Talk:Ceres (dwarf planet)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article has been selected for Version 0.5 and the next release version of Wikipedia. This Natsci article has been rated GA-Class on the assessment scale.

Ceres (dwarf planet) is part of the Solar System series, a featured topic, which means it has been identified as part of one of the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, please feel free to contribute.

WikiProject Echo has identified Ceres (dwarf planet) as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the Portuguese language Wikipedia.

Ceres (dwarf planet) (reviewed version) has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.

Parts subject to change: "Ceres (IPA /ˈsiːriz/, Latin: Cerēs), officially designated 1 Ceres, is the smallest dwarf planet in the Solar System and the only one located in the asteroid belt." - As the Dwarf Planet category may well have further bodies added to it, the assertation that it is "smallest" and "only one in the asteroid belt" may change over the next few months. Check these are still correct after any additions to the group.

An event in this article is a January 1 selected anniversary

Archives

Origin up to August 2006 Previous naming polls September 2006 October 2006

[edit] 1 Ceres

I've changed this section into a hopefully more accurate section: The Minor Planet Center has nothing to do with the 1 Ceres or (1) Ceres name, because it came into use before the Minor Planet Center existed. Adam Cuerden ^talk 17:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discovery: Fact checking

The Discovery section reads, in part:

By early February Ceres was lost as it receded behind the Sun.

I'm removing this wording on the grounds of error. (See older similar edit at Talk:Least Squares.) Modern astronomy software confirms that on 10 Feb 1801 Ceres was still more than 90 degrees away from the sun, therefore not behind the Sun, and not even lost in the Sun's glare. (Jean Meeus, in Mathematical Astronomy Morsels, p. 300, agrees.) Conjunction with the Sun did not occur until July 1801. A much more likely guess is that Ceres, which had dropped from magnitude 7.9 to 8.5 and was also lower in the western sky each evening by the end of twilight, became too dim to be seen, but the date at which this happened depends on the aperture of Piazzi's telescope. Perhaps also Ceres became lost in the star fields between the Pleiades and Hyades. My own experience is that Ceres is difficult to track with 80mm binoculars in the best of conditions, so I favor the dimness explanation. I suggest someone find Piazzi's notebook and see what he said.

Note also the earlier assertion that Piazzi's observations were interrupted by illness. I'm not in a position to confirm this, but it would seem to contradict the deleted wording. JEBrown87544 18:21, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archive

I have archived material from October 2006. RandomCritic 12:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)