Talk:List of stars with confirmed extrasolar planets

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[edit] planet ordering

Is there any logic to the organization of these lists? They seem random to me - but am I missing something? Shouldn't the stars be in alphabetal order or something? The Singing Badger 21:03, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Multiple systems are sorted alphabetically, and single planets by increasing mass (because that's the most important attribute of the planet). Jyril 14:30, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've changed my mind. Maybe sorting by name is the most sensible way to list the planets.--Jyril 02:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] doubtful planets?

Should doubtful planets be on this page at all? Perhaps they should go in hypothetical planet instead. 132.205.15.43 05:06, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Solar system planets on hypotethicals page are mostly just hypotethical; on the other hand these doubtful planets have been false detections. Maybe they should have a list of their own as List of unconfirmed extrasolar planets (after all, this is a list of confirmed extrasolar planets). Jyril 15:45, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
I've moved the list to hypothetical planet, since they are definitely not confirmed planets, and appear to be on the way to being disproven planets. Hypothetical planet article allows for unconfirmed and disproven planets, according to what it says. 132.205.45.155 01:11, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] naming system

Why are most of these planets "b"? What about "a"? What do the letters indicate? Ubermonkey 18:29, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A is the star itself; B and C and so on are given to subsequent orbiting objects - hence the planets are generally B. I've added a bit to the article to explain that. Worldtraveller 18:35, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Planet naming


[edit] Please add Table Sorted by Distance from Earth

A frequent question is what is the distance from earth for each of these extra-solar planets. Currently you have to look up each star, make your own list, then sort them. Can you please add list of extra-solar planets sorted by distance from earth?

I don't think that would work. You would have multiple copies, all of which must be updated. Maybe sorting by name is the best way because in that way finding the right planet is easier.--Jyril 02:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Understood. Is there an external sortable database of extrasolar planets which you could provide a link to? That way people wanting to sort by any criteria could do it, and you wouldn't need multiple redundant tables. I looked around and found a few, but not sure which would be best:
http://planetquest1.jpl.nasa.gov/atlas/atlas_index.cfm (but doesn't allow querying or sorting by distance from earth)
A link at the bottom of this article: Extrasolar planet says | searchable dynamic database of extrasolar planets, but it's in German. Another external link in that article says: | Extrasolar Planet XML Database, but it's unavailable.
This is one I found that allows sorting by all criteria, and not sure if it's the best one? Joema 03:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC) http://vo.obspm.fr/exoplanetes/encyclo/catalog-main.php?mdAff=output#tc
I also agree that the sorting by distance from Earth will not work.
  • The distance from Earth for most stars is not known with absolute precision and thus the distance cannot be accurate.
  • Most astronomical catalogues sort their entries by right ascension because it can be measured accurately.
To understand this issue better, I include a brief primer on how these two measures are quantified. Position is measured simply by observing the location of the star in the sky, which can be measured to a tenth of an arc second fairly easily. On the other hand, measuring the distance to a star requires knowing the parallax of the star which is how much the position of the star changes through the year. This requires measurements of the position of the star with a much greater accuracy than the position measurement.
Most astronomical catalogues sort their entries by Right Ascension.
--  B.d.mills  (Talk) 01:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Earth orbital radii vs astronomical units

The table header lists the planet distance in multiples of Earth's orbital radius. Surely it would be better to write this number in terms of Astronomical unit, especially since the Earth's orbital radius is slightly greater than 1 AU, though at the current level of knowledge this is more a stylistic point as the discrepancy is less than the accuracy to which we know the orbits. Chaos syndrome 19:35, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sort Order and Accuracy of Masses

I'm not satisfied with the ordering of these lists and the accuracy of the imformation. The stars are ordered alphabetically by star name from various star catalogues for multiple star systems, and by increasing mass of the planet for single star systems. This is unsatisfactory for several reasons.

  • For multiple-planet systems, the choice of catalogue is chosen arbitrarily. Each star appears in multiple catalogues. Finding a particular star can be problematic if one knows it by its reference in one catalogue and the name appears in the list under another catalogue name.
  • For single-planet systems, ordering by mass is incorrect because in most cases the mass of the planet is not known with any degree of accuracy. Refinements in the estimated mass of various planets are likely. The masses also include an error range that is not listed.
  • Sorting the different lists by different criteria is confusing. The two lists should be sorted the same way.

