to place the size of Ceres in perspective. And that means clearly distinguishing between minor and/or dwarf planets and other types of planets, if necessary by referring to the others as "major planets." Wikipedia articles need to be written in plain English, not technical terms that require advance explanation. The last thing people need to read is, "for purposes of the second sentence following, the terms 'minor planet' and 'dwarf planet' do not refer to any type of 'planet', but to large spheroid objects smaller than 'planets' that are not in orbit around bodies other than the sun. The Wikimedia foundation takes no responsibility for this definition..."

So let me try again: Ceres is the largest of the asteroids, the largest of the minor planets within the orbit of Neptune, and the only object within the orbit of Neptune that has been officially designated a dwarf planet by the IAU. It is roughly the thirty-second largest known body orbiting the sun, following the eight major planets, the sixteen largest moons, and between six and eight dwarf planets beyond the orbit of Neptune. I know it's wordier than originally proposed, but I think it's clear and easy to understand. My previous reference to fifteen larger moons probably excluded Charon. P Aculeius (talk) 21:15, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

• Agree Now we just need a concensus on where to place it. Should it be in the opening paragraph or would it fit better under Physical characteristics? Nyth63 22:12, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
• Disagree Take out the ordinal. You don't want to have to go editing unrelated articles every time another object is discovered and moves around the list. We have fairly wide experience on Wikipedia with articles stating "the nth" on some list becoming maintenance nightmares. 33rd (or, as of today, 32nd) gives no useful information. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 23:33, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
• I agree with Tarc. The 33rd highest mountain on earth is either Tirich Mir or Molamenqing, depending on definition, but neither article mentions that. The reader who is curious to sort things by size this far down should be referred to a list. Jonathunder (talk) 00:17, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

There is already a list at List of Solar System objects and parts of this discussion actually would be more relevant there but it ended up here as this was the most recentsy article affected. There were two attempts to add a rank/index/row column to the first table and it was reverted twice. Depending on the outcome here, there may end up being a further discussion over there. Nyth63 10:38, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

• I say it is quite fine to rephrase it to avoid cis-Neptunian. Let me copyedit your version a bit: "Ceres is the largest asteroid, the largest minor planet within the orbit of Neptune, and the only object within the orbit of Neptune that has been officially designated a dwarf planet by the IAU. It is roughly the thirty-third largest known body in the Solar System, following the Sun, the eight major planets, the sixteen largest moons, and between six and eight dwarf planets beyond the orbit of Neptune.". Saying "in the Solar System" and rephrasing it accordingly avoids the issue of how "orbiting the Sun" is interpreted by the reader and communicates the equivalent in your interpretation of it anyway. I have kept the large ordinal, but I don't have a particularly strong opinion about including it or not. --JorisvS (talk) 07:46, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

That seems like a reasonable change. Let's see if there are any more opinions before we go ahead. P Aculeius (talk) 12:27, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't like "major planets". It's either an invented composite term, or a misleading adjective, since the very presence of an adjective strongly implies that there are non-major planets. Simplification is fine, but not to the point of giving a false impression. Tbayboy (talk) 00:29, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

"Major planets" is occasionally used to clarify one is talking about the dominant eight. Just "planet" is fine, really, because that is the term most commonly used and defined to be a dominant body by the IAU anyway. --JorisvS (talk) 08:42, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

As previously explained, the point of this sentence is clarity, and using terms that require immediate definition or explanation defies that principle. It cannot read "...the largest of the minor planets..." or "...the only dwarf planet" and then say "smaller than the planets" without creating confusion. If you use a phrase that includes the word "planet" to describe an object, then you've just called it a "planet." You can't turn around in the same sentence (or the one after it) and use the word to mean something else without contradicting the previous description. The word can't have a clear meaning in one clause and a contradictory meaning in another clause. If "minor planets" and "dwarf planets" aren't treated as a subclass of "planets" then you need to explain such an illogical use of terminology every time you draw such a distinction. Using further description such as "major planets" neatly avoids the whole problem with one word. This article needs to be accessible to people other than the "astronomical literati." P Aculeius (talk) 12:16, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

By your logic, we should do the same when "sea lion" is mentioned (after all, we call it a lion); that we have to accompany it with a remark that it is not a kind of lion. Wikilinking is sufficient. If readers are confused because they naively read dwarf planets and minor planets to be a kind of planet, then they can follow the links and quickly find out. --JorisvS (talk) 16:39, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Nobody thinks that a sea lion is some kind of lion. But if the article on sea lions said, "sea lions are smaller than most lions, but larger than some of the smaller species," that just might create confusion where none needed to exist. You're arguing about avoiding specificity because you think that average people ought to know the technical definitions of vaguely defined and contentious examples of astronomy jargon. I hate to have to keep repeating that Wikipedia is meant to be accessible, not a technical journal. Readers shouldn't have to look up the meanings of words that are plain English in order to figure out why a sentence appears to contradict itself. Your argument is "don't put that there, it might create undesirable clarity!" P Aculeius (talk) 19:23, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

That's your assumption about people's knowledge about biology. Yes, Wikipedia should be as accessible as possible, but it should also be readable to the initiated. I don't really object to using "major planet", but, on the other hand, that has even more strongly the possibility to suggest to the layman that dwarf planets and minor planets are a kind of planet when they're not, whereas using simply "planet" at least hints to them that they're not (and then they could follow wikilinks to get informed instead of wrongly assuming that). --JorisvS (talk) 20:23, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

