Talk:Quaoar/Archive 1

vs. Sedna
This article twice mentions Quaoar's size compared to Sedna's, and one time says Sedna's is unknown, and the other says its known. I believe currently we have a guess but don't know for sure. --zandperl 14:34, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Announcement date
There was no American Astronomical Society general meeting 7 Oct 2002--AAS meetings are in January and June. Perhaps the Division of Planetary Science October meeting was meant. DPS is part of AAS, but is considered a separate meeting. Maybe someone can find the actual annoucement paper at that meeting's page and put in the reference for it. --zandperl 14:40, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Image
Is it possible to get the image inside the table on the right? Currently the location is awful, leaving a teensy little column for the text (at least for me...) Evercat 21:13, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

50000
The number of the asteroids are in order of discovery, right? So is it a total coincidence that the number is exactly 50000?! --Menchi 12:25, 13 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Not quite. It is the order of orbit confirmation, which requires multiple observations. In any case, later numberings (10,000+) come in batches of several hundred, so the IAU committee has some leeway in assigning numbers. Thus, the numbering of Quaoar is not coincidental.
 * Urhixidur 13:14, 2005 July 13 (UTC)


 * It is definitely not coincidental; the number was assigned to indicate the importance of the discovery.--Pharos 23:27, 30 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Same goes with the first very large Kuiper belt object, 20000 Varuna. On the other hand, 10000 Myriostos is just a typical Main belt asteroid. Other #0000 asteroids are not important either and haven't even been named yet. I wonder which one receives the number 100000? It is long due. --Jyril 23:34, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

Name
The planetoid's name follows International Astronomical Union rules by naming all planetoids after creation deities

Huh? There are lots of planetoids not named after creation deities, and furthermore the 2004 DW article states that it must be named after a deity of the underworld. What's going on here? -- SS 04:44, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * That's the standard for TransNeptunian Objects; I'll fix it. - Aerobird 03:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

confirmed pronunciation
I just called the Tongva nation to get the correct pronunciation of Quaoar. As best I can tell, it's. All three vowels are pronounced as true vowels (that is, the orthographic "o" isn't a [w]), but they "flow into each other". It's not really three syllables in the English sense, but more like three moras. This is what you hear in Japanese and Polynesian languages, in names like Aomori and Niue. Yes, it's hard to pronounce if you only know English, so what we really need are two pronunciations: a "correct" Tongva pronunciation which not many English speakers are going to be able to manage, and a "working" English pronunciation. (The Tongva woman I spoke to said that most people there get it wrong too, presumably because the Tongvas' first language is now English, and this is not a word people hear very often.)

Now, the closest English phonotactics is going to get to [&#945;o] is "ow", as in now. It's also hard for an English speaker to maintain a full in an unaccented final syllable, so the [&#945;r] will most likely reduce to "er", as in worker, if this word enters people's daily speaking vocabulary. (Those of us who drop our final R's will end up with a Tongva, so this works out for everyone.) English also regularly substitutes [k] for [q]. So I propose a working pronunciation of ['kwaw.r], rhyming with flower or tower. Those of us who want to be erudite, and pronounce names as they were in their original languages (such as [ti.'tan] instead of ['taj.tn] for Saturn's moon Titan, or [pa.'Ri] for Paris), can try to wrap our tongues around ['qw&#945;o&#945;r], while those of us who find that too difficult can use ['kwaw.r] as the best English equivalent.

As for the purpose of pronunciation guides, they're simply to guide pronunciation. They don't need to follow the "one letter, one sound" principle. Of course, it's always nice when they do, but in the case of English, that means introducing special symbols (like in SAMPA) that most people will find confusing. A real problem with systems like SAMPA that use capitalization to differentiate phonemes is that people keep capitalizing proper names, so you never really know whether that "O" at the beginning of a word is different from "o". (Of course, they're not supposed to do this, but enough people do to throw things off.)

The other possibility is to use digraphs. There's nothing wrong with this as long as it's unambiguous. Flip to the glossary in any volume of Greek mythology and you'll almost certainly see a pronunciation guide that includes digraphs such as ch, sh, th, ng, ah, oh, ai, ew etc. The nice thing about these systems is that they're easy to learn: everybody knows what sh represents in English, and it's easy to pick up that ah and oh sound like the interjections that have those spellings. Another real benefit is that, unlike the IPA or SAMPA, these systems can be cross-dialectal. For example, "news" might be represented as newz. In Los Angeles that would clearly be ['nuz], but in London it would just as clearly be ['njuz]. With the IPA or SAMPA you'd have to give separate US and UK pronunciations. However, the problem with these systems is that writers get misled by English spelling conventions and forget to be consistent, so after a while you start to wonder whether that ng [&#331;] shouldn't really be ngg [&#331;g].

