Word/quotation of the moment:

yod-dropper [1]

(Previous quotes)

ALL keys matter (response to the scale-wandering rendition of the national anthem at CPAC 2021) The Lunatic-in-Charge becomes the Lunatic-at-Large Lame duck à l'orange (AKA canard à l'orange) It is a mortifying circumstance, which greatly perplexes many a painstaking philosopher, that nature often refuses to second his most profound and elaborate efforts; so that often after having invented one of the most ingenious and natural theories imaginable, she will have the perverseness to act directly in the teeth of his system, and flatly contradict his most favorite positions. This is a manifest and unmerited grievance, since it throws the censure of the vulgar and unlearned entirely upon the philosopher; whereas the fault is not to be ascribed to his theory, which is unquestionably correct, but to the waywardness of Dame Nature, who, with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, is continually indulging in coquetries and caprices, and seems really to take pleasure in violating all philosophic rules, and jilting the most learned and indefatigable of her adorers. [...] The philosophers took this in very ill part, and it is thought they would never have pardoned the slight and affront which they conceived put upon them by the world had not a good-natured professor kindly officiated as a mediator between the parties, and effected a reconciliation. Finding the world would not accommodate itself to the theory, he wisely determined to accommodate the theory to the world. — Washington Irving, Knickerbocker's History of New York Pela primeira vez na sua vida a morte soube o que era ter um cão no regaço. For the first time in her life, death knew what it felt like to have a dog in her lap. — José Saramago, Death with Interruptions / Death at Intervals It is now generally accepted that the megaliths that make up Stonehenge were moved by human effort. — as opposed to by what? Anybody who says you only have yourself to blame is just not very good at blaming other people. — It's Happy Bunny When poppies pull themselves up from their roots and start out, one after the other, toward the sunset – don't follow them. — Slavko Janevski, 'Silence' And the dough-headed took their acid fermentation for a soul, the stabbing of meat for history, the means of postponing their decay for civilization. — Stanislaw Lem, Return from the Stars The Church says that the Earth is Flat, but I know that it is Round, for I have seen its Shadow on the Moon, and I have more Faith in a Shadow than in the Church. — (commonly misattributed to Magellan) In the early years of the study there were more than 200 speakers of the dialect, including one parrot. — from the WP article Nancy Dorian Mikebrown is unusually eccentric and not very bright. [...] Astronomers have not noticed any outbursts by Mikebrown. — from the WP article 11714 Mikebrown Ecce Mono Keep Redskins White! "homosapiens are people, too!!" a sprig of spaghetti "I've always had a horror of husbands-in-law." awkwardnessful anti–zombie-fungus fungus "Only an evil person would eat baby soup." (said in all sincerity)

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Here (1:30). Uses circle+down-arrow for Eris. Double sharp (talk) 13:27, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. That would seem to explain where the alt Makemake and Haumea glyphs come from, then. I've only seen the alt Makemake in actual use once (I think Solar Fire uses it), and the other only in decorative use. Do you think Seltzer came up with the Eris arrow glyph, then? That's what it sounds like.

What of recent use of the PL monogram? I know NASA had it up in a list of symbols, but it would be nice to cite actual astronomical use. — kwami (talk) 13:42, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I remember seeing it in Physics and Chemistry of the Solar System (p. 64), but that's 2004. Double sharp (talk) 15:36, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pre-DP, but that might work. Contrasts the monogram in a list of planets vs the other symbol in list of DPs. Also, I like the ang.mom. numbers. 33% Saturn vs 55% Jupiter, makes sense of the resonance pulled Jupiter out of the inner SS. — kwami (talk) 16:00, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, I noticed that the Chen+Kipping source I mentioned for the planetary symbols does not use a symbol for Pluto even though Pluto is plotted in the chart. Luna is in the same situation. Though maybe that was for consistency with the other DPs and moons plotted (Eris; Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Rhea, Titan, Titania, Oberon, Triton). Double sharp (talk) 10:19, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I was going to ask where that was. Thanks. — kwami (talk) 21:29, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I like the paper a lot, but shouldn't we de-emphasise its conclusions a bit because of its age? They're currently in a lot of pages like Rhea, Ariel, Orcus, Planetary-mass moon, etc. It models that subsurface oceans could exist today on Sedna and Orcus because of radiogenic heating, but only because it was assumed then that Orcus had a ~1600 km diameter (they cite this 2004 study). We now know that it's more like just over half that. Given that they noted that Quaoar at then-assumed ~1300 km could not support one, it seems to me that only Haumea, Makemake (not covered in this study), and Eris still are plausible candidates under this model.