• Disagree for the reasons stated by Tarl.Neustaedter and Jonathunder above. Being the 33rd largest of anything does not seem notable enough for inclusion. DinoSlider (talk) 14:02, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps a different approach is warranted. Precisely how would the editors who don't want to say that Ceres is about the thirty-third largest solar system body propose to compare its size with that of others? Ceres is the largest asteroid, the largest of the minor planets within the orbit of Neptune, the only body within the orbit of Neptune currently designated a "dwarf planet" by the IAU. It is smaller than all of the major planets, several moons, and several dwarf planets of the outer solar system. This strikes me as unnecessarily vague. Or, It is smaller than all eight major planets, the sixteen largest moons, and between six and eight dwarf planets of the outer solar system. In which case, we're merely omitting a number such as 32 or 33, although the reader could easily add up the numbers and come up with a figure from 31 to 34, depending on the number of larger dwarf planets and whether you count the sun. But this makes me wonder why we're trying so hard to avoid saying a number. In either case, it still doesn't obviate the need to update the article if and when new estimates of the sizes of other dwarf planets are made, or when new ones are discovered. But if we don't include a comparison like this, then we may as well put, "Ceres is larger than many solar system bodies, but not so big as others." P Aculeius (talk) 16:32, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Is 'Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt' not adequate? exoplanetaryscience (talk) 16:46, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Not really. The best visualization I have seen so far is this pretty picture but that image only matches to #16 and shows that the List has to be maintained with name changes and diameters irrespective of the overall size rank. Updating size ranks would add very little extra work on top of that. Nyth63 18:19, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

The entire point is Ceres' exact location in that list is uninteresting. That's it's way down in the list may be relevant, but exactly how far down is certainly not worth the effort of maintaining the ordinal as larger Kuiper Belt objects are discovered. Just add a pointer to the list, without specifying the exact rank. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 18:48, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

But it takes very little effort to place it on the list, and the fact that it's the largest of one class of objects, the largest example of another class for the major part of the solar system, and the only example of a third class of object in the same part of the solar system, make it very relevant what its size is relative to other objects. If this were one of innumerable smaller asteroids, the size of which were far more abstract, then of course it'd be impractical and unimportant to note where in the scale of the solar system it falls. But it's not. It's big enough to rate a dwarf planet. It once was ranked amongst the major planets. So how big it is relative to other solar system bodies is relevant and informative, and insisting that it's not relevant merely because it's not in the "top ten" is absurd. When I suggested, Ceres is bigger than many solar system objects, but not so big as others, I didn't expect to be taken seriously. But that's pretty much where insisting that the article not refer to Ceres' ranking relative to other objects leaves us. P Aculeius (talk) 21:22, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

My concern is that the ranking is misleading (thinking more of the list page than this Ceres page). E.g., 19 (Titania) is closer in size to 33 (Ceres) than it is to 18 (Eris) (and it gets much worse when you consider the physical size (volume) of the object). It's also not necessary within the Ceres article itself, since the images comparing it to the Earth, Moon, and other asteroids do that more effectively. (I like the 3D images used on the Solar System page.)

I had a idea on how it might be portrayed. Make a bar graph of diameter (Y axis) versus ranking (X axis) for the 50 or 100 largest objects in order, just a few pixels wide for each object, with Jupiter on the left (or the Sun or Earth, depending on how much upper blank space they leave). Then colour the bar that represents the object you are presenting (maybe also with a arrow above the bars pointing down to the highlighted entry). It might be easy to do with SVG. Tbayboy (talk) 00:09, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Still don't see how it could be misleading. What false assumption could you draw from a ranking like that? As far as a mass diagram is concerned, there is already one in the article right below the info box. Not what you are looking for but it does not give rank information either. Nyth63 02:51, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

By that logic, we shouldn't say that Earth is the fifth largest planet, or Mars the seventh largest, or that Ganymede is the eighth largest body orbiting the sun, since all three are much closer in size to all of the smaller bodies than to the next object that's immediately larger. The fact that the gaps in size between different objects on the list are irregular is not relevant to the usefulness of knowing whether something is one of the largest dozen, out of the top hundred, or somewhere in the middle. Pictures showing a small selection of objects may have some usefulness, but unless they depict forty or more objects, like the chart you're suggesting, they won't give the reader any idea of how large Ceres is compared with more than a few arbitrarily-selected solar system objects. The fact that the bodies depicted in such a diagram would necessarily be arbitrary is itself an argument for its inadequacy as context, and for the inclusion of a verbal ranking. Lastly, attempting to create a complex diagram depicting as many as a hundred different objects to scale, whether photographically or as a bar chart, would not only be far more complicated than merely saying that Ceres is somewhere between the thirty-first and thirty-fourth largest body in the solar system, but would require far more work and updating by editors; which was one of the major objections to having a ranking in the first place. I'm sorry, but these arguments don't make any sense to me. P Aculeius (talk) 03:14, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

You are correct that it makes little sense to specify that Ganymede is the eighth largest body (it makes more sense to specify "largest moon in solar system"), but it is also much less dangerous. We can safely assume that rank will not become false in our lifetimes. That is not something we can say about Ceres being the 33rd (or 32nd) largest - indeed, about the only thing I can assure you about that rank is that within five years it will be incorrect. THAT is my problem with adding that statement to the article. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 16:01, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

