Talk:Moons of Uranus/Archive 1

Question marks?

Why are there question marks next to each mass value? Isn't the notion that these are estimates assumed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.79.55.212 (talk) 14:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Rearranging list

I'm going to rearrange the list by distance from Uranus rather than Roman Numeral; this makes the list more useful because it gives a picture of where the moons are in relation to each other. The Singing Badger 17:47, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Definitely. kwami

Data

I've just noticed that there are a few inconsistencies between the table of data in this article and the infoboxes in the individual articles. These need an authoritative review / correction at some point. Thanks, Ian Cairns 20:21, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

highlighting

I'm highlighting the moons of the gas giants according to the following criteria: Lunar sized (Galileans, Titan, Triton) bold name in a medium voilet background (style="background:#ccccff";); smaller spheroidal moons (Saturn & Uranus) bold name in a lavender background (style="background:#eeeeff"); irregular moons not bold and on a white background.

I expect that some of you will object to these categories, and perhaps something else would be better. My idea was that the lunar-size category is one of general human interest, and the spheroidal/irregular distinction is relatively objective and is found frequently in the scientific literature. Especially in the case of Saturn, I think it's important to do something to make the tables more visually accessible and to make the 'main' moons easier to find. They're getting too big to easily navigate. kwami 05:49, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Naming

Just wondering, has there been any proposal for the names of the tiny Hubble moons, discovered in 2003? Caesarion 17:28, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Not yet. The IAU only announces new names once every few years. The Singing Badger 18:21, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I was asked on my talk page where the new satellite names came from. They come from the USGS' Planetary Nomenclature page, http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/append7.html . This page is the official page for the Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature, and in addition to naming features on planets and moons, they provide names for satellites. Volcanopele 17:59, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Margaret (UXXIII, 2003 U3)

According to [1], S/2003 U3 has been named Margaret. This page, however, skips UXXII, going straight from UXXI to UXXIII. Should we change the page to reflect this naming?

I guess it must be true if it's on the USGS page. Perhaps they're naming them one by one and not in discovery order, hence the skipping of the numbers? By the way, I'm surprising it's named after the rather dull character in Much Ado - the firey Queen Margaret in the Henry VI tetralogy is far more deserving of a having a space rock named after her. The Singing Badger 14:30, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, you made a real mess of things Badger, can we leave it to you to fix it? You moved the S/2001 U 1 article to Margaret, instead of the correct S/2003 U 3. And also, you've missed why the Much Ado reference was made: it's an injoke among the discoverers about the current real world Much-Ado being made about 2003 EL61, 2003 UB313 and Pluto and names, and naming, etc. --Sturmde 17:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Hey, Sturmde, you still haven't gotten us that Much Ado reference!

As for the numbering, I just heard back from the USGS. The UXXIII and NX numbers are not typos: UXXII and NIX are still undergoing confirmation. kwami 23:24, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I just noticed the above comments. Sorry I buggered up. <:( I guess my confusion proves the usefulness of names over numbers! The Singing Badger 23:39, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm...So if U XXII doesn't pan out, will they assign the number to some other moon or leave the gap forever gaping?

Urhixidur 03:55, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I can't imagine them assigning the number unless they'd confirmed the moon, but then why not announce it? Maybe the moon that will be UXXII has been confirmed and accepted, but there's some objection or debate on the name? kwami 09:24, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Uranus XXII is S/ 2001 U3, or Francisco. It appears that this name to longer to approve that others (or was changed from the original suggestion that was rejected). Volcanopele 23:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Table versus Detail Pages

You did a super job in keeping the table updated to agree with the detail pages! Great work. Thank you! Tesseract501 2 June, 2006

albedo & diameters of the irregulars

Nasa and University of Hawaii sources quoted for the table differ in the assumption on the albedo (0.04 versus 0.07) potentially leading to confusion. Would be nice to put a note and perhaps the 0.04-based diameters first with the 0.07-based in brackets for example. I believe most current publications on the irregular satellites use 0.04-based figures including the popular Sheppard/Jewitt pages. Eurocommuter 23:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Diameter

The diameter of Sycorax can currently only be estimated:
Sheppard (150km / albedo 0.04) 2004 arXiv
NSSDC (150km / albedo 0.07)
JPLSSD (190km / albedo 0.07 / H=7.78) Icarus PDF
--Kheider (talk) 18:36, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Graph of the irregulars corrected