The other thing is that while their model suggests the possibility of a subsurface ocean for Rhea, it seems like later measurements suggest that Rhea's interior is homogeneous, and so there would not be one. Also, the model does not account for tidal heating on bodies like Enceladus, where it would be important, and they admit that. Presumably this is why Dione, although too small for this model, may still have one today; and also why objects like Miranda and Ariel are considered today as candidates (because they may have been in resonance recently enough to still have the subsurface ocean today). Admittedly this wouldn't be much of a factor for the TNOs.

Finally the study also seems to be a bit optimistic about freezing-point depression from ammonia, according to this later 2016 review (maller bodies like Charon or Rhea have too little radiogenic heat to maintain an ocean at present, unless very severe melting-point depression is invoked [Hussmann et al., 2006].) Rhea we now know probably doesn't have an ocean, as I just said, and there's some evidence that Charon's froze long ago. Double sharp (talk) 15:50, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The Dawn, Cassini and NH missions all informed us, so ideally we'd want something after ppl'd had time to digest their data. — kwami (talk) 18:40, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've made some edits. Re Dawn, it still seems disputed if Ceres actually still has an ocean today. Though now there's a paper claiming that Mimas(!) might be an ocean world too, which would certainly be a surprise to current understanding. Double sharp (talk) 19:25, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It seems CNSA might grant my wish after all: JCO and JSO would study the size, mass, and composition of Jupiter’s irregular satellites—those captured by Jupiter rather than formed in orbit, and often in distant, elliptical and even retrograde orbits—complementing science conducted by NASA’s Europa Clipper and Lucy missions, as well as the European Space Agency’s JUICE mission. Then the concepts diverge, with JCO going to Callisto and JSO to Io and then Sol-Jupiter L1. Well, with proposals like this and the Quaoar one, it seems like no matter what flies, it'll be really cool. :D Double sharp (talk) 19:27, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

:) — kwami (talk) 23:41, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since you mentioned that Proxima b and c are probably its "giants", and I ran the numbers and found that indeed you could have something orbiting Proxima that would clear its orbit but still not be big enough to be round:

Well, maybe we could do a similar take on the ring-moon systems of our neighbours. Well, Jupiter's "inner planets" are clearly the Amalthea group, with "asteroid belts" (rings) between them. Further out are its four "giant planets": the Galilean moons. Then it has an "Oort cloud" of irregular satellites. (Which is indeed pretty much a spherical cloud that doesn't care about being in the plane of the system at all!) Similar takes for Saturn and Uranus: we even have "Kirkwood gaps" in Saturn's rings, caused by Mimas as "Saturn's rather diminutive Jupiter". Neptune clearly stands as a warning to stars trying to capture rogue giant planets. :D

Yeah, I often wondered how you could possibly give a count of moons for Saturn. Then they came up with the term 'moonlet' for those who haven't cleared their neighborhood, but only use it for the innermost system. All natural categories leak. — kwami (talk) 00:25, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't Methone and Aegaeon then moonlets? Come to think of it, is there any sane argument for calling Aegaeon a moon and even giving it a permanent number, but not just about every large ring particle further in?

Extra thought: Nereid must then be Neptune's "Planet Nine"! :D Double sharp (talk) 00:27, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dunno. How do you define a "moonlet"? AFAIK they only used the term for things like the propeller moonlets in the rings. Move one of them out of the rings, and it's just a (tiny) moon. — kwami (talk) 00:29, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I was going by what you'd just said – "moonlet" for something that fails to clear its neighbourhood. I guess orbiting right in the middle of a ring arc would count as failing that? Double sharp (talk) 00:36, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(Which means that shepherd moons have "cleared the neighbourhood", and would be planets if one thought of Jupiter and Saturn as sub-brown dwarfs. Which is a bit silly, but probably just goes to illustrate that the IAU definition really has two notions fighting each other, roundness and orbital dominance, and that the fact that one is subsumed in the other for our Solar System is only a coincidence. Not to mention that this suggests that an extrasolar Janus and Epimetheus, or extrasolar trojan planets, might not be far-fetched at all!) Double sharp (talk) 00:20, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Trojans are only stable to what, 10% the mass of the secondary? I wonder why we didn't get a trojan planet w Jupiter. Maybe the resonance w Saturn would've disrupted it? — kwami (talk) 00:27, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Jupiter trojan#Origin and evolution seems to suggest something like that happened: Jupiter captured some trojans while the giant planets were migrating, but when the resonance with Saturn was reached, the existing ones were ejected. Apparently only weak resonances are needed for that to happen, and about a sixth of the current trojans might not be stable over the age of the Solar System either.

