Talk:Methone (moon)

Untitled
I was looking through the USGS Astrogeology page, and came across this list of moon names and etymologies. Scroll down to Saturn's section. Methone and Pallene? These could only refer to s/2004 S1 and S2, but I can find no other references to them by those names. Anyone know anything about this? Maybe they're proposed names... --Patteroast 23:53, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

pronunciation
Robert Fagels, in the glossary for his translation of the Iliad, gives the pronunciation of Methone as me-thoh'-nee.

Confirmation and partial Greek spelling (no indication of stress) from UCSB classics dept. kwami 02:42, 2005 May 4 (UTC)

Saturn satellites
Hello. You keep changing the attribution of the discovery of Pallene, Methone and Polydeuces to Carolyn Porco. This is wrong, those satellites have been discovered by Sébastien Charnoz and Carl Murray. You claim to be representing Carolyn Porco. I think it is a lie as Ms Porco perfectly knows she has not discovered those satellites and i cannot believe she would try to abuse the scientific community. In the future if you change once again the attribution of the discovery i will ask you to provide a certified message from Sébastien Charnoz and Carl Murray stating they have not discoevered those satellites. Thank you very much. Regards. Med 16:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Response to your comments from Carolyn Porco
Here is Carolyn Porco's response to your comments, emailed to me: 'The official attribution for sightings of new moons or rings or features on the moons made by the Cassini imaging team members in Cassini images goes to the Cassini Imaging Team. This is standard practice in the astronomical community and is sanctioned by the International Astronomical Union. It would be entirely unfair and inappropriate to credit the 'discovery' to any one individual on a team of many scientists where many people contributed to the discovery. After all, no one attributes the discovery of America to the guy in the crow's nest of Christopher Columbus' ship. Furthermore, the first reports of these sightings were published in the IAU Circulars which are accurately referenced in the Wiki entries, and those reports constitute the offical announcement of the sightings along with the authorship `C.C.Porco and the Cassini Imaging Team'. This is not an abuse of any kind; it is standard practice, and it is the *correct* attribution for these discoveries'.

I suggest that you email Carolyn at cpcomments@ciclops.org if you wish to discuss this matter further. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.154.32.254 (talk) 23:09, 21 April 2007 (UTC).

Erroneous Attribution
To the individual who keeps trying to credit S. Charnoz with the discovery of these moons...

You are completely ignorant of the way that scientific attribution is assigned, and have no business making edits to these pages. Charnoz is *not* the discoverer of these moons. He merely helped in their discovery, as did other imaging team members. The official credit does to the entire Cassini Imaging team. You are violating the spirit of Wikipedia to make mistaken alterations.
 * Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Polydeuces_(moon)#Discovery_Attribution, Syntaxis has perfectly explained why you are utterly wrong. If you don't stop i will have administrators make you blocked for repeated vandalism. Mrs Porco can get mad as much as she wants wikipedia does not care about her inflated ego. Med 08:16, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Response
You misunderstand your own argument! The way the credit is currently given on the Polydeuces page is correct! So that is what is being done for Methone and Pallene, which is to say that you must agree with it. So why do you keep changing it? Carolyn Porco has nothing to do with this. This is the way discoveries are credited. And if you have something against Porco, which you obviously do, take it up directly with her.
 * You obviously have some serious understanding problems of simple sentences. What in “If we are going to start naming people in relation to the discovery then Carl Murray should be named if Carolyn Porco is. We should either follow one proceedure or the other. Its just 'Cassini Imaging Science Team' or 'Carl Murray and the Cassini Imaging Science Team lead by Carolyn Porco'” (embolding by myself) don't you understand? What you do is removing the discoverer name and adding Porco's one. Either you put both names (as currently) or you put none. I advise you to read what is on the Polydeuces talk page until you understand it. Until then, stop editing. Oh and i don't know Porco, I just notice that she sends dogsbodies altering the name of the discoverers, thus obviously breaching the research ethics. I am not so sure her funding institutes would appreciate this kind of behaviour if they came to know. Regards, Med 20:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I really didn't want to get into this so I am only going to say this once. The official attribution for the discovery of Methone (and Pallene) is "The Cassini Imaging Team".  That is the discover as far as the IAU is concerned.  In the info box, that is who should be attributed.  Now, yes, the person who actually looked at that data, observed these two moons, and reported it to the team is out there because of the press releases.  That can't be helped, it's too late now.  In the future, you more than likely won't hear about this kinda detail again to avoid confusion.  So, for these two moons, I can certainly understand that a phrase be put in regarding the discovery circumstances, since again, for these moons, that information is out there in press releases and on the BBC.  --Volcanopele 18:23, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Crediting only the "Cassini Imaging Science Team" is fine to me. Crediting Carolyn Porco for those discoveries is not. Med 19:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * You are correct, that is the official attribution. Not "C. Porco and the Cassini Imaging Science Team".  Once again, these discoveries are attributed to the team as a whole, not just to one person.  Again, for Polydeuces, Pallene, and Methone, you can put information regarding how it was discovered since that is out there in the press releases, but the official attribution is to "Cassini Imaging Science Team".  --Volcanopele 19:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Of course this also assumes that the press release has the basic course of events correct. Which it doesn't.  Truely, this was a team discovery, by the observation planner, the people searching through the images, and those working on determining orbital elements.  Many of these details are absent in the press release, and instead focus on the human interest story.  While that maybe all well and good, it fails to reflect the team aspect of discovery.  Like many scientific discoveries, and certainly lately, this was not the result of a single person doing all the work, and it shouldn't be attributed that way or implied as I had, unfortunately, suggested.  Therefore, it isn't appropriate to attribute this discovery to anyone person.  The credit goes to "The Cassini Imaging Team" or "The Cassini Imaging Team led by Carolyn Porco" (that does not, as someone suggested, attribute the discovery solely to her, but identifies her as the leader of the imaging team and is in keeping with standard practice to identify the leader of the group making a scientific discovery). --Volcanopele 22:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No, creditting Porco is not acceptable if Charnoz is not cited in this article. He has certainly done the decisive part of the work looking for and finding this satellite. I think the current formulation is fine. It credits Charnoz and the Cassini imaging team for the discovery while still mentioning Porco as the leader of this team. Med 23:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * You don't understand. Charnoz did not discover these moons, the team did.  --Volcanopele 00:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * He did with the help of the team. Same for Carl Murray. Either we put both Charnoz and Porco or just the Cassini Imaging Team. Med 06:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

