Talk:Planet

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hot Jupiters vs. gas giants

when it says "Among extrasolar planets, axial tilts are not known for certain, though most hot Jupiters are believed to possess negligible to no axial tilt, as a result of their proximity to their stars" should it say gas giants as hot Jupiters seems to be confusing Confront (talk) 01:08, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

hot Jupiters are defined in the extrasolar planets section. Serendi^podous 17:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

70.16.230.225 it is considered improper to re-word other people's quotes. Hot Jupiter is a nickname for gas giants that orbit so close to their host star that they act like a "hot jupiter" would. It does not mean that our Jupiter is hot. -- Kheider (talk) 19:32, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Intro vs History?

I know this article is great and has been reworked to death, so I will leave this suggestion here without making the change myself. I think that the 3rd paragraph of the introduction would be better placed at the start of the History section. The intro is overly long (the ToC is below the fold) and that paragraph is easily relocatable without disrupting the article's flow. - Frankie (talk) 16:23, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

That paragraph also covers planetary attributes and extrasolar planets. the intro is basically a runthough of the topics in the article. Serendi^podous 18:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

MONKEYS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE WORLD

The statement that Uranus can be considered to have prograde rotation is false. Even if you consider tilt of 82 degrees in the other direction rather than the conventional 98 degrees it still has retrograde rotation relative to the direction of its orbit. Zbayz (talk) 13:31, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The article does not state the Uranus has pro or retrograde rotations. It only states that it's rotation is clockwise or counter-clockwise depending on the definition of the north pole, which is true. Ruslik_Zero 13:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

All rotating objects could be said to rotate clockwise or anti-clockwise depending on how you define their north poles. In that regard there is nothing special about Uranus. Zbayz (talk) 14:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

How about this wording then which keeps the clockwise/aniclockwise info but also includes the point I was making about retrograde to its orbit.:

"the exceptions being Venus and Uranus which rotate clockwise (although because of Uranus's extreme axial tilt there are differing conventions on which of its pole to call the north pole and therefore whether it is rotating clockwise or anti-clockwise around its north pole. However regardless of which convention is used, Uranus is rotating in the opposite direction to its orbit.)" Zbayz (talk) 14:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

This is better. Ruslik_Zero 11:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this article too long?

100 k is pretty long. Is this article OK? Serendi^podous 20:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

It is a vital article so I would be inclined to be ok with having it longer. Plus, trimming would be possible only in the history section, but that is pretty essential to remain here. Nergaal (talk) 00:20, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

names?

When Jupiter was named, did they know it was the biggest one, or is that just a coincidence? Did they call Neptune that because they saw it was blue and looked like the ocean? They could see Mars was red, so that makes sense. I guess I was looking for why they got the names they did.--Neptunerover (talk) 01:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Neptune may have been named for its colour; not sure, but it is visible through a telescope. Jupiter appears brighter than Mars to the naked eye, even though it's year is six times longer. So the Babylonians (who first named the stars after gods) may have given it pride of place. But no, they didn't know it was the biggest. Serendi^podous 01:54, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Jupiter would have been special because it would have been the brightest "star" in the sky that could stay up all night. Venus is brighter but is never far from the Sun. So at best Venus is only visible for a couple hours after sunset or a couple hours before sunrise. Venus always near the Sun may have seemed like the Suns subordinate love slave. :) So when they named Jupiter I suspect it was meant to be "special". -- Kheider (talk) 06:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, Venus wasn't always recognized as a single planet. Maybe had s.t. to do w recognizing Jupiter as the greatest planet, back before the Latin names were assigned? kwami (talk) 06:29, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Definition wrong?

Assuming the definition of celestial body is correct, the definition of a planet "A planet (...) is a celestial body..." must be wrong, since Earth is named as planet, but is not a celestial body. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.76.101.20 (talk) 20:03, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit: The IAU website uses celestial body, too, but I found no definition of a CB. It seems to follow that the CB's definition is wrong, then. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.203.171.161 (talk) 22:33, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I have added a "Citation Needed" template to the definition of Celestial Bodies in Astronomical object. If no one can find a citation, say by Feb 2010, I would suggest that someone revise the definition of Celestial Bodies and Celestial Objects to make them identical to Astronomical object. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 16:02, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Americanization Effort to Commence