"Tongva", by the way, is tong'-va in English. That is, it has the ng of song, not the ngg of Tonga. --kwami 20:52, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Added a second pronunciation. People seem to be trying to compromise by pronouncing it kwah-wor. kwami 08:26, 2005 May 18 (UTC)


 * Since it's such an issue, shouldn't the pronounciation be discussed in the Name section? At the top we could have the "official" pronounciation of kwah-o-wahr (which I think would be rendered [ˈkwa.o.ar]), and in the name section we could mention the various ways that people have tried to pronounce it.  --WikiMarshall 05:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Why the image?
Why is there an 'artist's rendering' of Quaoar in the article? In other articles on the 'pedia these have been constantly removed. Jor 10:19, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Since artists renditions are generally wrong, (think of all of the 1950's renditions of life on Venus and Mars), shouldn't we be using a Hubble image such as to represent Quaoar? -- Kheider 23:18, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that, when available, actual images should be used in preference to artist renderings. In this particular case I think I'd prefer that sum of 16 exposures image be used.  That way the Quaoar HST image, which was used to measure size of Quaoar, can be used in the Size section without repetition. --RP88 00:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

If you read the comments on my talk page, I get the impression that Quaoar would be more red-brown in color and not quite as blue-grey as the artists rendition. I agree that the would be more realistic because it would also help demonstrate how little we really know about TNO's. -- Kheider 11:35, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Diameter
The dimensions given in the box on this page do not match the dimensions listed in the table on the trans-Neptunian objects article. Which are correct? Rmhermen 15:47, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

They match now. No-one had updated the diameter or albedo in a long time.HST image plot borrowed from Brown's article. -- Kheider 21:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

GA review
1. It is well written

(a) Pass, marginally. You cannot have an estimate of 1260 ± 190 km. This simply is the size with the margin of error detailed. 50,000: a memorable number? Easy to remember or noteworthy? It may qualify as a dwarf planet? Does it qualify or does it not? Current (as of April 2006)? The mention of cold orbit and the subsequent referral to cubewanos is uneasy at best. Unnecessarily difficult words like supplanted. KBO is a TLA that the careful or knowledgeable reader might understand, but should rather be introduced at the first mention of Kuiper Belt Object.

(b) Pass.

(c) Fail. The balance between images and text is off (even at a resolution of 1280x1024, a lot of white space appears). Furthermore, the lead section should be a summary, but it contains information that is nowhere mentioned again or expanded upon (e.g. the earliest discovery)

(d) Pass, marginally. According to WP:MOSDEF, links should be provided for moderately-inclined and perhaps dates of passage.

2. Factually accurate and verifiable

(a) Unable to ascertain due to 2b)

(b) Fail. No inline references, only a couple of references at the bottom (which probably could be turned into in-line references). External links in the text are dead. External links at the bottom could probably be turned into in-line references as well. Pay attention to the Scientific citation guidelines.

(c) Pass. Some very good sources like Nature magazine.

(d) Unable to ascertain due to 2b)

3. Broad in its coverage Pass, marginally. I would imagine that something more can be written about the history leading up to the discovery. Also, a comparison of magnitudes of similar objects would be nice. Why is the outer layer stripped of ice? A discussion about the status as planet, dwarf planet or something else would also be nice.

4. Pass

5. Pass

6. Pass

In short, references should be added and there should be a better balance between text and images for this to become a Good Article. Er rab ee 19:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * There has been some improvement, but too little to warrant a successful application. Please try again when my concerns (and those mentioned below) have been resolved. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Errabee (talk • contribs) 09:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC).

Good article review
I have looked through the article. Here are my general thoughts with regards to the criteria at What is a good article.

1. The article is well written. The article does not quite meet this criteria. The introduction is jumbled, and the statement about Ophiucus needs to be rewritten. A separate section should be written on the object's discovery. The discussion on size could be organized better and shortened. Some acronyms need to be expanded or defined (HST, PSF), and some of the jargon needs to be explained (i.e. "cold orbit").