If the criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia is that the information should not change in our lifetimes, then we might as well all throw up our hands and call it an experiment doomed from the start. I'll assume you didn't mean that seriously. You must be truly prescient if you can assure me that bodies larger than Ceres will be discovered in our solar system during the next five years, since it's been eight years since the last one was discovered. The largest body discovered in the last five years had a radius about a hundred miles less than Ceres. In fact, only six have been discovered in the lifetimes of most Wikipedia editors... seven, if any were alive before 1930. But let's suppose you're right, and one or two (or, horrors! even three or four) larger bodies are discovered in the next five years. Your argument is that keeping up with Ceres' ranking would place an unacceptable burden on future editors because it might become outdated in the next five years. But in the last five years, some 1,700 edits have been made to this article. So I fail to see the danger in the mere possibility that such a ranking might have to be updated in the next five years. And I think you've proven the absurdity of the argument by saying that, "it makes little sense to specify that Ganymede is the eighth largest body". It may well be the largest moon, but the fact that it's actually larger than one of the major planets (and that Titan is as well) is a very persuasive argument that their ranking in terms of all solar system bodies is relevant and useful information, as is the fact that Mercury ranks tenth, behind two moons. P Aculeius (talk) 16:21, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

The significant point there is that Ganymede is larger than a planet. So just say it. There's no need to drag in ranking. Tbayboy (talk) 17:14, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

The basic guideline for inclusion in Wikipedia is that information is relevant and useful. Whether information is necessary is the wrong standard. By that criterion, you should dispose of most of the content in most of the articles. P Aculeius (talk) 19:24, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

I think we've beaten this horse to death. You can try arbitration or formal third opinion, but it's clear we don't have consensus. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 19:32, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

You don't need consensus to keep the article as it is. You need it to make a contentious change. P Aculeius (talk) 21:29, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration for a space-rock pissing contest against the [solar] wind? I've seen it all now. BatteryIncluded (talk) 23:28, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Actually, it appears that there is only one or two vocal editors against including the ranking and everyone else neutral or in favor. And those few against have no strong response to the rebuttals of their arguments. This was not a formal RfC, the last wording that was suggested could be included and if it is removed again, the removing editor can be warned for disruptive editing. Then it could go to arbitration. As far as this being a space-rock pissing contest that is an unworthy comment by a late-coming editor who normally has a good editing track record. Odd. There have been numerous issues in Wikipedia that are more mundane than this taken to arbitration. The relative merit of the content does not always determine the need for arbitration but rather contentious editing as was done in this article by editors removing factual, good-faith edits. There is no dispute as to the approximate ranking of Ceres which is clearly documented in List of Solar System objects by size, but rather the relevance of the numerical value of that rank. Nyth63 02:07, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

No. Read WP:BRD. You were bold, you were reverted (by more than one editor), there has been discussion. There has clearly not been consensus, you may not simply add the disputed text in and claim those who disagree with you need to be sanctioned. In particular, see the first sentence in WP:BOLD,_revert,_discuss_cycle#Notes. There are options to take when consensus is not achieved, simply ignoring anyone who disagrees is not an advisable option. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 04:43, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

And for what it's worth, reading the discussion, I find six editors made comments in opposition to specifying the ranking, and two in favor. That's certainly not consensus in favor. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 05:18, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

I think that's really overstating it. At least three editors are willing to go with a compromise text, including one of those you're counting as a no vote. Some of the others have only posted once, and not in any detail. And again, you're applying the wrong standard. Wikipedia does encourage editors to "be bold," but it also clearly discourages "ownership" of pages. That means you don't get to remove valid, relevant, or useful information that's properly sourced and reliable, merely because you don't like it. Even if you can get a majority of people on the talk page not to like it. You need a good reason to remove valid content. Your argument is that there's no value in knowing that Ceres ranks thirty-second or thirty-third in size amongst known solar system objects. I joined this discussion as a neutral third party, and I said that while there may not be anything special about the number itself, it does provide a useful context for the size of Ceres, precisely because Ceres is the largest of at least three important classes of object, and was once ranked amongst the major planets. So far, I haven't heard any logical reasons to support the argument that it doesn't. The reasons given repeatedly throughout this discussion have been:

1. That there's no value in the number thirty-three. Not a relevant point; the actual number isn't what's important; the fact that there is a number, which allows readers to compare the largest member of three different classes to different solar system objects, is what's relevant.
2. That the ranking of solar system objects by size has no value at all. This is what you argued when I mentioned that Ganymede and Titan are the eighth and ninth largest bodies orbiting the sun, ahead of the planet Mercury. Your argument didn't even leave room for mentioning that Saturn was the second largest; you're simply denying the validity of mentioning rank as useful information. I don't think anybody else involved in this discussion would agree with you on this point.
3. That the ranking of Ceres may prove to be inaccurate as more dwarf planets are found as large or larger than Ceres. Again, this doesn't go to the question of whether it's useful to know how far back in the rankings the very largest asteroid, minor planet, or dwarf planet within the orbit of Neptune is compared with other solar system objects. Not to mention the fact that the possibility that information may change with new scientific discoveries is not a valid reason to exclude it from Wikipedia articles.
4. That editors will be burdened with keeping up the ranking as it changes in the future. This still fails to address the basic usefulness of the information, which is the main point of contention. Also false, since editors can and do regularly update information of this type when new discoveries are made. Considering the vast number of edits made to this article every year, no significant burden would be created.