Due to the data file formatting error the diameters of irregular satellites plotted on my diagram were all wrong. Sorted. Eurocommuter 11:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect use of apostrophe in title

Why does this have the incorrect use of the apostrophe in the title? It should be "Uranus's natural satellites". This needs to be changed. Jim77742 06:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"Incorrect" is a matter of opinion. Quite a few journals omit 's after s, z, and x, especially in Classical, Biblical, or French names. There is no one standard for this in English. I expect quite a few people pronounce Uranus’ with a single s, though I personally pronounce it with two. kwami 15:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Well even following other guidelines it seems that if it's pronounced with two it should be 's on the end. I've never heard the plural of Uranus pronounced with one "s". Unless others object I will change the title. Jim77742 11:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Doing a quick Google search, backs up kwami's point. This site agrees with you, this site says

Words ending with s, z or x generally omit the "s."

This site initially goes with your version, says the other version is acceptable, but that consistency is key. Personally, I don't care, but the current version looks more correct to me, for the little that it's worth (possibly less than 2 cents). Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 13:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I get the impression that more formal written English tends to omit the 2nd ess, while more colloquial writing tends to include it. kwami 15:42, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Acually if anything I view it the other way around! I'm getting the impression this might be a US thing. All the above sites quotes have American URLs. From a purely logical point of view the apostrophe tells who is possessing what. This is cut from the apostrophe article:

• my sister's friend's investments (I have one sister and she has one friend.)
• my sisters' friends' investments (I have many sisters and they have many friends.)
• my sisters' friend's investments (I have many sisters and they have one friend.)
• my sister's friends' investments (I have one sister and she has many friends.)

So "Uranus' natural satellites" says "you have lots of 'Uranu' and they all have natural satellites". Makes no sense. It seems that maybe US grammar has it both ways, whereas British, Australian and other countries seem to have it one way - the logical form. Over here, occasionally (read rarely) where you pronounce the word with one "s" then the last "s" might be dropped. But it seems the possessive of Uranus is pronounced "Uranuses natural satellites" by just about everyone.

I really don't want to have a large protracted argument about this - I'm after consensus here. Jim77742 23:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Just for the record, I'm more "discussing" than "arguing" because I really don't care. :) That said, I think you might be right about it being a US thing, as my first thought (as an American) was that you were just wrong. Then I decided to look it up. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

No, it's also British usage. For example, the OED has for conscience’ sake as well as Moses’ etc. W3 says, describing pre-Usonian usage, "In early Modern English the s of the possessive was often dropped from the possessive of nouns already ending in an s or z sound, both in speaking and in writing, leaving only the apostrophe in writing ... Since the middle of the 19th century, however, the form with the apostrophe and s has been generally adopted for the possessives in which the extra syllable is not awkward to pronounce in context." So there is an element of conservatism to writing Uranus’ (and Mars’, for that matter -- there is a similar discussion going on over there). kwami 00:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, Jim is mixing up possessives with plurals, which are not relevant here. kwami 00:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but conscience' sake and Moses'are special cases. I think Mars's is more formal. I found that far more often in more formal sources online. Encyclopedia Britannica, Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic, Encarta, Scientific American,Nature, the New York Times, the Guardian etc. use it. The Chicago Manual of Style, which is huge in book publishing, recommends it (but allows the alternative) . And plural vs singular form is relevant here... If Mars were plural, then only one sSaros136 05:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

(Jim was arguing that adding only as apostrophe would make "Uranus" plural.) Took a look at the Wikipedia article on the apostrophe, and they give the Times as an example of an institution that would write Uranus’, and the Times is pretty conservative. Remember that Classical names often get treated differently than more colloquial names. Wk also says that "Jesus’" is called "an accepted liturgical archaism" in Hart's Rules, so again, it seems that adding a simple apostrophe to words ending in /s/ or /z/ is neither a recent colloquialism nor specifically Usonian. kwami 06:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about misreading Jim. They are wrong about the theTimes. I was Googling on "Mars's moons" vs Mars' moons. (using the quotes makes google search for the exact phrase) only one case of one s, in a summary of a movie review. The others: here. Saros136 06:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Times reference given in apostrophe would make an exception for Greek names of two or more syllables. But they do in fact write Uranus's moons [2]Saros136 06:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I think they are making a distinction between classical names directly referring to mythological/classical figures and the same referring to astronomical objects. Saros136 07:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Might be. Overall, I got 1720 Google hits for "Mars's moons" vs. 8560 for "Mars' moons" - five times as many. For Uranus, the figs are 1410 vs. 5490 - almost four times as many. So if we're going to consider a simple Google search, we should stick with the titles as we now have them. Of course, another solution is to rename the articles "Uranian natural satellites" and "Martian natural satellites", or "Natural satellites of Uranus" etc. Actually, that's not a bad idea. If we're going to argue minutiae of the use of apostrophes, then maybe we should argue about grammaticality: the genitive case tends to be used with animate nouns (John's face), while periphrasis is used with inanimates (the face of the clock). Not 100%, of course, but you get variation with inanimates that is not as acceptable for animates. kwami 07:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