2. The article is factually accurate and verifiable. - The article cites its references, but the way the references are cited needs improvement. Scientific citation guidelines encourages using inline references. For an article like this, it would be useful to see an inline reference for at least every paragraph. It may be necessary to add multiple references to some paragraphs. I also found at least one statement (about crystalline water ice in 2000EL61) that clearly did not come from anything listed in the "Reference" section, and so I marked it as needing a citation.
 * Provided the missing ref. Started to inline the refs. Eurocommuter 08:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

3. The article is broad in its coverage. The article only uses five references. I have the impression that the literature could be reviewed much better. The article also fails to state the importance of this object or the observations of this object. The article simply states measurements and facts; it fails to explain how these measurements and facts are important in the broader picture of understanding the Kuiper Belt or the Solar System in general. (In other words, the notability of the object needs to be emphasized better.)

4. The article follows the neutral point of view policy. Nothing in the article seems biased. However, given the small number of references used in the article, it is possible that the article may unwittingly reflect the bias of one or two references.
 * There is some bias toward direct (smeared pixel fitting) measure in big KBO articles. Thermal measures should be accounted for as well. Started to fix. Eurocommuter 10:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

5. The article is stable. The material in the article itself appears to be stable. However, some of the navigation templates look like they may be unstable, as they may require constant updating as new objects are discovered.

6. The article conains images. The images of the object's orbit are written in a foreign language ("March" is written as "Mars"). Those images will confuse people. Otherwise, the images look satisfactory.
 * Nobody noticed for a full year…Cheers! Fixed. Eurocommuter 08:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Final comment: Again, I want to emphasize that this article should emphasize the notability of the object rather than simply stating data and other facts. While some raw data are needed, an explanation of the meaning of those data would vastly improve the article. For example, the "Orbit" section emphasizes that Quaoar orbits at approximately 43 AU from the Sun, that it has an orbital period of 287 years, that the plane of the orbit is inclined 8 degrees, etc. However, the article does not state how this orbit compares to the orbits of other Kuiper Belt Objects, at least in a plain, direct way such as an introductory statement saying, "Quaoar's orbit is similar to the orbits of many other Kuiper Belt Objects." However, the "Physical characteristics" section does emphasize how observations of Quaoar are leading to the discovery of new phenomena in the outer Solar System, although the relevance of the discoveries to other objects in the Solar System should be emphasized. Dr. Submillimeter 00:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Layout
There's a huge space under the Discovery heading which I believe to be caused by the expansion tag. Is such a thing really necessary? Is there anything to expand with? I was under the impression that not much was known about it. Why not just add one of those needs expansion blurbs at the very end (like with stubs) rather then disrupt the page with a tag. Jupiterzguy 17:09, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Moon of Quaoar
There is a new IAU Circular (#8812). I don't have access to this circular, but one of the sections is titled: "SATELLITES OF 2003 AZ_84, (50000), (55637), AND (90482)", suggesting that a satellite of Quaoar has been found. Can someone with access to this IAU Circular provide details for this article? --Volcanopele 23:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


 * See Quaoar's entry at Asteroids with satellites section of Johnston's Archive.--JyriL talk 10:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC) Oh crap, there's no data about the secondary.--JyriL talk 10:09, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Now there is some data about secondary: Quaoar and its moon. P.S. I have a full text of IAUCs and you may ask me to get any. Chesnok 13:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Does this moon have even a number name yet? I can't find a name anywhere. --Itwilltakeoff (talk) 22:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, it does now (Weywot). --Itwilltakeoff (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Number (continued from above)
Yesterday I edited the paragraph about the name to include the following, based on the French Wikipedia article: "The “memorable” minor planet number 50000 is not a coincidence but is a witness to the exciting race to discover a Pluto-sized object. The Minor Planet Center normally gives a sequential number to an object once its orbit has been well determined, but the numbering is done by block, so they can cheat a little to give a round number to an exceptional object. Quaoar’s discovery followed that of and was in turn followed by bigger discoveries (see below). The efforts were finally rewarded with the discovery of an object bigger than Pluto, namely."

Ckatz then reverted this, saying that we need a citation. Basically what I wrote goes with what was said above here on the talk page (back in 2005). Can someone provide a citation?