And since none of these presents a valid reason why the information originally added by Nyth83 should be removed from the article, it really doesn't matter whether it's liked or disliked. You should respect his addition, or find a way to improve it, rather than simply trying to shout him down. So far, you've proven extremely hostile to compromise; it's your way or the highway. But Wikipedia is supposed to be a collaborative effort. Neither you nor any other editors have the right to delete valid, relevant, or useful information merely because it doesn't comport with your ideas. P Aculeius (talk) 19:16, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

 Done - restored relevant entry to the main article as follows =>

It ranks 33rd in size among the known objects in the Solar System.^[1][2][3]

References

1. ^ Stankiewicz, Rick (20 February 2015). "A visit to the asteroid belt". Peterborough Examiner. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
2. ^ Troubadour (18 August 2012). "Getting to Know Your Solar System (18): Ceres". Daily Kos. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
3. ^ Clavin, Dan (18 February 2015). "Have You Ever Heard About The Dwarf Planet Ceres?". Press Room VIP. Retrieved 29 May 2015. {{cite web}}: External link in |work= (help)

seems ok - if otherwise, please discuss on "Talk:Ceres (dwarf planet)#33rd largest" - per WP:BRD & related - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 20:21, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

What?

An edit was made, objected to, reverted multiple times by different editors, a long discussion was held without achieving consensus that the controversial edit should be added, and the claim is "seems ok" and edit is made again. The point is that this "valid information" is meaningless (how is a temporary designation as 33rd even relevant?) and a future maintenance nightmare. WP:BRD encourages being bold, but once an objection is raised, NOT to make it again until consensus is achieved.

I was just accused of trying to "own" the article. I don't believe I've ever even edited this article, so that ad-hominem attack fails. I'm objecting to the practice (which I have seen in multiple articles elsewhere in Wikipedia) of adding ordinals to all articles included in a list, so that when the list changes, every article in that list must also change. Adding that ordinal is a mistake. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 21:02, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

@Tarlneustaedter: AFAIK - seems changing an ordinal number in one (or multiple) articles on Wikipedia is reasonably easy in my experience - in this instance, go to "advanced search" (check the "all" option) and enter the key phrase "33rd in size" (or equivalent) => all instances of the phrase on Wikipedia appear - for adjustment as needed - hope this helps in some way - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 21:22, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

How about moving it to "physical characteristics" and adding the other rankings (29th in mass, 23rd surface gravity, both of which qualities seem more significant than diameter, and any others). Tbayboy (talk) 01:06, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you're clearly trying to sabotage changes you personally disagree with by obscuring them through relocation and pointless duplication. Nobody ever once raised any of these ideas until after the matter was resolved, and doing it now flies in the face of all of the arguments you made against including any ranking in the first place, so it's obvious that these aren't intended to improve things. I'll see if the passage where it appears could be worded better, as I tried to suggest before, but beyond that the ranking needs to be left alone. P Aculeius (talk) 04:17, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Actually, Nyth83 mentioned the article position above, early on. I understand the paranoia, though :-) Surface gravity is interesting in the context of someday placing a base, and mass is what matters, the power it has to affect other bodies. There's also apparent brightness (nice to know for budding backyard astronomers), intrinsic brightness, and discovery order. If ranking is desired, why only diameter? Maybe even a template infobox to hold all the info in one place, for easier maintenance and consistent presentation across the affected pages. Tbayboy (talk) 14:19, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Looking closely at the February 25th image, one can see a small third spot at about 10:00 to the smaller one. Is this an artifact or a faint one previously unseen? If you look closely, although it cannot be resolved, you can also see it in the global map in the gallery, elongating the smaller spot somewhat. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 17:43, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The 2nd spot is centered in a secondary crater that lies within the large crater that the primary spot is centered in. I'm guessing the feature you see might be lighting contrast caused by the geometry of that secondary crater. — kwami (talk) 19:09, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

By the way, on the same topic, I've been wondering about the origin of the spots, and suddenly it occurs to me an explanation of them. Those bright spots aren't the only light albedo areas on the asteroid, and perhaps an explanation of them is that earlier Hubble observations of the asteroid detected water vapor on the asteroid- and other observations, as it says in the article, imply a subsurface ice ocean. Perhaps the bright spots are either areas where craters have broken through to the ice below (and subsequently the ice is taken away by the solar wind, and that this crater is relatively young, perhaps only a few hundred thousand years. The other, less-defined bright regions would be older craters, with ice that is already in the process of eroding away. However, on the topic of two bright spots, I see no secondary crater where the smaller is. Perhaps low resolution? Also the third spot that appears to be there, now that I look in detail, appears to be merely the end of a small cliff on the right of the crater, which appears to be the edge of a small crater embedded in the larger one, originally thought to be the crater the large bright spot is in, but now it appears there is a smaller crater embedded in it, in which the bright spot resides. Perhaps the smaller bright spot is in an even smaller crater on the edge of that one, too small to be resolved yet.