More stats: Googled "moons of Mars" at 67,100 hits, and "moons of Uranus" at 36,600. So for Uranus, that breaks down to 84% periphrasis, 13% apostrophe, and 3% apostrophe-ess. For Mars, the figures are a similar 87%, 11%, and 2%, showing that this is consistant across words. Therefore I vote to change all articles to "moons of X". (What's the point of using the less colloquial phrase "natural satellites", anyway?) kwami 07:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I like your suggestion kwami! I think we should change it to "Moons of Uranus". I'm going to create a straw poll on the topic. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 12:30, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Please don't start examining google statistics as evidence for english grammar or anything else. It is highly skewed and is not representative of the statistical population, let alone truth (whatever that is!). Also, as below I'll vote for a name change. However let's make it consistent with all planets. Jim77742 22:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree, though in this case the Google hits are consistant with other textual data. kwami 00:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Your original argument was that Uranus' is more formal than the alternative and so should be used. Since the opposite is true, shouldn't you change you position? I agree that we should get rid of natural satellites in the titles, though. Saros136 06:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Why do you say the opposite is true? kwami

I'm going by the usage in the sources I cited. If I want to get an idea of current usage, I usually look at some of those (for the fairly formal), and maybe style manuals. Actually, I've mostly used American sources, although the Guardian is not. Saros136 06:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

And I strongly disagree about the possessive forms of inanimate objects. Britannica, Time, The New York Times all use clock's, for one thing. All the sources cited above are happy to do this with inanimate objects. And this whole discussion shows how all levels of English form possessives of astronomical objects-it's so acceptable that the most serious encyclopedias use this in titles. If Britannica can, Wikipedia sure can. Saros136 08:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say that you can't have genitive case on inanimates, only that there's a strong (~85%) tendency in the English language not to, whereas it's nearly universal with proper names. This is amply demonstrated by several corpus studies. Titles may be an exception because the genitive construction is more concise. kwami 13:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Puck

Someone requested an English translation of the caption for the image of Puck. Here it is:

"Image captured by Voyager 2 on January 24, 1986 of the Uranian moon Puck (from a distance of 493,000 km). Taken from FDS 26837.16"

I would've made the change myself but the page wouldn't let me. Mr Instamatic 19:54, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Straw poll on article name

Which of these titles do you prefer:

1. Uranus' natural satellites
2. Uranus's natural satellites
3. Uranian natural satellites
4. Natural satellites of Uranus
5. Uranus' moons
6. Uranus's moons
7. Uranian moons
8. Moons of Uranus

Points raised:

of Uranus

For: avoids issue of apostrophes

Against: longer

natural satellites

For: small bodies not "moons"

Against: jargon —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwamikagami (talk • contribs) 17:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• Moons of Uranus: Avoids the whole apostrophe question, has more hits on Google, and we're already calling them moons anyway. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 12:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
• Moons of Uranus: As I noted above, the construction "X of Y" is more common for inanimate nouns, whereas "Y's X" is more common for animate nouns. (Actually, it's a cline, based on a scale of animacy.) Also, that is parallel to Rings of Uranus. I prefer moons over natural satellites as less jargony. There is one hitch, however: whereas changing the convention for apostrophes after s only affects Mars and Uranus, changing the construction and the word we use for satellite involves articles on the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto, and maybe others, all of which should use the same format. (Note we already have a table on "Jovian satellites" which doesn't fit either.) That means we need to involve editors of those articles; if this starts going somewhere, we should post notices on their talk pages. kwami 17:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
• Natural satellites of Uranus : The problem with moons is that some people dispute the term in much the same way planet is disputed. With moon, you'd have people diputing the inclusion of small irregulars on the grounds that they are undeserving of the name moon. The term Uranian doesn not quite work for me. JamesFox 12:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Do people argue that for Mars, too, or only for the outer planets? kwami 08:35, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Both of the Martian moons are small irregulars-thought to be captured asteroids-but it is hardly ever argued that they should not be called moons. Mars doesn't have the Jovian-type rings, and in fact no other natural bodies are ever mentioned orbiting the planet. Saros136 08:54, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

