Talk:List of Mercury-crossing minor planets

Addnl refs?[edit]

Regarding the request for additional sources and references, what else is there to say beyond the already existing note? It's as if one asked for additional references for the statement that « two falls betwen one and three »...

Urhixidur (talk) 07:44, 2008 June 2 (UTC)

I agree. Referring to a primary source here falls within what's allowed by WP:OR:

“

To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should:

only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and
make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source.

”

Phil Bridger (talk) 12:13, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed table expansion[edit]

Should absolute magnitude, size, and possibly observational data be added to the tables such as in the Apohele article? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apohele_asteroid ScottM84 (talk) 22:56, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Absolute magnitude makes sense, and observational data possibly. But are there any good size measurements of any of them? --JorisvS (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If size were added, there are two possibilities I see for size estimates. 1) Use a site like this to convert absolute magnitudes to a size using an assumed albedo (which seems fair enough since so many asteroid articles use an assumed albedo). 2) If a specific estimate isn't required, the ESA's NEODyS system has size ranges listed for many of the objects in the database. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ScottM84 (talk • contribs) 02:57, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the link I failed to add to my last comment: http://www.physics.sfasu.edu/astro/asteroids/sizemagnitude.html. ScottM84 (talk) 05:01, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm quite familiar with the procedure. It tends to add little, except maybe when multiple possible albedos are used, and noted that these are assumed values. And actual measurement are far more preferable than anything assumed like that, if they exist. --JorisvS (talk) 11:47, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree. Therefore, I think if it were to be added, the size ranges given by NEODyS would be more useful. My main reason for initiating this discussion is that I plan to continue expanding this and similar lists, but I want to make the expansion to the existing tables before continuing to add more objects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ScottM84 (talk • contribs) 16:44, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Great that you want to expand these lists! I understand why you'd first like to add more parameters before adding more objects. Could you be more precise about what a size column would then look like? --JorisvS (talk) 17:08, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The table on the Apohele asteroids article is pretty much what I'm envisioning. The only differences would be that this article has the notes column and that we might have a size range, rather than a specific size, listed in the diameter column, assuming we include it at all. Whether we add that one or not though, I think the absolute magnitude and observation columns would be a definite plus for this list. ScottM84 (talk) 19:20, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Giving a range in the size column is definitely better, but what do we use as lower and upper albedo limits and why? The other two columns seem good, and might it be a good addition to include the condition code of the orbit, so that the number of observations becomes more meaningful? --JorisvS (talk) 19:46, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The question of what albedo limits to use and why is why I suggested the NEODyS data. The ESA is definitely a reliable source, so if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for our purposes, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not necessarily lobbying for or against the column, though, so I'm fine with whatever decision is made. ScottM84 (talk) 20:23, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What albedos does NEODyS use? --JorisvS (talk) 01:18, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It gives assumed albedos of 0.04 and 0.20 for C and S types respectively. The size range is based on those two assumptions. ScottM84 (talk) 01:34, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An albedo of 0.04 for C-types and one of 0.20 for S-types does not yet give a range. And if you want to use 0.04–0.20 as the range when the type is unknown, I doubt that that covers everything possible there. Vesta has an albedo of 0.423, which is substantially different. --JorisvS (talk) 02:00, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

True enough. It might be something worth mentioning in an article on a specific asteroid, but probably wouldn't be as useful as part of a table in a list. ScottM84 (talk) 02:08, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, except that I don't think it is reasonable to consider 0.20 the highest possible albedo, and hence the resulting size the smallest it can be. --JorisvS (talk) 02:29, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]