While on the topic of discussing features of Ceres, I noticed quite a few large circular shapes on Ceres; I am hesitant to call them craters, however. The first is to the right of the large crater people have been talking about. Most defined at the top, it can be roughly discerned by slightly brighter colors than the surrounding area, and appears quite old considering it is covered by many others. Also, to the left of it, between the large, shallow crater, and a deeper, smaller crater with well-defined edges, is a dark area that appears circular-shaped. Now move to the area to the upper right of the two bright spots, and there is a dark circular shape. Also a crater? Lastly, below that, a dark, large circular area, most defined at the upper left side. Could any of these be craters? exoplanetaryscience (talk) 19:29, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

With any luck there'll be a lot of high-quality photographs coming in soon, and then we'll have a much better idea what's out there. Of course, we can't really speculate on which ones are craters and which ones just look a bit like craters, or exactly how many bright spots there are... that'll be for NASA or other astronomers to describe and publish. Although, I seem to recall that there are Wikipedia policies that you don't need to cite the obvious, and that a photograph (or any work) is a valid source for its own contents. So I don't think there'll be a problem with simply describing what's visible in the photographs, as long as it doesn't call for speculation! P Aculeius (talk) 00:22, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

You can see the smaller crater containing the 2nd bright spot in the animated img., in the video frame just before the spots appear. — kwami (talk) 01:53, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Stuff like this is original research and does not belong in the article. The resolution of the images taken thus far is still very low and only the largest features are big enough to be able to give clear hints about their true nature (and hints may still of course be deceptive). The pair of brightest spots are not among these. --Njardarlogar (talk) 12:46, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Interesting SpaceDaily article about the latest on the bright spots. Serendi^podous 14:19, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

FWIW - "Three" bright spots? => possibly? - please see the latest image below => File:PIA19064-Ceres-DwarfPlanet-Region5-BrightSpots-20150414.jpg (also, added to the "Ceres (dwarf planet)" and "Dawn (spacecraft)" articles) - please note that this "bright spots" image was cropped/rotated/upsized from the "Original Image" taken by Dawn from 22,000 km (14,000 mi) on 14 April 2015 - hope this helps in some way - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:58, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Ceres - bright spots - region "5"
Region "5" bright spots imaged by Dawn from 22,000 km (14,000 mi) on 14 April 2015

LATEST Close-up images of the Ceres "Bright Spots" (more than three?) is as follows:

Bright spots imaged by Dawn from 13,600 km (8,500 mi) on 4 May 2015

Bright spots imaged by Dawn from 7,500 km (4,700 mi) on 16 May 2015

In any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 16:36, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

An interesting note on that, is in the gif of the spots, it can be seen a line of ejecta visible here at 10:00 is a real thing, which may be something of note. That shows that the stuff, whatever it is, is something on top of something else, rather than something showing under another thing. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 03:21, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

p.s. I cropped out an animation of the crater with the white spots. Tom Ruen (talk) 03:28, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks. — kwami (talk) 04:11, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

FWIW - Adjusted spots animation image location (from left to center) / size (default to 400px) - seems better (but *entirely* ok w/ me to rv/mv/ce of course) - yes, animation is cool - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 12:20, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

That gif proves it`s definitely not the angle, as it`s still glowing till the crater rim obscures it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.192.14.161 (talk) 00:43, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I played with SVG to get the following. It doesn't scale down well, so it would need some work: it should be a small diagram, but it loses the text as it stands. Click through to the original file to see the concept. Anybody think it's worth pursuing? Tbayboy (talk) 03:38, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not convinced it adds much to the wording stating that Ceres is the thirty-third largest object in the solar system. Because most of the objects represented in the chart aren't labeled in any way, it seems to present Ceres as merely one of an undifferentiated mass of objects of similar size. This effect is enhanced by the fact that depicting all of the objects in this manner necessarily results in a curve emphasizing the difference between the largest objects and all of the others. Even when the sun and four gas giants are cut off at the top of the chart, this remains the case, since the smaller objects represented are only 1/20 the height of the chart or less. The ratio of sizes between Pluto and Eris and the smaller bodies in the top 50 is about 4:1, but all of this is squeezed into the bottom 1/6 of the chart, while only the first seven reach halfway up, while the top 2/3 of the chart covers only the eight largest, five of which don't even fit at the chosen scale. I don't see a good way to remedy this, since bringing more vertical differentiation to the majority of the objects on the chart would require cutting off eight or more of the largest objects. The chart also lacks a clear labeling system, which would be useful for differentiating the major planets and their moons from the recognized dwarf planets; or any measurement of scale. So while I can see a useful purpose to a similar chart, I don't see how it adds significantly to the verbal description. The overall presentation, lumping objects together in an undifferentiated mass, dwarfed, as it were, by larger objects, seems like yet another attempt to drown the piece of information objected to in a sea of other data. Much like posting it in the middle of this discussion rather than at the end did. P Aculeius (talk) 12:28, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

The point is not vertical differentiation. There are naturally many more small objects than large objects, which this graph shows quite well. It actually shows quite well that the size of Ceres is unremarkable and that it being specifically the 33rd means really nothing. And if you like to differentiate several types of objects, then that's a simple matter of coloring. --JorisvS (talk) 12:39, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

I updated it with the TNOs in grey, since their sizes are fuzzier. Just for the purposes of this discussion, not necessarily for any artical use. Tbayboy (talk) 18:39, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

FWIW - the "top 50" histogram (above right) seems good - (although possibly less reader-friendly, maybe a "log scale" might help in some way?) - nonetheless, seems the "first ten" diagram (right), already in the main article, does a very good job in presenting a "picture" of relative object sizes - at least to me atm - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 15:28, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

I think a logarithmic vertical axis (horizontal is not possible) is bad, because it distorts the intuitive reading of the size, making Ceres appear much larger than it actually is. The current one is a very good illustration of the sizes. (Of course, if it can be made even better, that is always good). --JorisvS (talk) 17:52, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

• Exactly saying 33rd largest is not necessary, but the article can say that it is about the 30th largest, or that it is NOT in the top 30 largest. Nergaal (talk) 17:16, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

The issue's been settled, so why is it necessary to go on and on ad nauseam about how unimportant, insignificant, useless it is? I'm really getting tired of this. P Aculeius (talk) 21:58, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

