Talk:List of nearest exoplanets

Habitable Zone

Is there some way that a CHZ orbit can be indicated for each planet ? --EvenGreenerFish (talk) 12:47, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

how? Nergaal (talk) 13:51, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

error

• http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/hip_22627_b/

Nergaal (talk) 13:51, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Radius of Fomalhaut b

To the user who reverted out my removal of the claim that Fomalhaut b has been found to have a radius of 1.2 Jupiters, please read at least the following articles before reverting me again.

• Currie et al. (2012) [1]
• Kenyon et al. (2014) [2]
• Beust et al. (2014) [3]

The original models that suggested this object is a giant planet are outdated, and the data is inconsistent with an imaged planet but consistent with a dust cloud. Likely there is a planet there to anchor the cloud but it has not been seen directly therefore cannot have had its radius measured. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 21:46, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

The reversion was less about the 1.2 Jupiter-radius claim, and more about the deletion of the claim that a planet around Fomalhaut has been directly imaged - the two images at Fomalhaut b pretty clearly show that something (almost certainly due to a planetary object, either directly or indirectly) has been imaged (multiple times over the years). Thus, that claim should be restored to the article. --IJBall (talk) 22:04, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

No, the claim that a planet around Fomalhaut has been directly imaged is factually incorrect and should not be restored. What has been imaged is a dust cloud: the planet is unseen and does not even appear to contribute significantly to the object's spectrum, but its existence is inferred from the presence of the dust cloud. This contrasts with Beta Pictoris b or the planets at HR 8799 where it is clear that the imaged object is the planet itself. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 05:15, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Why does the NASA database list its radius then? Nergaal (talk) 08:21, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

No idea, maybe they forgot to update it. The value does not reflect the current state of understanding in the literature. It's also worth noting that they haven't updated the orbital parameters for this planet despite two published papers — Kalas et al. (2013) and Beust et al. (2014) — confirming the high-eccentricity orbit. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 17:16, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

6 problematic systems

Some justifications for reverted edits that Nergaal (who seems to believe they WP:OWN this article) apparently didn't like.

• Luhman 16 - the source [4] notes that they are not able to determine which of the two brown dwarfs the unconfirmed candidate orbits. Designating the object as "Ab" is factually incorrect, and indeed the source does not use a "b" designation, no designation for the unconfirmed object has been introduced. Don't make up designations, even if they follow the established patterns (there is after all no guarantee that someone might confirm a different candidate planet in the system first, and assign that one the designation "b").

Well, there is no existing confirmed lone exoplanet around a star that has a different designation. I am of the opinion that any designation is fine as long as it can be wikilined. An m-dash cannot be a sensible wikilink. How about adding a footnote after each of these two designation? Nergaal (talk) 14:52, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Adding your own designations that are not supported by literature is original research. Indeed, as 77 mentioned, if another planet is confirmed first, then that planet will get the b designation, not the unconfirmed one. To counter the wikilink point, why on Earth would you want to wikilink the designation of an unconfirmed planet? There's no need at all to have an article on most unconfirmed planets, bar stuff like Alpha Centauri Bb. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:26, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

• Ok, now I recall that paper. If the planet were to be "Bb"or (AB)b instead, then the data would be consistent with a brown dwarf. I put in the table the only values that would allow it to be a planet. So what is wrong with Ab then? If author says one of two choices is probable/possible, what is wrong is listing one of the choices as a possible candidate exoplanet? Nergaal (talk) 00:05, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

• Because it gives the impression that we know which brown dwarf it orbits, and it introduces a designation that has not been used in the source. What we know is that there may be a low-mass companion orbiting either Luhman 16A or Luhman 16B. We don't know which one or in fact whether it exists at all. This is the current state of knowledge and this is what we should reflect in the article, rather than trying to pretend we have more knowledge of the system than we actually do to bump up the number of values quoted in the table. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 05:31, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

• Epsilon Indi - do you have a source to justify the assignment of designation "b". From my survey of the literature, it is clear that no-one has introduced this designation yet. See previous point for why making up designations is a bad idea.