WP:ENGVAR#Consistency within articles agrees that the article needs to be consistent in its use of national varieties of English. The guideline that seems right to use here is WP:RETAIN. Whichever variety of English the article originally used should be the standard with which we are consistent. In this edit, an American spelling establishes the use of a national variety of English for this article. (Although the original author misspelled the word, recognized, so maybe we should misspell every word in this article?) I will take on the responsibility of copy editing this article as well as updating the language presently. Friedlad (talk) 05:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

There are several problems with your statement above. First of all, the use of "-ize" is not exclusive to US English, being commonly accepted in British English as well. If you read through our articles on the differences between Amerian and British spelling and Oxford spelling, as well as the OED article "Are spellings like 'privatize' and 'organize' Americanisms?", you'll see that the use of "-ize" in British English dates back to the 1600s. That alone would be proof enough to dispel any thought of "Americanizing" the article, and the subject matter could certainly also be argued as deferring to international standards rather than those of one particular country. Furthermore, random version sampling (using the first versions in January and July) show that the article has used international spellings such as "centre" and "kilometre" since at least 2004. Please do not change it merely for the sake of personal preference, as that does not benefit the project. --Ckatz^chat_spy 21:48, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe try more than just a random sampling because the retain standard is whichever was used first. Perhaps I misjudged the original use but intended to find the first use of a nationalized spelling.

Friedlad (talk) 20:29, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:RETAIN says "If an article has evolved using predominantly one variety, the whole article should conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic.". Given that the article demonstrates use of British English for the past six years, we can safely interpret that it has evolved that way. Furthermore, and more significantly, even if you were to discover evidence of American spelling prior to that, there are no demonstrated reasons for (or possible benefits from) changing it at this point in time. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Planets come from the Greek lanugage —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.197.173.171 (talk) 21:00, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Ranging from the size of gas giants to that of terrestrial planets

Crude size comparison of PSR B1257+12 A with Earth

PSR B1257+12 A is suspected of being less massive than the Earth. Is it proper to call it a larger terrestrial planet? What is large? -- Kheider (talk) 19:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Who said "larger". Ah, I see. Fixed. — Aldaron • T/C 20:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

history additions

The additions of India and Islamic world to the history section are all well and good, but they don't really have anything to do with the section topic. The section is about the changing meaning of the word "planet", not a random list of "who-did-what-firsts". Such-and-such an Indian and/or Arabic astronomer may have predated Copernicus or Kepler in coming up with an idea that is now accepted as correct, and that is all very nice and lovely, but it doesn't say anything about what the Indians or Arabs in general believed about the planets. Serendi^podous 20:42, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Celestial body

I've just had an interesting discussion elsewhere, with someone citing that since the 2006 IAU definition begins "A celestial body that is...", Earth is no longer a planet either because by definition Celestial bodies/objects (as opposed to Astronomical bodies/objects) specifically exclude the earth (which cannot appear in its own sky/the heavens, the term is geocentric). I can't find any source to contradict this position, and several websites appear to agree that a celestial body is 'anything except the earth', therefore I find myself wonder if it is therefore true... 188.221.150.127 (talk) 10:25, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Since celestial means "pertaining to the sky or visible heaven", I do not see a real problem. -- Kheider (talk) 18:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

"Universe Today" would disagree ("By definition a celestial body is any natural body outside of the Earth's atmosphere."), as would "Wiktionary" ("(astronomy, astrology) A natural object which is located outside of Earth's atmosphere"), also "Wordnet (Princeton)" ("heavenly body (natural objects visible in the sky)"), also "About.com's Space/Astronomy glossary"("natural objects that can be seen in our sky"). Astronomy magazine's glossary "doesn't even have it listed". Most astronomy glossaries I can find online don't list the term, which doesn't seem very 'scientific'... The word Celestial etymologically comes from Latin, and "means Heaven or Sky", in clear contrast to 'earth'. 188.221.150.127 (talk) 23:12, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Celestial is an adjective. Common sense tells us that the Earth is to be included. The Earth is a planet, even if it is only a celestial body when viewed from another objects "sky". The IAU makes it very clear that the Earth is to be included. ==> "(1) The eight planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune." To truly claim the Earth is not a planet would be about as strange as claiming that the Sun is still a true planet. -- Kheider (talk) 06:05, 9 March 2010 (UTC)