This chart still looks like a variation of the one directly under the infobox in List of Solar System objects by size but rotated 90 degrees and using bars instead of dots. You can see the large view here. That one already uses as log scale on the mass axis. And yes, it does not match the table(s) in the body of the article below Mars (#8) which is default sorted by radius. Nyth63 01:22, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

It's not intended for that page. The intent is a small chart to appear on each of the object pages. This example here is the one for Ceres, but there would be one for Pluto, Dione, etc. I was hoping for a small illustration of the size distribution, highlighting how the particular body fits into that distribution (with its ranking #), and to have the main information be legible at about 100 pixels. You would have to expand it to get the descriptions and details, but the ranking and size context should be discernable in the thumbnail. So you would want to expand it the first time you see it, but would not have to on subsequent pages.

A variant could be used on the list page as a complement to the mass diagrams, at a larger size (than 100px) and with more markup. E.g., different colours for different classes of object, and labelling key entries entries (it might be possible to label all of them). Tbayboy (talk) 02:32, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I still contend that all these articles should use the diameter as the primary size reference rather that the more abstract radius. This would only be relevant here if you include a scale unless you are using R(e) from column 4. Nyth63 03:28, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I would also color code the bars using the same color scheme as the tables in List of Solar System objects by size but perhaps a few shades darker. Nyth63 03:30, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

The log-scale graph at list of Solar System objects by size is far less clear and I would even suggest replacing that one with a modified version of this one here and maybe a second one to cover the giant planets and the Sun, depending on if that could be made to work. --JorisvS (talk) 08:32, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure there are better ways to implement a logarithmic scale in order to show the relative sizes of different objects. A bar chart would be preferable to a histogram, however, since there's no need to give different objects different widths, and compressing them together seems confusing, particularly when same-colored objects are nearly the same size. I suggest a more limited palette than that used in the table of solar system objects, with one color for planets, one for moons, one for dwarf planets, and one for other objects (perhaps with one more for the sun). I might actually try my hand at drawing something and see if I can make one. It might not be good enough to use, but it might be a good pattern for making a better diagram. P Aculeius (talk) 12:33, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean "compressing them together"? AFAICT nothing is compressed in the bar chart here. --JorisvS (talk) 13:09, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I've tried to draw a chart on a scale that would show more of the size differences in the smaller objects. I was originally going to continue to exactly 50, but there were quite a number estimated about 600 km in diameter, so I marked the last one as "several tied". I know that the yellow color is a bit pale against a white background, but it looked so good with the other colors that I left it as drawn. I can easily make changes based on feedback.

In order to maximize the differentiation at the smaller end of the range, I divided the full height of the chart into five sections, with the same scale in the bottom two sections, which represent 0 to 2,000 kilometers in diameter. The first version I made used the top section for the sun, which is ten times the diameter of Jupiter, but that made it harder to see the smaller objects, so it seemed like a better choice to leave the sun off and start with the next scale below that. Even so, only two objects read the highest scale, and five more the one below that. The yellow color was originally meant for the sun, and I was going to use grey for small bodies that aren't moons or dwarf planets. But once yellow was free, I decided it would be better to use colors for the smaller planetoids, and I didn't want to use orange or purple.

Anyway, what does everyone think? Does this present the information the way I meant it to? Would it be better if I started the scale with the inner planets at the top, and just made broken bars for the gas giants? How important is the lightness of the yellow color? P Aculeius (talk) 02:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I just darkened the yellow slightly and corrected two errors I forgot to fix before uploading the first version. P Aculeius (talk) 04:40, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

There is a problem with the coloring: 2007 OR₁₀, 90377 Sedna, and 50000 Quaoar are also dwarf planets, and likely so are all other ones colored yellow. It is better to color according to orbital region, or use the same color for all objects in a shared solar orbit. In any case, distinguishing 'dwarf planets' and 'other objects' is artificial and not based on actual knowledge. Moreover, as I already noted above, the logarithmic scale is misleading, making the small objects appear much larger than they actually are. Aside from these important points, it looks quite nice. --JorisvS (talk) 09:08, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

The IAU doesn't recognize any of those as dwarf planets yet, presumably because of the lack of reliable data about them. The chart is colored according to their current status, not what they will probably be designated at some future date, perhaps years or even decades in the future. The notes section mentions that several of the "other" objects may be designated dwarf planets in the future. It's been seven years since any were added to the list, so there's no telling how much longer it will be before we know how many objects pictured will eventually be recognized as dwarf planets, or whether the IAU will come up with some new terminology before that happens, since the dwarf planet designation is so controversial.

One goal of this chart was to use a simple, intuitive color scheme. Thus, four colors representing different types of bodies were chosen. There would have been five if there had been a good way to fit the sun onto the chart, but given that its diameter is ten times that of Jupiter, and more than two thousand times that of the smaller objects on the chart, that wasn't practical. With respect to coloring by orbital region, I take it you're suggesting a color scheme such as: inner solar system, asteroid belt, outer solar system, Kuiper belt, scattered disk? If that's the case, then the moon would be colored the same as Mercury and Venus, while Triton would be colored the same as Jupiter; Pluto and Eris would be different colors from each other. I'm not sure what the advantage of that scheme would be. Even more dubious would be coloring all of the planets and moons differently by orbit; that would require at least eleven colors, depending on whether you treated the Kuiper belt as one orbit and the scattered disk as another; if not, then each of the "other" objects would require yet another color. The goal of this chart is to make things simple, not complex.

