 | This article is rated List-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
.jpg){kind=small}
I know I've already asked for this once, but considering how non-existent feedback was and this place is going to get revisited in the future quite often: I strongly think that we should not give every exoplanet mass & radius in that of Jupiter and allow Earth mass/radius figures - Because there are already planets where we arive at 0.00X figures, when there is no appearent reason to just give a figure of X.X Earth masses. Also, we have arrived at a point where astronomers will discover more and more smaller, terrestrial planets, and that trend is going to continue in the near future with newer technologies and telescopes. With this change, any reader would recognize their nature more easily, as only the largest planets would have to be compared to Jupiter. Also, if the authors of the source give Earth mass figures, why shouldn't we do the same ? It seems only logical that, preparing for all the smaller exoplanets to be discovered, we at least update this article to give either Jupiter- or Earth-related figures, instead of just Jupiter. After all, would anyone say "0.005 Jupiter Masses" when they could say "1.59 Earth masses" ? Sir Proxima Centauri ( talk) 07:33, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
So... As there was again little response to my idea, I just decided to convert some of the planets into Earth-comparing figures (coming from the sources). I hope this is an acceptable change for this, and perhaps other articles. Sir Proxima Centauri ( talk) 13:32, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
About the radius units of extrasolar
I do not think it is a good idea yet. Gas giants are still dominating both databases and new discoveries. Several years later, may be.. and likely by adding additional column R🜨, not by modifying existing RJ Trurle ( talk) 23:47, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
Even if 80% or so of all the planets in this list were Jupiter-sized Gas giants, it makes zero sense to use Jupiter-related figures for those planets where the numbers all appear very small and when the source itself already gave Earth-mass and - radius figures, which is why I'll probably continue the format of choice between the two, and I suspect that the parameters of some newly added planets were converted into Jupiter figures as they appear rather odd (I think no scientific paper would only say "0.012 Jupiter masses" when they could at least give "3.81 Earth masses"). Jupiter shouldn't be seen as the standard of any planet as it is already relatively large, even next to the many Super earths we have discovered so far. This kind of conversion wouldn't be necessary with my relatively simple idea, and I see no reason to not go on with the idea of choosing between the two comparisons individually. Sir Proxima Centauri ( talk) 15:42, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
In this particular case, i am concerned with data accessibility. Having a disparate mass/radius units in same column will break sorting and merging of planet lists, and will also increase potential of misreading and mis-edits. Therefore, to avoid beforementioned problems valid options are
- Have only one unit (current practice)
- Have only one one unit, with paper source unit converted to it via equation (best practice, but difficult to maintain)
- Have both units in separate columns
Trurle ( talk) 07:18, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Now that I think about it, I would actually go even further and say I'd prefer all the units appearing after each figure, as I more often than wanted scroll back upwards to see if that's the mass or radius of the star, the radius or semi-major axis of the planet etc.. Which I think may confuse or even annoy at least some other people as well.