Yes, check [5] for "The candidate planet ϵ Eri b was not detected despite our better precision." Nergaal (talk) 00:05, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Epsilon ERIDANI is not Epsilon INDI: despite having the same Greek letter they are in different constellations (Eridanus and Indus respectively). Though that reference does imply we should grey out the line for the planet Epsilon Eridani b. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 04:56, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

• Teegarden's star - this is not even remotely plausible as an unconfirmed candidate. The paper from which these parameters were derived [6] even states "We emphasise that we make no claims for a planet". Four data points on a star they admit to be extremely chromospherically active is not an unconfirmed planet, it is noise. Take a look at figure 5 and ask yourself if it is really valid to draw a sinusoid through there. Listing this one, even as an unconfirmed candidate is utterly ridiculous and misleading that there is any kind of convincing evidence AT ALL.

That doesn't mean it can't be mentioned in the lead after being removed from the table. Nergaal (talk) 16:36, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Why mention it at all? No-one's claimed there is a planet there. Furthermore, they have 4 data points and the model has 4 free parameters (base velocity offset, semi-amplitude, orbital period and orbital phase), so it doesn't really mean all that much that the model can be used to fit the points. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 22:12, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

• Gliese 876 f/g - the source [7] is a complete joke. Interesting methodology but they it does not incorporate dynamical interactions and they proceed to use it on Gliese 876, which is noted for strong dynamical interactions — it has completed over 1 full precession cycle of planets b and c in the time it has been observed with precision RV. They even note that the non-planetary origin of these periods is expected due to the fact that models incorporating planet-planet interaction (which has successfully been applied to this system for years) do not see them. The model should be disregarded, the Keplerian approximation is not useful for the system and any conclusions arising from it are deeply flawed.

Well, that is your personal opinion. Unless there is a published source stating your thoughts I don't see a reason to remove them from the table. Nergaal (talk) 16:36, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

The fact that every object with mass in the universe exerts a force on every other object with mass in the universe is well-established and uncontroversial. The dynamical fits take into account all the gravitational interactions in the system, which is consistent with this well-established gravitational theory. The Keplerian model only takes into account the interactions between each planet and the star, not the planet-planet interactions: in this regard it is not self-consistent. Despite not being self-consistent, it is nevertheless a well-established approximation that is valid in the case that the planet-planet interactions are small, e.g. for our solar system. It is well-established in the literature about the Gliese 876 system that the planet-planet interactions, particularly those between planets b and c are non-negligible, this is because (again as is well-established in the literature) the planets are deeply embedded in a low-order mean-motion resonance. The upshot of this is that the measured system will diverge rapidly from the Keplerian approximation. Thanks to the underlying mathematics you can account for this while still retaining the Keplerian model by introducing additional fake planets in the model until the discrepancy goes away. Of course, what is really going on is planet-planet interactions which the approximation fails to take into account so you end up finding planets that aren't actually there.

So now there is an editorial judgement to make: do you go with the approximate model in this one paper, or the entirety of the rest of the literature which demonstrates very well that the approximation cannot be used for Gliese 876 and that the self-consistent but more computationally-intensive dynamical model must be used instead? Or to take an analogy: you can use Newtonian modelling to deduce from the perihelion precession of Mercury that there is an additional planet in the inner solar system. However it is well-established that the corrections from general relativity need to be taken into account to model Mercury's orbit. Someone today claiming the existence of Vulcan based on a Newtonian model for Mercury should not be taken seriously, even if no-one gets around to publish an explicit rebuttal to the claim in a scientific journal. Similarly, it should not be taken seriously if someone uses a Keplerian approximation to claim additional planets in a system where it is known that the approximation is invalid. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 20:01, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

• Ok, what sort of peer-review is there for publishing on "arXiv.org". Who prevents a random author from uploading porn and call it a paper? Nergaal (talk) 00:11, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
• What is the journal for that paper? "Earth and Planetary Astrophysics" of "Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc."? Who is reviewing it? Nergaal (talk) 08:03, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

• VB 10 b - how many sources do you want to have to say this is disproven? Radial velocity doesn't see it [8] [9]. Astrometry (the original detection method) doesn't see it [10]. It doesn't exist. It doesn't belong in the list.