A logarithmic scale or something like one is pretty much a necessity for a chart of this type. As previously mentioned, the sun is two thousand times the diameter of the smaller objects; Jupiter two hundred times, and Earth twenty-one times. The full height of the chart available for diagrams is 1,000 pixels, which does not allow for a single scale. If you include the sun, then the smallest objects would only be entitled to half a pixel, and it would be impossible to tell any difference between them; only eighteen of the objects pictured would be as much as two pixels high, and only the outer planets would be more than ten pixels high. If you leave off the sun and begin with the outer planets, as I did, but with a single scale for the whole chart, then only the outer planets would be more than 1/10 the height of the chart, and more than half of the objects would be between four and ten pixels high, again making comparisons difficult. Leaving off the gas giants and beginning with Earth, but with one scale, the smallest objects would still be less than 1/20 the height of the chart. So a logarithmic scale or something like one is the only thing that makes a chart like this possible.

I'm really not sure why you're hung up on the notion of a logarithmic scale being misleading. It's symbolic, and not meant to be an accurate representation of scale, but the scale used is clearly labeled on the chart. If nothing less than perfect reality is acceptable, then the chart is misleading because it shows the various objects as the wrong colors, the wrong widths, and far too close together. The only way to make a chart that's not at all misleading would be to make one several hundred feet long, so that the true scale of all the objects could be accurately represented with the proper relationships between them, in their true colors (except for the outer solar system objects, which have yet to be observed as anything but fuzzy spots of light). And even that would be misleading, since it would imply that all of the objects line up neatly in a flat plane, which they don't. It's not possible to make a chart that doesn't rely on symbolic relationships to represent things that can't be accurately depicted as they really are. Scaling objects within a certain range so that they can fit together on a chart is a time-honored way to depict such relationships. P Aculeius (talk) 13:20, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

This is looking much better. My only suggestion with the yellow would be to perhaps add a little red to make it a more gold or amber color. I still feel that if there is a chance that it will be used in the List of Solar System objects by size article that there should be a little better coordination with the colors in the tables there. But I see the problem with that. The big planets and the dwarf planets are both white, while the moons use five different colors. That is a much more confusing scheme, but it may be a lost cause to change those at this time. Nyth63 11:33, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Already darkened it a little, but I'm resisting turning it a dark yellow or light orange. It's more visible than it was. I'm not sure I like the idea of a dark background and white or brightly-colored lines, but that's a possibility I've been considering. P Aculeius (talk) 13:20, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Being a dwarf planet is not dependent on being on the IAU's short list. The largest in yellow are regularly called dwarf planets and accepted by a number of astronomers as simply being dwarf planets without much reservation (not more than any that are on the IAU's list). The not-so-large ones are typically not simply accepted, but considered to be possibly dwarf planets. Because the distinction between dwarf planets and 'others' is so fuzzy and could simply turn out to be non-existent for those on the chart, it does not make sense to use distinct colors, which suggests more definiteness than exists. As for orbital region, basically yes, though no objects on non-resonant planet-crossing orbits are big enough to be included, which leaves only 'asteroid belt', 'Kuiper belt', and 'scattered disc', though Sedna is regularly regarded to be of a distinct orbital class (whether 'sednoid' or 'inner Oort cloud' or something else). Moons could still easily all be lumped together as moons (which was what I intended to say, but apparently forgot to say properly).

By leaving out the four giant planets, the sizes are already much closer together, and then putting the object labels under the bars instead of inside them is sufficient for a linear-scale graph. The point of the graph is not vertical differentiation, but, in fact, an accurate representation of the relative sizes (and no other characteristics of these objects). The logarithmic scale does not do that, because humans are extremely bad at accurately interpreting exponential (or, equivalently, logarithmic) scales, no matter one's amount of scientific training and experience. --JorisvS (talk) 14:14, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the log-scale does a good job for some imo - but may not be good for the typical viewer - after all, Readability of Wikipedia Articles (BEST? => Score of 60/"9th grade/14yo" level) - hope this helps - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 15:11, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I also think the log scale is too misleading -- Mars is almost as big as Venus. For the solid bodies (Earth on down), the linear works fine. Maybe a composite graph, with Sun to Neptune (?), change scale to show Jupiter to Venus, then change again and show the Earth on down (all moving left to right). The effect I'm thinking of is the one used in the Sedna orbit picture, with the lines showing the blow up from one scale to the next. Maybe even drop the Sun, so there's only one scale change. (I'm assuming this diagram would be for the list page, not for Ceres and so on.) I'll try to put something together this week.

For colouring, instead of one for dwarf planets, I used one for TNOs in my previous little sketch. The reason is that all the TNOs have relatively large error bars -- even larger when you consider that the errors bars are often subject to the assumptions made in the measurement process. Remember Eris as 3000 ± 400. A few have decent measurements, but many are still pretty fuzzy, so it shows where there might be a little motion to come in the ordering. The larger cisneptunian objects (all on this diagram) all have pretty solid sizes. Plus it avoids the whole DP argument. It leaves Ceres as a singleton, though, if you're colouring scheme is planets, satellites of planets, TNOs (including Charon and Dysnomia), Sun, and Ceres. Tbayboy (talk) 03:28, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Here's the new version. This really belongs on the list page, not so much Ceres, so I'll copy it there. Tbayboy (talk) 14:43, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

@Tbayboy: FWIW - new "Top 50" graph looks *Excellent* imo atm - Good Job! - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:45, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