dispute over the exact way the discovery info should be presented
please go to the Polydeuces talk page for discussion regarding the exact way the discovery info should be presented for the saturnian satellites Methone, Pallene and Polydeuces. Syntaxis 16:51 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Clarification from Carolyn Porco
I have been made aware of the dispute over the issue of credit for the discovery of moons made with the Cassini cameras, and have decided to respond myself. There are some terrible misunderstandings within the postings on these pages, which need to be rectified.

Let me first give a sense of what a spacecraft team's work is like.

First, there is an enormous amount of work that goes into building a camera system like that on the Cassini spacecraft, and in ensuring that it is a scientifically useful instrument for studying the Saturn system. Once the cameras are built, there is of course the work of planning the sequences of images that it acquires, as well as building software, databases, processes, training staff personnel, etc, etc. etc. In the case of Cassini, there were 14 years of such work between the time the mission was started in 1990 and arrival at Saturn orbit in 2004. Many of those years were without a break: solid 10 and 12 hour days, week after week, month after month, with no vacations or holidays, just to be prepared for Saturn orbit insertion. And this is the case in general for all spacecraft missions nowadays: To be in a responsible position on such a mission is to have  an extremely demanding, all-consuming profession.

During the latter part of those 14 years, the science team members were engaged in the planning of the science investigations. The Cassini imaging experiment alone involved many, many different types of scientific objectives that have guided the construction of the imaging sequences. Each objective has its own special design, involving image layout and timing, exposure times and filter selections, etc. Then there is all the negotiating work to be done in convincing other Cassini investigators of the necessity for the images being designed. Observing time is a precious commodity on a complex mission like Cassini. Negotiating with the other scientists, both on the imaging team and on the other science teams, took many hours of teleconference calls, every week for years on end.

All of this one might say is the `decisive' part of any successful observation: If the camera is not built properly, and if the image strategy and design are not done correctly and if one is not successful convincing others of the necessity for the observations, the objective can be entirely lost.

So, on a mission like Cassini, and indeed on most spaceflight missions, the analysis of the images is actually the least of the work entailed in making any discovery.

This is not to discredit those individuals working on our team who are poring over our images, trying to extract important scientific information from them. But to say that looking at images, and writing software to analyze them is the most `decisive' part of a discovery is patently not true. The decisive work was done over the previous decade and a half and generally involved many different people.

Thus, on an experiment as complicated as the Cassini Imaging Science experiment, no one person can be listed as the `discoverer' of new objects like rings and moons. The International Astronomical Union recognizing this particular aspect of spaceflight missions has established conventions that support this. The official credit *must* be the full team. If my name appears, it is not because I am the `discoverer' above other team members, but because I am the leader of the team. The usual practice, when a team is too large to mention every member, is to list the team leader followed by `et al.', or by `the Such-and-Such Team'. Stating `the Such-and-Such Team, led by So-and-So' is equivalent.