I propose that the lists be modified as follows:

  • Include for each planet the error range for the measured mass, example 1.30 ±0.15 MJ
  • Include the Right Ascension and Declination of each star, in Epoch 2000.0 co-ordinates
  • Sort all stars by Right Ascension

Most astronomical catalogues sort their entries by right ascension (NGC, HIP, HD, Flamsteed etc) so this sort order would be logical to use here.

--  B.d.mills  (Talk) 01:27, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree the current system is unsatisfactory. Sorting by right ascension sounds reasonable, or maybe we could to what the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia does, and sort by period of the innermost planet? Chaos syndrome 12:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
This is not a primary reference for astronometrcial data. It should be sorted in a manner that a lay person may want to view it. Sorting by Right Ascension will not be helpful to the average person looking up exoplanets. This would almost certainly look like a jumbled list with no order to such a person. I think sorting by mass works for the general audience, even if it is an estimate, for single planet systems. I agree sorting by name is not good for multiplanet systems. We can probably sort first by number of planets in a system, then perhaps sort by total estimated minimal mass of planetary bodies? Zzzzzzzzzzz 20:21, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Problem is that the actual masses are unknown in the majority of cases, which makes sorting by mass rather arbitrary. Sorting by mass also isn't helpful for someone trying to find a specific system in the list. Sorting by right ascension at least gets the HD numbers (which comprise most of the star designations) in the right order, and doesn't suffer from the problems that alphabetical ordering has. As has been pointed out, the catalogue we use is fairly arbitrary. In addition, some stars - e.g. 55/Rho1 Cancri and Iota Horologii/HR 810 are commonly referred to by two names in the literature, which would affect sort order. I think if we're going to avoid arbitrariness in the sort order of the table, the choice basically comes down to period or right ascension. Ideally of course we'd have nice clickable "sort by this column" buttons and an interactive table, but like that's ever going to happen. Chaos syndrome 21:26, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
At any rate, I think that the multiple planet section should first be divided by total number of planets, and then ordered within that. Zzzzzzzzzzz 23:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 14 Herculis and OGLE-TR-111

Should 14 Herculis and OGLE-TR-111 be in the list of multiple planet systems? The second planet in both systems has not been confirmed, and this is a list of stars with confirmed extrasolar planets. I'd be inclined to put them in the single-planet systems list with a note to the effect that there is an unconfirmed second planet. Chaos syndrome 21:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing planets

According to The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia, we should have a total of 202 planets (the figure of 200 listed on the site omits the two free-floating planets). We seem to have the correct number of planets in multiple-planet systems, and the right numbers of brown dwarf, pulsar and free-floating planets, which suggests the missing planets are from the huge list of single-planet systems, which makes finding the missing entries rather tedious.

Maybe it would be easier to re-generate the tables using the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia (there are XML or text output options there which should be easy to handle in a program). The problem with this approach is that some articles use orbital elements from the Catalog of Nearby Exoplanets, which in some cases differ significantly from the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia (a notable example are the elements for 55 Cancri).

Any comments/suggestions? Chaos syndrome 20:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I checked this several months ago and there was several unpublished planets on the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia site at that time i.e. HD 11964[1] Mike s 21:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that's the reason for the discrepancy, as far as I can tell, the unpublished/unconfirmed planets aren't counted in those totals. Chaos syndrome 21:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I just checked the list of planets orbiting around Pulsars and found that PSR 1257-17 D is missing. I would add it to the table but I don't know how to do that, so if someone could add it I'll delete this comment afterwards. --alias--

I removed PSR 1257+12 D since it is not confirmed, and even if it was it is thought to be a cometary object (i.e. not a planet). Chaos syndrome 10:13, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Those planets can be placed in the List of unconfirmed exoplanets. 132.205.44.134 23:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fusing vs. Normal stars