@Tbayboy: Looks great! My compliments! It indeed belongs more on the list. Maybe a modified version could be used for this page, though? --JorisvS (talk) 14:23, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. For the Ceres etc. pages, what sort of modifications would you want? Would just the solid bodies be okay? I haven't been able to come up with anything (other than my original little iconic illo, above) that isn't just this bigger one with highlighting for the specific body. I also want to try one that shows them as discs arrayed as an arch inside the sun. Tbayboy (talk) 15:01, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, something akin to that. The Sun and giant planets certainly need not be included. Including Earth has the benefit of readers being able to compare Ceres's size with that of the planet we live on. There a number of ways we could make Ceres stand out: an arrow, encircling it, making it a distinctive color. I don't have a strong opinion on which to choose (yet). --JorisvS (talk) 16:24, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Here's another take. This is similar to the previous, restricted to the solid bodies. I had a cool one that used Javascript to flash up another body's name-size-rank as you hovered over it, only to find Wiki doesn't allow scripting. *sigh* Anyway, suggestions are welcome. Tbayboy (talk) 18:15, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Looks good to me. --JorisvS (talk) 18:57, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes - seems good to me as well - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 19:14, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

The list of seemingly-nonsense words on the Map of Quadrangles (Asari, Chahal, Dagua, Ebisu, etc.) seems to have been generated by the "Writing Machine," as seen at this URL: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wg47QVSgILAJ:www.tumblr.com/tagged/chahal-chahal&hl=en&gl=us&strip=0&vwsrc=1 174.24.39.82 (talk) 09:16, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

FWIW - Seems the words on the "Ceres quadrangles map" may make some sense after all - according to the related reference^[1] => "Back in October [2014], the IAU adopted two naming themes for Ceres:^[2] craters will be named after agriculture deities, while other features were [to] be named for world agricultural festivals. [C.T.] Russell^[3] showed this map that organizes Ceres' surface into quads, with each quad named after one harvest deity." - hope this helps in some way - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 12:06, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I retract my accusation of random labels! Some of those are exceedingly obscure, though. 174.24.39.82 (talk) 07:28, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

There is a debate over where the article for the pyramid-shaped mountain on Ceres should be located - input is desired. --Njardarlogar (talk) 10:02, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

There's no evidence that that mountain has triangular sides. I.e., by definition, there's no evidence that it's pyramid-shaped. 174.24.39.82 (talk) 07:32, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Untold millenia of dust build up on the sides accounts for the rounded look. It`s partially buried... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.192.14.161 (talk) 17:51, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest was declined. Some or all of the changes weren't supported by neutral, independent, reliable sources. Consider re-submitting with content based on media, books and scholarly works.

Dawn has determined that Ceres is a bit smaller than thought, and its density 4% greater. Also that the axis points in a different direction, so we have the seasons wrong. Yet the info box still uses pre-Dawn data. Anyone have access to the new figures? — kwami (talk) 23:07, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I've closed this request for lack of proper sources. Please do not hesitate to resubmit a request when a reliable source that verifies the new data is found. Thanks! -- Eclipsed (talk) (email) 09:01, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

@Eclipsed: This is a request first-and-foremost for a source for that information, to me it just looks like the template used is not the quite the right one because of its location: located at the generic "Request edit", but specifically for COIs (which is not applicable here). --JorisvS (talk) 10:00, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

The new data can be accessed by looking at the video of the conference at http://nesf2015.arc.nasa.gov/agenda and select the 11:40AM talk on Dawn by Chris Russell. The new calculated density is 2.16 kg/m3. The obliquity is the same (≈3 deg), but the poles are reversed (still at 29.41 deg). Cheers,BatteryIncluded (talk) 17:41, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

What does the last mean? — kwami (talk) 23:06, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

"What does the last mean?" Obliquity is as last observed, but what were presumed N&S poles are the opposite? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 23:39, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I assume this means that magnetic north on Ceres is in the southern hemisphere. It is possible that Ceres experiences geomagnetic reversal like Earth. - DinoSlider (talk) 14:05, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I think it means that Ceres is actually upside-down; what we thought was its north pole is actually its south pole. --JorisvS (talk) 09:38, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

The geographic north and south poles are defined by convention. Only the magnetic north of Ceres was determined to be "upside-down". The 2009 change to positive and negative geographic poles will most likely add to the confusion with this recent discovery. - DinoSlider (talk) 12:37, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

That (illogical) convention only applies to the planets. The poles of the dwarf planets are determined, like those of other minor planets, logically, i.e. using the right-hand rule. Cf. Pluto's (polar confusion). --JorisvS (talk) 14:07, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

So I watched the video and realized my (our?) mistake. Neither the video nor the OP state that the poles are reversed, Dr. Russell says the seasons are reversed from what they originally believed. The previous measurement of the positive/north pole was 291° right ascension with a declination of 59°, but Dawn has determined it to be 29.41° with a declination of 66.79°. So the north pole points "up" like Earth, just in a different direction than they thought. As Dr. Russell states, since the obliquity is only about 3°, the seasonal differences are pretty small anyway. If it were "upside-down" the obliquity would be 177° and the body would have a retrograde rotation like Venus. - DinoSlider (talk) 19:55, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Something like thinking the pole points such that you thought it was summer in the northern hemisphere, but it turned out to be autumn? --JorisvS (talk) 20:27, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. - DinoSlider (talk) 23:19, 25 July 2015 (UTC)