Fine, then mention it in the lead. Nergaal (talk) 16:36, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

• Gliese 667 C - analysis of the system taking into account correlated noise in the data only recovers two planets (b and c) with tentative evidence for a third. This is the Feroz & Hobson paper [11] I added to the article. The fact that their existence is challenged surely indicates an "unconfirmed" status is correct.

After reading that I am fine with graying them out. Nergaal (talk) 16:36, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

77.57.25.250 (talk) 22:11, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

How about when you go ahead and remove items from the table bother mentioning that somewhere so the statistics table on the bottom show these changes? Nergaal (talk) 16:42, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Oops; you're right on that one. I'll do that now. StringTheory11 (t • c) 16:45, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Done. StringTheory11 (t • c) 17:05, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

• Tau Ceti why is this system still unconfirmed? Has anybody even tried to do some follow-up observations? Nergaal (talk) 08:12, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Confirmation criteria

• Gliese 436: why do you want to change the label? The authors say in the paper "If confirmed today, UCF-1.01 and UCF-1.02 would be designated GJ 436c and GJ 436d, respectively," Nergaal (talk) 00:22, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Read that sentence again. I will highlight the key words for you that are grammatically important. "If confirmed today, UCF-1.01 and UCF-1.02 would be designated GJ 436c and GJ 436d, respectively" This is a conditional sentence, it tells you what would happen if a given condition becomes true. The "if" clause gives us the condition under which the statement about what would happen becomes true: IF the planets are confirmed today, THEN they would get the "c" and "d" designations. So the key question is whether the planets have been confirmed. They have not been. Therefore the condition in the "if" clause is not true, so the planets have NOT been designated GJ 436c and GJ 436d. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 05:06, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok, since you seem to be in the field, who classifies these objects as confirmed? Is there just a rule of thumb saying that if we see in two different ways we say it is confirmed? Nergaal (talk) 07:46, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not an "expert" in this particular field, but in science in general I think if you have more than one paper reporting a result (esp. if there are no papers claiming the opposite) then you can consider that result (conditionally) confirmed. IOW, I'm not sure I'd include in this list any "exoplanets" that only have one paper, or one group, claiming its existence (or, at least, I wouldn't include them in the table - perhaps they could be included, textually, in a section called "Unconfirmed results"...) --IJBall (talk) 15:36, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Visible to a typical human eye

Last I checked, the typical human eye does not see in the infrared. So why is the H-band being used to determine the magnitude cutoff for the table? 77.57.25.250 (talk) 22:40, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Huh? I tried to use the "Apparent magnitude V" entry from [12]. In case any other value is used it might be an error. Nergaal (talk) 09:47, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

The table "Systems visible to a typical human eye" lists the "visible" and "not visible" categories as "H < 6.5" and "H > 6.5" respectively. If these statistics are generated from the V-band then the symbol should be changed (and preferably wikilinked to make it clear what the quantity is referring to). 77.57.25.250 (talk) 16:52, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Terrestrial/gas giant

What is the justification for the split of terrestrial / gas giant planets by mass? This seems to be at odds with observations of objects such as the Kepler-11 system, GJ 1214 b, KOI-314c or Kepler-10c. I'm aware that the Planetary Habitability Laboratory is doing this, but it really doesn't strike me as a valid distinction. (In fact there's quite a bit of dubious material on the PHL website, I personally don't consider them to be a particularly reliable source of information.) 77.57.25.250 (talk) 14:50, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I am not saying they are particularly reliable, but for the purpose of a list that non-expert readers see their categorization is a fine simplification. Nergaal (talk) 11:46, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Designations of unconfirmed planets in the Gliese 436 system