• Satellites of Uranus: No need to qualify it with natural; dropping the natural makes it more concise, simpler, and stronger. Sounds better too. Moons of Uranus is probably more vague and disputed, but not too much so, and is almost as good. Uranus's satellites and Uranus's moons are also good, but I'd prefer the first two. The use of the apostrophe is correct, in my opinion, but disputed. These are all in good company outside Wikipedia. Saros136 07:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree about dropping the 'natural', but I expect that most people will want the same format for all planets, and someone will object that Cassini is a satellite of Saturn, ect., so we need the 'natural'. That may be a little silly, but they can probably make the argument as well as we can argue the genitive form. kwami 08:35, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I thought about the possible misunderstanding when I made the suggestion, but decided that rejecting it on those grounds is trying to hard to avoid it. After all, the is a possible misunderstanding of Moons of Uranus, as JamesFox pointed out. I don't think either misunderstanding will be all that common, and at any rate will soon be discovered by those reading. I now consider both equal, not "almost equal" as before. I wish we had input from more people, but if not we have a clear three-to-one winner. Yea! Saros136 08:20, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

P.S. The footers are currently headed "Moons of Uranus" etc. Presumably we'd want them to have the same titles as the articles. kwami 00:40, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

That's a point. I think you should have the honor of making the change, since it was your idea. I say there's no need to wait, just leave an explanation on the pages. Saros136 08:29, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to put a notice on the other planets' talk pages first. kwami 19:29, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

It's a sad day that I need to bring this up but given the amount of vandalism on Uranus's article and the term mooning - are you sure you want "Moons of Uranus"? Natural satellites of Uranus sounds pretty good to me. Jim77742 11:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Good point, but I doubt it can make it much worse. kwami 10:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

So now we have had a series of massive changes of article names (sometimes with, sometimes without accompanying changes to text), justified on the basis of a "straw poll" located in one secondary article in which precisely two people voted for the "moons" reading. Some mandate for change! RandomCritic 19:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Notice was given on all articles, not just here. You evidently didn't care one way or the other, so don't complain. kwami 21:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

After the fact, I should say I think Moons of Uranus was the best choice. The problem with "natural satellites of Uranus" is that the rings are made up of (small) natural satellites and aren't included in the article. 70.15.116.59 18:58, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

How unstable?

Can the instability of the moons of Uranus potentially shoot a moon or chunk thereof entirely away from the planet? Could a sufficiently well-calculated strategy use power sources on a human scale to arrange a collision and send a moon or chunk thereof shooting out as terraforming tool or weapon? 70.15.116.59 18:52, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Sortability

If we're going to take this to FL, then the FL people will demand that it be sortable, because that's what FL people do. However, I've tried to make the list sortable but for some reason the bot can't read the figures properly. Serendi^podous 23:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Discovery order? "2005" reference

I'm browsing through the article and fixing up small things as fresh pair of eyes and this keeps popping up. It happened once in the opening paragraph which I edited, but its also in the Discovery section:

There are two references to two moons being discovered in 2005. They were unnamed in the intro, so I changed it to 2003 and added the names Francisco and Margaret, which were the last two discovered. However, it names these two supposed moons discovered in 2005 as Cupid and Mab in the discovery section. These were also discovered in 2003, and before Francisco and Margaret. Am I missing something here? SkarmCA (talk) 03:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional: Francisco was first observed in 2001, but published as a discovery in 2003. In this article we list 2001. Regardless, as long as we agree which date we're using we'll be fine. If we consider Francisco 2001 it changes the three moons discovered the latest in 2003 as Cupid, Mab, and finally Margaret. SkarmCA (talk) 03:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Mab and Cupid were observed in 2003-2005. So if one considers the date of the first observation as discovery date then they were discovered in 2003. Ruslik (talk) 09:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

• Mab (S/2003 U1) and Cupid (S/2003 U2) were both announced on 2003-09-25.
• Margaret (S/2003 U3) was announced on 2003-10-09 (without a S/2001 U designation).
• Francisco (S/2001 U3) was actually confirmed in 2002. (See Table 3)
• Ferdinand (S/2001 U2) was announced on 2003-10-01.