Eric Kvaalen (talk) 06:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I have found the corresponding citation for 20000_Varuna. In Minor Planet Circular, page 41805 (available as page 1 of this PDF: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/ECS/MPCArchive/2001/MPC_20010109.pdf) you will find the following explanation:

The past six weeks have witnessed, not only the discovery, but also precovery observations back to 1954 and a size and albedo measurement, of the largest cubewano found so far. At 900 km, the transneptunian object 2000 WR106 has a diameter that is essentially the same as that of (1) Ceres, the largest member of the cisjovian belt. The coincidence of this recognition (cf. IAUC 7554, 2001 Jan. 2) with the Ceres bicentennial makes it particularly appropriate (cf. MPC 41901, 41911, MPO 7698) that 2000 WR106 should be numbered (20000).

The "summary of new numberings" with the assignment of number (20000) is MPC page 41901, which is on page 97 of the same PDF.

The "new numbering" assigning (50000) to 2002 LM60 appears in MPC page 47066 (page 238 of this PDF: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/ECS/MPCArchive/2002/MPC_20021120.pdf). You can see (50000) is special because its discovery date (2002 Jun 4) does not match the date (2000 Jan 3) of all the neighboring minor planets in the list. MPC page 46829 (on page 1 of the same PDF) briefly notes that "This month sees the attainment of a double milestone: to 50000th numbered minor planet and the 10000th named minor planet", but says nothing more about number 50000. MPC page 47170 (page 342 of the same PDF) has the name assignment "Quaoar" and explains the mythological significance of the name.

Robert Munafo (talk) 05:41, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

pronounciation is good
Removing all pronounciations because Wikipedia is not a dictionary is not correct, in my opinion. Not being a dictionary means having explanatory articles, not just definitions. But, if some item is difficult to pronounce (like Quaoar), it is perfectly legitimate to have a pronounciation guide in the article.

Sound bite: all dictionary entries have pronounciation, but not all pronounciations are dictionary entries.

I'm going to revert. -- hike395 06:59, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * The two pronunciations currently given differ greatly. Which one is correct? (personally, I presume the second, as the first is impossible to pronounce without getting a bad sore throat) - will amend to something more reasonable - MPF 23:30, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * According to [ http://www.pantheon.org/miscellaneous/pronunciations.html ], it is kwah'-o-ar, which doesn't match what is in the article now. How does kwah'-o-ar translate into SAMPA? -- hike395 03:17, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * The pronunciations at that link are ghastly, and quite impossible to say. Chock full of dreadful asthmatic wheezes. Surely we can do better than that. "kwah" is only pronounceable if you've got bronchitis. Suggest that no pronunciation is included, until something that actually sounds like the real word can be devised. I see no 'h' sound in "Quaoar". MPF 17:26, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"How does kwah'-o-ar translate into SAMPA?" - working from the list at SAMPA chart for English, it gives /kw{ h @U a:/ which is completely wrong. MPF 17:59, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm mostly happy with the current SAMPA, because I think it matches how Chad Trujillo (the discoverer) pronounces it, see . I'll add a stress symbol in front of the first syllable. I believe that people often stick h's into pronounciation guides, not to indicate aspiration, but to indicate a short vowel sound. As long as we are not suggesting "quay-o-ar" (long A on the first syllable) or "qua-o-air" (long A on the second syllable), I think it is OK. I have no idea whether the first syllable should have an A or a {, though. -- hike395


 * Agreed, except that "people often stick h's into pronounciation guides, not to indicate aspiration, but to indicate a short vowel sound" - if so, those people are completely misunderstanding the purpose and mechanism of a pronunciation guide, which is of course that each included letter should be pronounced! - MPF 13:56, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This contributes nothing to the debate, but: try saying "Quaoar's core" five times fast. --Spudtater 18:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