Secondly, it is of course our job to produce scientific results and to write scientific publications. But, to generate public interest in our work, it is also our job to release our results to the public in a readily-understandable way. Press releases are written to tell an appealing story in a way that engages the non-scientific public. Often, we bring out the human-element for this very purpose. But press releases are not meant to be the definitive word on the discovery and they are certainly in no way comprehensive sources of information. Often, what is written in them ends up being shown to be wrong, or at least eventually superceded by more thorough analyses and more accurate conclusions. And news stories based on them are therefore equally wrong or incomplete.

Hence, in the presence of other information, when there is no need to establish the timing of a discovery (because it can be established by other means, and in this case, the IAU Circulars establish the timing), referneces to press releases should be avoided.

I hope this clarifies the issue and puts it finally to rest.


 * O.K., Carolyn Porco's contribution basically attempts to explain why the IAU attributes the discovery to the 'Cassini Imaging Science Team'. I have no problem with this. I might differ about the amount of work involved in actually finding candidate objects which might be previously unknown satellites and then all the follow up work necessary to confirm this, but I won't go into that now. But what I have to keep comming back to is that the official IAU attribution is 'Cassini Imaging Science Team' not 'Cassini Imaging Science team led by Carolyn Porco' or some other variation of this which includes Dr Porco's name. "The usual practice, when a team is too large to mention every member, is to list the team leader followed by `et al.', or by `the Such-and-Such Team'. Stating `the Such-and-Such Team, led by So-and-So' is equivalent". Yes, when referencing publications in peer reviewed journals it is common practice to use the name of the first author and "et al." to cover all the others. For example the Cassini Imaging Team publications where the entire Team are co-authors  are correctly referenced as Porco, C.C. et al.followed by the appropriate year of publication. The IAUC circulars announcing the discovery of Methone, Pallene and Polydeuces can also be correctly referenced as C.C. Porco et al. (2005) - I've explanied why the discovery IAUCs are "C.C. Porco and the Cassini Imaging Science Team" not just the "Cassini Imaging Science Team". However it is NOT common practice to attribute discovery to the "Cassini Imaging Science Team led by Carolyn Porco" -- can I demonstrate this? Yes. The IAU itself --the "official" body in this case-- does not do this, they attribute the discovery to just the "Cassini Imaging Science Team" and Dr Porco's name is not mentioned in any way shape or form as Team Leader or otherwise. Next onto Press releases. Dr Porco states that "press releases are not meant to be the definitive word on the discovery and they are certainly in no way comprehensive sources of information. Often, what is written in them ends up being shown to be wrong, or at least eventually superceded by more thorough analyses and more accurate conclusions". Well yes, but that is also equally true of scientific papers published in peer reviewed journals. Although in such papers it is usually the data analysis and/or conclusions that are sometimes shown to be in error or at least other authors later publish differing interpretations. If a press release says that a particular named person was the first to 'see' a new moon then this is either true or it isn't. I think it safe to presume that these press releases are at the very least vetted and approved by Dr Porco and she would have quickly corrected anything she believed to be incorrect. So it follows that at the time she believed a person named was indeed the first person to 'see' a new moon -- its difficult to see how such a basic piece of information could later turn out to in inaccurate. Now incidently in the 3 papers published to date in peer reviewed journals giving Polydeuces information only one goes into any detail about how the discovery was actually made and describes the discovery circumstances, gives the images and locations in those images etc - that one being Murray, C. D.; et al. (2005). "S/2004 S 5: A new co-orbital companion for Dione". Icarus 179: 222. This paper is devoted solely to Polydeuces, in the other two Polydeuces forms only a small part of the paper's content.I draw no conclusions from this although you might. Now I understand that the complete story behind a discovery might not be strictly relevant scientifically, a simple "discovered by the Cassini Imaging Team on..." being sufficient. But, and its a big but, the full backstory complete with human interest, politics, personality clashes, triumphs and failures etc is exactly what scientific historians want to know and what many members of the general public find fascinating. I again raise the point that we here at Wikipedia don't have to be bound by whatever "The Establishment" (in this case the IAU and the professional astronomical community) may have decided is the way they want information to be presented. As long as information is accurate we should feel free to include it. Just to restate by personal position -- I think that the discoverer should follow both the letter and spirit of the IAU position and be simply the "Cassini Imaging Science Team" with no individual (in any capacity, Team Leader or other) being named. If any one individual is named is any way in relation to these discoveries that ALL the relevant individuals should be named (certainly Charnoz, possibly Murray (no solid reference as yet) and Porco as Team leader if necessary) --after all this is Wikipedia and we don't necessarily have to toe the line of some "official" body or whatever is "common practice" among a small professional community as long as we're providing accurate information.  Syntaxis 13:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Response from Rebjon21
In response to what Carolyn has added and Med's reply, I have the following comments. First, I see that Med has changed the pages related to the three satellites, despite Carolyn's explanation. Second, I think now that this is the definitive word and the attribution for the discovery of the three satellites should, rightly, go to the "Cassini Imaging Team led by Carolyn Porco", with Carolyn being named ONLY because she is the team leader NOT because she discovered the three satellites (Pallene, Methone, and Polydeuces) which is NOT what I have been claiming and I would never claim something that was clearly not true, especially something as important as the discovery of astronomical bodies orbiting Saturn. Can everyone involved in this dispute please look carefully at the following proposed sentence, what is being said, and the order of the words:

"It was discovered by the Cassini Imaging Team led by Carolyn Porco".

Please read that again. It (Pallene, Methone, and Polydeuces respectively) was DISCOVERED by the CASSINI IMAGING TEAM - i.e. NOT by Murray NOT by Charnoz and NOT by Carolyn, but discovered by the TEAM - i.e. the words "Cassini Imaging Team" follow directly after the word "discovered" so it is clear to everyone who reads the articles on Wikipedia that the TEAM discovered the three satellites not any one individual. As for Carolyn's name being included in this sentence, this adheres to normal scientific protocol and again it is clear in what capacity she is included in this sentence, i.e. as the team leader NOT the discover. Please look at the order of the words.

It is clear that no individual team member should be singled out for this discovery, since many, many were involved.

I would like to add that it is interesting why Syntaxis, and more importantly Med, feel so passionately about this issue. Surely if they did not have a vested and personal interest in this issue they would not continue to insist that Murray and Charnoz be mentioned. Do Syntaxis and Med know Charnoz and Murray I wonder? It is clearly inappropriate for someone to make changes based on personal preferences.

As for what Med has said about Hubble, Cassini doesn't work like Hubble. The individual scientists using Hubble only propose and use the images. They did NOT build the instruments they are using, and they didn't take 15 years out of their careers to devote to a mission. It is not appropriate to compare two dissimilar scientific endeavours.


 * In my response in the section "Clarification from Carolyn Porco" on the Polydeuces talk page I have argued that it isn't common practice to attribute discovery to "The Cassini Imaging Team led by Carolyn Porco". The IAU itself does not do this so it can't be common practice. I'm not insisting on Charnoz or Murray being named, I want no-one named apart from the Cassini Imaging Team. But if we do decide to name names then we should name all the relevant people. As for why I feel passionately about this small point? Why does anyone else? Because I care about about the absolute accuracy of information and removing the possibility for misinterpretation. I note that these pages have now been protected, at least we get to discuss this without constantly changing things backwards and forwards.  Syntaxis 14:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Protection
The pages Pallene (moon), Methone (moon) and Polydeuces (moon) have been protected because of persistant edit warring and reverts.

I encourage involved users to edit the talk page, resolve their differences, and craft a common version which suits everybody. You are all grown scientists, you are intelligent enough to do this. Rama 13:59, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The Polydeuces (moon) talk page seems to have become the place for discussing this dispute. Please post any comments you have regarding this issue to that page so that this discussion can be more easily followed.  --Volcanopele 20:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Proactivity
See Talk:Pallene_(moon). Urhixidur 19:45, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Image?
Why was it deleted by User: Krimpet? I can find no explanation. RandomCritic (talk) 06:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I've added an image from commons. The image deletion comment for the previous image indicates it was moved on commons, somehow. This is my best guess of what the image was moved to.-Wikianon (talk) 15:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Spoken Wikipedia recording
I've just uploaded an audio recording of the article. Please let me know if I've mispronounced anything. :-) --Mangst (talk) 01:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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Mean radius
The mean radius value of 1.6 +/- 0.6 km from reference 4 (Thomas 2010) was measured more precisely in reference 5 (Thomas 2013), as is apparent from the picture. The values for a, b, c in Thomas 2013 are 1.94, 1.29, 1.21 with uncertainties of 0.02, 0.04, 0.02. I believe this equates to a mean radius of 1.45 +/- 0.03 km. Will someone more familiar with these calculations please update the mean radius to the correct value? A similar comment would apply to Pallene, which would also need Thomas 2013 added as a reference. Sorry, I've done very few edits on Wikipedia.Bnungester (talk) 20:21, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅. Thank you very much for catching that! --JorisvS (talk) 18:28, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

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