While doing so would probably be fairly radical enough to be more likely in uncertain future, seeing the discovery of Proxima Centauri d and further clearly Earth-sized planets only seems to confirm my original point about small planet discoveries, and I'm sure I will eventually convert the planetary mass and radii figures back to those given in the sourced papers yet again (Meaning I'm not doing as I wish but actually give official figures from the discoverers in that sense) for this entire page and see how that works out, considering that I still do not see any gain from staunchly clinging to only one respective unit, but downsides instead Sir Proxima Centauri ( talk) 08:29, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
"Now that I think about it, I would actually go even further and say I'd prefer all the units appearing after each figure"
- Regarding your statement, this is common wikipedia practice for short lists. For long lists please follow Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Tables - i.e. do not introduce any inline table elements (including units) which break sorting. Trurle ( talk) 08:07, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- This is probably a minority view, but is it possible to use metric units and/or a conversion template? I know Template:Convert does not allow Earth/Jupiter/Sun units but perhaps one could create such a template. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk) 11:22, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
| This article is rated List-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
I know I've already asked for this once, but considering how non-existent feedback was and this place is going to get revisited in the future quite often: I strongly think that we should not give every exoplanet mass & radius in that of Jupiter and allow Earth mass/radius figures - Because there are already planets where we arive at 0.00X figures, when there is no appearent reason to just give a figure of X.X Earth masses. Also, we have arrived at a point where astronomers will discover more and more smaller, terrestrial planets, and that trend is going to continue in the near future with newer technologies and telescopes. With this change, any reader would recognize their nature more easily, as only the largest planets would have to be compared to Jupiter. Also, if the authors of the source give Earth mass figures, why shouldn't we do the same ? It seems only logical that, preparing for all the smaller exoplanets to be discovered, we at least update this article to give either Jupiter- or Earth-related figures, instead of just Jupiter. After all, would anyone say "0.005 Jupiter Masses" when they could say "1.59 Earth masses" ? Sir Proxima Centauri ( talk) 07:33, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
So... As there was again little response to my idea, I just decided to convert some of the planets into Earth-comparing figures (coming from the sources). I hope this is an acceptable change for this, and perhaps other articles. Sir Proxima Centauri ( talk) 13:32, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
About the radius units of extrasolar
I do not think it is a good idea yet. Gas giants are still dominating both databases and new discoveries. Several years later, may be.. and likely by adding additional column R🜨, not by modifying existing RJ Trurle ( talk) 23:47, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
Even if 80% or so of all the planets in this list were Jupiter-sized Gas giants, it makes zero sense to use Jupiter-related figures for those planets where the numbers all appear very small and when the source itself already gave Earth-mass and - radius figures, which is why I'll probably continue the format of choice between the two, and I suspect that the parameters of some newly added planets were converted into Jupiter figures as they appear rather odd (I think no scientific paper would only say "0.012 Jupiter masses" when they could at least give "3.81 Earth masses"). Jupiter shouldn't be seen as the standard of any planet as it is already relatively large, even next to the many Super earths we have discovered so far. This kind of conversion wouldn't be necessary with my relatively simple idea, and I see no reason to not go on with the idea of choosing between the two comparisons individually. Sir Proxima Centauri ( talk) 15:42, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
In this particular case, i am concerned with data accessibility. Having a disparate mass/radius units in same column will break sorting and merging of planet lists, and will also increase potential of misreading and mis-edits. Therefore, to avoid beforementioned problems valid options are
- Have only one unit (current practice)
- Have only one one unit, with paper source unit converted to it via equation (best practice, but difficult to maintain)
- Have both units in separate columns
Trurle ( talk) 07:18, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Now that I think about it, I would actually go even further and say I'd prefer all the units appearing after each figure, as I more often than wanted scroll back upwards to see if that's the mass or radius of the star, the radius or semi-major axis of the planet etc.. Which I think may confuse or even annoy at least some other people as well.
While doing so would probably be fairly radical enough to be more likely in uncertain future, seeing the discovery of Proxima Centauri d and further clearly Earth-sized planets only seems to confirm my original point about small planet discoveries, and I'm sure I will eventually convert the planetary mass and radii figures back to those given in the sourced papers yet again (Meaning I'm not doing as I wish but actually give official figures from the discoverers in that sense) for this entire page and see how that works out, considering that I still do not see any gain from staunchly clinging to only one respective unit, but downsides instead Sir Proxima Centauri ( talk) 08:29, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
"Now that I think about it, I would actually go even further and say I'd prefer all the units appearing after each figure"
- Regarding your statement, this is common wikipedia practice for short lists. For long lists please follow Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Tables - i.e. do not introduce any inline table elements (including units) which break sorting. Trurle ( talk) 08:07, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
- This is probably a minority view, but is it possible to use metric units and/or a conversion template? I know Template:Convert does not allow Earth/Jupiter/Sun units but perhaps one could create such a template. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk) 11:22, 4 March 2022 (UTC)