One of Brown's students, at the end of the question section of her 2008 Oct 13 presentation, pronounced it. kwami (talk) 20:21, 18 October 2008 (UTC) and it is good — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.178.136.206 (talk) 13:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Icy Body?
The Dwarf Planet section gives Brown's musing about icy bodies achieving hydrostatic equilibrium in the 200-400 km range. The new measurements, adopted by the page, suggest Quaoar is not icy, but very rocky. Should that sentence be removed now? Tbayboy (talk) 23:41, 1 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes. — kwami (talk) 03:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Except now, with the recent occultation results, it might be icy again! Good thing I forgot about it. :-) Tbayboy (talk) 03:09, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Size
Not enough detail for me to adjust the size, density, etc., so s.o. please check out this. — kwami (talk) 03:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Science reporters at the above presentation had this to say:
 * Emily Lackdawalla reports:
 * "Quaoar, too, got a new size estimate from Braga-Ribas. He found it to be bigger than previously thought, 1045 to 1084 kilometers. But the fit of an ellipse to the many chords that they got in their occultation was poor; it looked like Quaoar had a big bite taken out of it. This was puzzling to everyone, but someone in the audience asked if it could be a contact binary, and he said they could not rule it out."
 * Govert Schilling reports:
 * "However, the lost mystery has been replaced by a new one. The occultation results, from five observatory sites (again in Chile), are incompatible with a regularly shaped object. Instead, at one side of Quaoar, there appears to be "a lack of object," as Braga Ribas describes it. The missing chunk could be due to a giant impact, smashing away part of KBO's icy mantle, or it could mean Quaoar is actually a "contact binary," consisting of two more-or-less spherical bodies that touch each other."
 * This was from last fall, but I haven't seen anything published about the "bite" (not surprising, since I don't trawl abstracts). Anybody seen anything further? Tbayboy (talk) 03:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what we would find, unless there were new measurements. It sounds as though the researchers said it was a possibility they couldn't rule out, when a member of the audience asked the question, so what more are they likely to say? — kwami (talk) 06:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No, the "bite" is clearly present, but its interpretation is unclear. Ruslik_ Zero 07:01, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * We're miscommunicating again. It being a contact binary was a possibility they couldn't rule out, and AFAICT was not even one they had suggested. — kwami (talk) 08:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Where was its moon at the time of the occultation? --JorisvS (talk) 14:50, 22 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't think we know, because we don't have a unique solution for its orbit. — kwami (talk) 23:26, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * This answer is ridiculous. You do not seem to understand what you are talking about. The solution is unique if the direction of the angular momentum is known. Since it is not, two solutions that are mirror images of each other are possible: prograde and retrograde. Both predict nearly identical positions for the satellite (except the very minor difference due to the parallax). However this is not very important because Weywot is small and never comes closer than ~0.2″ to the primary, which is about 5 primary's diameters. So, it could not influence occultation results. Ruslik_ Zero 08:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Correct, I don't know much about this system, but I've spoken to people who do, and they say we can't rule out Weywot as the cause. It's not just a matter of the polarity of the momentum, but of having to throw out half the data to get a fit. Yes, Quaoar is rotating too slowly to make a Haumea-like jabobi ellipsoid likely, as you say, but the density of a contact binary would be unreasonably high as well. Basically, our sources don't know enough about the system to say what's going on, so if you know more, I suggest you get published so we can use you as a ref. Meanwhile, we have the author of the best study so far saying Quaoar is a DP. — kwami (talk) 11:05, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * What about Weywot happening to be almost in front or behind Quaoar at that time? --JorisvS (talk) 15:00, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * JorisvS, please, read the paper of Fraser and Brown. See Figure 2 there, which shows that the projected distance between the primary and Weywot is unlikely to be shorter than 0.2″ (the visible size of Quaoar is less than 0.035″). The orbit of Weywot is not edge-on now, so no mutual occultation is expected to occur at the present time. P.S. Regarding "throwing half of the data to get the fit". This is again a ludicrous statement. No data is thrown out to get the fit. Ruslik_ Zero 18:46, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Doesn't matter, since it's not published. — kwami (talk) 21:00, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You seems to be even more ignorant that I have thought. This is a preprint of the well known paper published in 2010 and cited in this article. Ruslik_ Zero 06:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As usual, you don't know what I'm talking about, so I'm ignorant.
 * That is the same paper cited above. My point is that it's silly to argue about whose ideas are ludicrous when they're not based on published papers and therefore are OR and not admissible anyway. — kwami (talk) 08:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It is only because it is difficult to understand what you are talking about. I answered the question that was asked. And I am not aware of any policy that prevents me from doing this. Your ludicrous ideas about "throwing out half of data" does not have any support in any source. Ruslik_ Zero 08:58, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You're not aware of the policy that does not allow us to answer each other's questions? It's one of the founding principles of Wikipedia.
 * Yes, personal knowledge and conclusions are OR and not admissible, as I just said. Such as your conclusion that Quaoar may not be a dwarf planet. We go by sources, nothing more. — kwami (talk) 11:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, let's stop this meaningless discussion. As a proud member of "know-nothing crowd" you are perfectly immune to any reasoning. Ruslik_ Zero 18:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Size now includes 2013 data. Does it still need the update tag? (Can't tell whether it's about adding recent estimates or removing prior estimates) The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 08:59, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I would say it's no longer needed. Prior estimates can still be of interest for the history of size estimates. --JorisvS (talk) 12:35, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Is it known if the irregular-form issue of Braga-Ribas (" lack of object") has been resolved by now? --Roentgenium111 (talk) 13:18, 2 September 2013 (UTC)