So Ferdinand would be the discovery year I would question the most. But since it was spotted by two different sites a month apart in 2001, I have no problem with calling it a 2001 discovery even if it was briefly lost. -- Kheider (talk) 11:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

While this isn't the same Wiki article I know generally the same team wrote the Timeline of discovery article. For the sake of presenting a unified answer, here is what we have listed in that article on the last five moons in question.

• Mab & Cupid spotted 25 Aug 2003, published 25 Sep 2003. 2003 is correct then. I don't see any reference to 2005 anywhere, and Kheider's articles confirm that.
• Margaret spotted 29 Aug 2003, published Oct 2003. No problems with 2003 here.
• Ferdinand was spotted in 2001, published in 2003.
• Francisco spotted 2001, published 2003.

Are we going with publish date for our table? SkarmCA (talk) 14:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I do not object. Ruslik (talk) 14:08, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

FLC

The article is, in my opinion, almost ready for FLC. However it can benefit from additional copy-editing. The table in Moons of Jupiter contains additional columns (eccentricity, discoverer and group). Do we need them? Ruslik (talk) 18:30, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Are there any Uranian satellite groups? Otherwise yes I think those fields should be included. Serendi^podous 18:37, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Groups are: inner, major and irregular. The latter are additionally divided in Sycorax group (retrogare) and Margarete (prograde). Ruslik (talk) 19:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

We should probably mention the Sycorax and Margarete groups in the article. Serendi^podous 19:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I will continue copyediting later this evening. Perhaps we should leave the nomination until after the weekend for last minute spruce ups? SkarmCA (talk) 22:05, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I added those fields myself as hidden two days ago - as they are included in the Jupiter one. Now the information for the discovered and eccentricity is included also. I am not sure weather the group column is truly required since unlike for Jupiter, there doesn't seem to be a clear grouping of the planets (besides the one allready shown by the color scheme). Nergaal (talk) 07:41, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Spurious moons

Wouldn't this subsection be better served in the Discovery section? SkarmCA (talk) 07:24, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I was beefing up the discovery section and I realized that there is a good overlap with the Spurious section. Plus, that section presents the infomation from a historical perspective, rather than from a descriptive one. Nergaal (talk) 07:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I moved this subsection into Discover section. Ruslik (talk) 13:51, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks you beat me to it Ruslik. SkarmCA (talk) 16:18, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment

Uranus#Moons has more information about the characteristics of the moons than is included in this article. I would suggest either expanding the lead, or add another section ==Characteristics== that would mirror the one on the Moons of Jupiter. Nergaal (talk) 08:03, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Merged info from Uranus. Serendi^podous 12:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I removed some material that duplicated what already had been in "Major moons" subsection. Otherwise it is OK now. Ruslik (talk) 13:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I put back some material that wasn't in the major moons section. Serendi^podous 17:17, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Ruslik (talk) 17:29, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Names section

I'm pretty sure that the information it currently presents is correct, but it seems to wring a LOT of implications out of the two words in Lassell's paper. Unless there's something I missed, I think we're going to need a new source, ideally John Herschel's original paper in which he originated the naming scheme. Serendi^podous 12:34, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

expansion?

there is nothing about the formation of the moons! If for the inner moons might not be too clear, the major moons should definately explain something (why are there so many such large moons?); also needs to be explained that the irregulars are thought to be captured moons. Nergaal (talk) 04:11, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

images

If this were a FAC somebody would have commented about it already, but somebody should really take a look at the image pages - at least the images outside the table. Some information is missing and so on. Nergaal (talk) 18:41, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Image of Miranda lacks source information. All other images are OK. However Miranda is from commons and it is their problem. Ruslik (talk) 19:00, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I have sourced Miranda over at commons. -- Kheider (talk) 21:35, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

File:Uranian system schematic.jpg for example. Nergaal (talk) 08:01, 5 January 2009 (UTC)