The two unconfirmed candidates of Gliese 436 are correctly referred to as UCF-1.01 and UCF-1.02 per Stevenson et al. (2012). The designations Gliese/GJ 436c and d have never been used for these planets in the literature, despite this usage being present on the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia website (this is not the only case of EPE using designations at variance with the literature, for example it uses b,c,d instead of A,B,C for the planets of PSR B1257+12 and also seems to have invented the use of d and e for the proposed 400-day and 5000-day planets around HD 1461, which were referred to as c and d). The designation GJ 436c has been previously used to refer to various outer planet candidates that have been invoked to explain supposed transit parameter variations that generally tend to get ruled out by follow-up studies, hence its appearance in several published papers and the designation also appearing on SIMBAD. 77.57.25.250 (talk) 20:28, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Closer than Proxima Centauri

This edit made Alpha Centauri B closer than Proxima Centauri. I'd fix it myself, but unfortunately SIMBAD and Hipparcos say the same thing (796.92 mas parallax = 4.09 light years). So I'm calling attention to a problem, without knowing how to fix it. Some non-exclusive possibilities:

• Do nothing; verifiability not truth, come hell or high water
• Change it to be consistent with the Alpha Centauri article
• Cite older estimates, clustered around 750 mas [13][14][15]
• Ask the SIMBAD and/or Hipparcos people to fix it
• Rewrite high school science textbooks that say Proxima Centauri is the closest star :)

Art LaPella (talk) 19:22, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

Art LaPella (talk) 17:22, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Addition of sub-headers in article body / breaking lead into paragraphs

No changes needed to the writing (which is of good quality)--

However, Wikipedia article leads are supposed to be "paragraphed" by lead sub-topic (one sentence paragraphs are acceptable, both on Wikipedia and in proper English writing). **All of this is to enhance readability.

On the body of the article--

Again, great article-- but adding sub-headers will increase readability.

Please keep in mind that only a minority of encyclopedia readers are so voracious that they will consume a long series of paragraphs without sub-headers. The article, which clearly is otherwise well-written and certainly took a lot of work to write, will be read by more people, now that body sub-headers and lead sub-topic paragraphing has been added. Ciao! :-) Cliffswallow-vaulting (talk) 18:38, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Totally agreed. Your sections have been taken out again – I'd strongly urge them to be put back in... --IJBall (talk) 12:45, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

And, again, we have reversion of adding sections to this article. I can't even figure out what the reversion note, "if you have strong opinions please leave them at the FLC page that is undergoing right now", is supposed to mean. User:Nergaal really needs to take a look at WP:LEAD, and then come to this Talk page to work with us for a consensus – bottom line: article leads (or "ledes" as they call them in journalism...) are not supposed to go on for block-and-blocks of paragraphs as this article does. And we now have two editors objecting to having this article's lede this way. If no one else backs up Nergaal's view soon, I'm going to go ahead and go back to User talk:Cliffswallow-vaulting's version because, even it it's arguably "overly sectioned", at least it in the spirit of WP:LEAD, etc. --IJBall (talk) 18:33, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Have you guys ever written some sort of scientific, or at least some form of professional article? Have you written any papers in college? Do you know what are the differences between a list of bullet points and an actual professional text? Or let's make it more easy for you: when was the last time you saw an article featured on the main page to look like you guys seem to suggest? Consider checking out the other version of English wikipedia. Nergaal (talk) 19:06, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

And none of that answers WP:LEAD which is in fact the governing policy on this topic at Wikipedia. Bottom line: The lead needs some sectioning, even if Cliffswallow-vaulting's version may have gone overboard in that department. If you don't like what was done, divide some of the lead into sections yourself, and maybe the rest of us will actually like the result better... --IJBall (talk) 19:15, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that each paragraph in the lead have its own subtitle? Please enlighten me by offering a concrete example of what are you thinking. Nergaal (talk) 19:19, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