Although the current title of the typical stars is accurate, but maybe using "normal" (as opposed to sub-stellar objects and stellar remnants) instead of "fusing" in the title would be more accessible to regular user?--JyriL talk 16:45, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, it beats the horrifically inaccurate "main sequence stars" we had before. Not sure about using "normal" though... why is a brown dwarf abnormal, and not a giant star? Some of the stars have letters describing various peculiarities in their spectra, others are variable stars of one sort or another. It is (at least from my point of view) rather dubious calling such stars "normal". Chaos syndrome 18:44, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Alternatively, we could get rid of the free-floating objects and 2M1207b since their planetary status is debatable (which probably means they aren't "confirmed planets", rather "confirmed substellar objects"), lump the pulsar planets in with the rest of them and avoid trying to think of a heading which seems to be defined by what it is not ("stars which are not pulsars, white dwarfs, black holes, brown dwarfs, other objects which it is fashionable at the time of writing to have a prejudice against..."). Maybe we should prune the list to get rid of objects >13 Jupiter masses as well. Chaos syndrome 21:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
In fact, we should probably get rid of the free-floating planets anyway, they don't fit to well with the "stars with" bit of the title. Chaos syndrome 21:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Let's keep only sections "Multiple planet systems" and "Single planet systems". Pulsar planets could be moved into own article (List of pulsar planets). Various sub-brown dwarf objects could be moved into one list as it seems that both singles and binaries are common. What comes to >13 MJ objects, I'd keep them if they're part of a planetary system (as there's possibility that they may have formed like planets). I might also keep objects that have lower bounds deep in the planetary regime.--JyriL talk 22:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. We could also start a List of planemos or something for the free-floating objects and 2M1207. Chaos syndrome 22:21, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I would not move Pulsar Planets off onto another list, as there are only 4, so it's not alot, and this list would be prejudicial against pulsar planets (like the general media is prejudiced) as a result. It seems as though the general media don't know pulsar planets even exist, and we would further that misconception by bifurcating along the lines of whether it's a normal star or not. Zzzzzzzzzzz 00:06, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
A solution would be to integrate pulsar planets into the main list of single and multiple planets. Then a separate sublist (list of pulsar planets) makes sense. Zzzzzzzzzzz 00:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
No, they should not be combined. The planets around PSR 1257+12 are very different from planets around normal stars. Also, pulsar planets doesn't fit the name of this article (BTW, why it's not List of confirmed extrasolar planets?)--JyriL talk 09:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Then if you eliminate non fusing stars, you'd have to rename the article. And as it's a list of stars with planets, it can't be very different, since it's a star with some planets. We don't discuss the composition of planets in the list. A pulsar is a star, if a pulsar has planets, and they've been confirmed, they fit the list. 23:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Another suggestion, how about making a List of confirmed planets and putting Sol system into the list? Chaos syndrome 10:18, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

We could just rename this article to be that. Sounds good. 23:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Science Fiction

Since there are suspected "rogue planets", the Sci-Fi writers would literally have a field day. Here's a sample: "At 10 pm, GMT, the scientists have found a rogue planet entering the Solar System. It is the size of Jupiter, has two Earth-like satellites in orbit." Later on, as the story progresses, society fails as chaos reigns. Later on, the new arrival settles in Earth's orbit, with three Earth-like satellites in orbit, one of which that had evidence of a intelligent civilization on it, was a "independent" planet before the alien planet arrived and taken it as another satellite. The sky now has 1/2 of it occupied by the alien planet on most nights, eclipses are that the Earth is inside the shadow, the sky shows three planets in it, two satellite planets, one massive Jovian planet, all as cresents. This could go on and on. Martial Law 07:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mu Arae

We should probably have a note about the fact that we are using the designations from Gozdziewski et al. (2006) rather than from Pepe et al. (2006), who are using a proposed new designation system based on order of characterisation of the planets, rather than discovery, even though we are using the elements from Pepe et al. (2006). Chaos syndrome 19:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links

Can we link all of the planets to their articles, or their red links, so articles can be written? Do we have a naming convention we are going by. I would suggest NASAs New World Atlas or the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia. Anyway, if no one is opposed, I will go ahead and link those soon. A mcmurray 06:49, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Around April 2005, a de facto naming convention was arrived upon: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Archive 1#Extrasolar Planets.
There is currently a proposal for a naming policy: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (astronomical objects)#Exoplanet (Extra-solar planets)
132.205.44.128 05:13, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vega is gone

In cleaning up the table-breaking triple-Vega mess, 68.252.236.172 seems to have gone to the other extreme and deleted Vega from the list completely. I personally don't feel confident enough to mess around with stuff that isn't a standard paragraph-style text, so I'm calling everyone else's attention to this matter instead.

[edit] Distance?

Someone please add a column to the table giving the approximate distance of each of these stars from Earth? That's something even laymen would be interested in. --SECurtisTX 15:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

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