 * See "The Size, Shape, Albedo, Density, and Atmospheric Limit of Transneptunian Object (50000) Quaoar from Multi-chord Stellar Occultations" by Braga-Ribas et alii, The Astrophysical Journal, 773, 26 (2013 August 10) . I don't have access to the article, but, according to the abstract, they attributed it to timing errors, and shifting some of the chords resulted in a nice fit to an oblate Maclaurin spheroid of equivalent radius 555 km, giving it a nice, expected density of about 2. Tbayboy (talk) 01:24, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reference. So the mystery is solved, though it surprises me a bit that B-R didn't consider timing errors before making public the "irregular form" ... --Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Orbital peroid
50000 Quaoar last came to perihelion around 1790-Nov-01 and will next come to perihelion around 2075-Feb-15. That would be 285 years which is also the barycentric solution (1.041E+5/365.25). -- Kheider (talk) 19:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

New Horizons picture
I see Quaoar has been snapped by New Horizons from a mere 14AU or so. It's just a moving dot, of course, but would there be value in including this picture in the article? 2.99.207.129 (talk) 14:37, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Of course, if you can find a place for it in this article. Ruslik_ Zero 20:00, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I was kind of hoping someone else might do the work. I'm just a drive-by talk page editor. :) Anyway, not having an account, I can't upload images myself. 2.99.205.137 (talk) 12:20, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I may do this tomorrow. Ruslik_ Zero 20:50, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

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wonder if there could be an alternate spelling for weywot?
Given how Quaoar could also be Kwawar, could Weywot also be Uaeiuaot or similar? Unless the opposing Anglicisations are used together as a compromise instead of settling on one or the other and potentially upsetting a lot of people either way... 209.93.141.17 (talk) 11:49, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The equation is whether the alternative spelling is used in literature? If it is used or at least mentioned, then it can be added. Ruslik_ Zero 19:06, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Italics
The caption for the image at the top says, “Quaoar imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2002”. The name “Quaoar” should not be italicized here.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 01:18, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Weywot diameter
No solid references yet, but this is a significant correction! [https://twitter.com/plasma_torus/status/1174985177556279296 Braga-Ribas: Quaoar doesn't have any atmosphere down to the 5 nBar level. Weywot (quaoar's moon) appears much bigger than predicted, ~170km. Implies Weywot has much lower albedo than Quaoar.] Tom Ruen (talk) 04:12, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. We have so little to go on that I think that's worth adding. We can update when it's published. — kwami (talk) 04:56, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Aphelion
In the table, the Aphelion has the same distance from the sun as the Semi-major axis: 43.6916 AU. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.20.50.39 (talk) 17:53, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out. Fixed. N rco0e (talk · contribs) 23:46, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Move from 50000 Quaoar
The article has recently been moved by. Could we please move it back to 50000 Quaoar, so it is consistent with similar articles? This issue has been discussed on multiple occasions, and so far, consensus appears to have been to omit the number in certain articles about particularly large objects, but to include it otherwise. Whether or not to move the articles in bulk should be discussed in a move request before that move is done. See also this talk page discussion. Renerpho (talk) 14:44, 10 November 2022 (UTC)


 * There is a move request to remove the number from the remaing dwarf planet articles that have it (see Talk:90377_Sedna). I suggest we hold making any move to Quaoar until we know the outcome of that discussion. Vpab15 (talk) 19:31, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I am surprised that you used the 'suppressredirect' right to perform this move as it should never be used for controversial moves. Now nobody except for administrators and pagemovers can revert it. So, I consider the move that you performed highly inappropriate. Ruslik_ Zero 20:13, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, it was a fairly standard and completely appropiate page WP:SWAP. Vpab15 (talk) 20:48, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It is a violation of WP:INVOLVED. Ruslik_ Zero 21:02, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I've asked at WP:RMTR for the move to be reverted. Double sharp (talk) 22:54, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, ! Double sharp (talk) 23:31, 23 November 2022 (UTC)