And almost a side-question: according to the description given in your link (wp:LEAD) The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points. How is the following text doing any of these:

Astronomers have identified a total of 65 exoplanets within 50 light-years of the Solar System, but the existence of at least another 34 unconfirmed exoplanets has been proposed. This corresponds to only 35 stars with confirmed planetary systems (and six with only unconfirmed exoplanets) of the around 1,400 stars that are estimated to be located within 50 light-years. Of the around 133 nearby stars which are bright enough to be visible with the naked eye,[c][1] so far, only 18 have confirmed planetary systems.

Enlighten me please. Nergaal (talk) 19:18, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I think you're starting to see the idea now! Your intro paragraph is an excellent lead – but just that. Everything below that should be in at least one (and probably more than one) new section. The key words in WP:LEAD are, "...stand alone as a concise overview." – "concise" (and "overview") are the important parts: your first paragraph does exactly that; everything after that really doesn't, and belongs in a new section (or sections) besides the lead. As to your other question – certainly, no, "every" paragraph below that doesn't need to be its own section: they just need to be subdivided into sections as makes sense (by topic). One final point – actually, yes, I have written (a few) scientific papers in the past. But Wikipedia articles aren't formatted like scientific papers (refer to #7 at link) but follow their own formatting schemes, like WP:LEAD, etc. --IJBall (talk) 19:30, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say to make it like a journal, just make it professional. Have you written any sort of reports in your college career? So if you read that paragraph yu wouldn't even need to go read the rest of the list because you got everything you needed. Anyways, you are still missing my actual important request. Please enlighten me with an article that is written to decent standards (aka Featured Article or Featured List, or has been featured on the main page) that does comply to your impressive standards (article not on the Simple English wikipedia). Nergaal (talk) 21:23, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Maybe so this doesn't prove to be a waste of my time and patience, please also go check out WP:LEADLENGTH. Nergaal (talk) 21:25, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Or even consider checking out wp:FL. Nergaal (talk) 21:29, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, there aren't too many WP:FL under "Physics and astronomy", but you'll notice for example that List of interstellar and circumstellar molecules has a very short lead (i.e. two sentences in one paragraph), followed by sections – this article would probably be improved following that kind of model. Note, this is probably going to be my last comment here, because I get the feeling if it's just me commenting, anything I say is just going to be ignored. So let's see if any other editors have comments on this subject... --IJBall (talk) 22:28, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the example. See what people have to say at Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of interstellar and circumstellar molecules/archive1. Nergaal (talk) 19:50, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

OK, so I am an English major and I am also a writer and I need to tell you guys something. In an encyclopedia article, long run-on paragraphs (and especially eight of them) is extremely poor writing.

Try to understand one thing: your audience. Most of the readers do not share your personality type--

A "scientist" personality type will happily read long, long paragraphs that twist and turn through all kinds of complex details. But most of the public won't.

Why? Because most of them don't have your personality type. They don't process information the same way that you do--

They have other personality types, and will never have the patience to dig through one long-winded, complex paragraph after another, after another...

Therefore, insisting that an encyclopedia article be in a format that most people do not digest easily, severely limits the usefulness of the article to the general public.

It's also rude and selfish.

Please note-- Wikipedia is not for a little circle of scientists. Wikipedia is for the general public.

2602:306:BDA0:97A0:466D:57FF:FE90:AC45 (talk) 21:55, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

And in your major you write articles with sections that contain a single sentence? Wow, impressive! Let me know when you sell out. Nergaal (talk) 09:41, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

The "Talk Section" is not for standard writing format. One-liners are common and acceptable in a "Talk page" format. Wow, how did you not know that!?

Also, your snide manner confirms the point, your tone is arrogant, insulting and self-centered: not representative of maturity or concern for anyone but yourself 107.218.9.122 (talk) 19:03, 9 August 2014 (UTC)