It's more like 1% according to Trojan (celestial body)#Stability, and it gets stricter as more massive bodies are in the vicinity. (Suggesting that it's Saturn's fault after all, again.) Double sharp (talk) 00:35, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's a different figure than when I read about it. Maybe its 1% for stability over the age of the SS? Ties into Thea, where the 0.1 Earth-mass of the impactor was explained as the limit of stability for a trojan. — kwami (talk) 00:39, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Come to think of it, this suggests that we should actually see subsatellites of irregular satellites. Further in it wouldn't work, for reasons similar to why Mercury and Venus don't have moons. And indeed it seems likely that Saturn's Kiviuq is at least a contact binary. Double sharp (talk) 00:38, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but how would one form with that little material around to be captured? And I wonder if there isn't an additional parameter: that the gravitational effect needs to be significant over the distance of their separation. Maybe if a galileian-mass moon were in the outer system. — kwami (talk) 00:42, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

True, but maybe one might form in a collision? After all, the current families around Jupiter probably formed when a captured asteroid broke up. We now know some prograde moons crossing over into the retrograde region (Valetudo, S/2004 S 24), so over the age of the SS, I'd expect some collisions to have happened. Halimede seems to be a fragment of Nereid, so maybe Neptune's system might have one of these, thanks to all the violence Triton must've created?

I wonder how Kiviuq became a contact binary, especially when apparently its fellow Inuit-group moons Siarnaq and Paaliaq also look like contact-binaries. (So does Ymir, though.) I mean, probably they were already that way when they got captured, but who knows.

Though the fact that we don't see them around Phoebe is itself probably a data point. Though now I wonder again what's going on with the brightness variations reported for Nereid. Which is after all not much smaller than Mimas, which can pull its weight around more massive Saturn's system. Double sharp (talk) 00:48, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Template:Aleph and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 February 4#Template:Aleph until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:55, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you. Skyerise (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That includes 3RR notices when there are not 3 reverts in the last 24 hours. That's intentional bullying and harassment. If you can't count three reverts, you are misusing the warning. Skyerise (talk) 04:56, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you start an edit-war, I will warn you on your talk page. That's because you will game the system any way you can, and I suspect that if I didn't post a 3RR warning, then you would argue that you're allowed to edit-war because you didn't get a warning. If you want a collegial atmosphere, then start editing in good faith.

BTW, it is acceptable on WP to make trivial changes within quotations, such as initial capitalization and final periods <-> commas. Or at least it was last time I checked. — kwami (talk) 05:01, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hypocrite. You start edit-warring all the time, multiple reverts in rapid succession. If you can, so can I. If you push it to and sometimes past, so can I. Deal with it. But don't post another 3RR warning on my page ever again. If you want to report me, it's sufficient to link the first one you ever posted. You don't warn people over and over again. And I don't give a flying eff about your warnings. I know how to count. Skyerise (talk) 05:07, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So you're gaming the system by counting BOLD violations. That won't prevent you from being blocked under 3RR. — kwami (talk) 05:10, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Any editor may ask another not to post on their talk page - even optional warnings aren't allowed and are considered WP:HARASSMENT. You're gaming the system by giving harassing warnings at one revert. Stop harassing me on my talk page. I understand 3RR and I don't need more warnings from you. It's an optional warning that you are using to harass. The only required notices are when you actually file a report. I know this is the case and I've had it enforced before. Just stop. Skyerise (talk) 05:13, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I take your comment as a confession; you do the same damn thing - push your reverts right up to the line. But nobody else is allowed to act just like you. I bet you hate mirrors too. You're the best teacher ever! I've learned more ways of gaming the system by watching your actions than from any other editor. Superb gamer! Skyerise (talk) 05:16, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So, I've asked you not to post on my talk page any more, but you're still allowed to because ... you're you? You've asked me not to post on your talk page any more, so I'm not allowed to because ... I'm not you? Help me with the logic here. — kwami (talk) 05:21, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't stop. Every time you post an unnecessary 3RR warning, you are giving me permission to post on your talk page in response. Skyerise (talk) 05:26, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]