Talk:Standard asteroid physical characteristics

Hi there!

The matter of how the data for physical characteristics in the numbered asteroid pages (E.g. on List of asteroids) is obtained has been bugging me for some time. For example, the mean temperature. I haven't been able to find any particular place where such matters have been explained or references given. I suppose that I might not be the only one who wonders about this.

So - i've tried to put up what I surmise so far, as a bait for all those of you who have been working with the asteroids for longer, and know what is up. Edit please! Deuar 20:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Should this article be moved out from the article namespace since it doesn't seem to be a real encyclopedic article but more like a guide page?--JyriL talk 22:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That sounds spot on, as long as it remains editable. The point of it is basically to be a very long footnote to Template:Infobox_Minor_Planet. I'd do it myslelf, but i'm not familiar with how to carry it out. Deuar 11:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

$$\frac{GM}{r_{max}^2}$$ for the surface gravity was wrong. The formula is only true for spherically symmetric bodies (see shell theorem). Maybe it's good enough as an approximation (the same applies to the escape velocity, and also to the mean temperature), but the wording (before my edit) seemed to indicate that it's an exact formula. Icek (talk) 23:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Standard asteroid physical characteristics. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090212000108/http://aa.usno.navy.mil:80/faq/docs/asteroid_masses.php to http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/asteroid_masses.php

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 23:24, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

What about binaries/trinaries?
I've run across a problem with inputting data to the generic Planet infobox (typically used for asteroids/comets/etc as well)... you can give a rotation period for the two bodies around each other, but not their separation distance/SMA (which would be a fairly obvious thing for a planet-moon system), nor is it clear how to input separate rotation periods for each body if they're not tidally locked (ditto; i.e. if Earth-Moon was considered a binary, we'd be a bit stuck for entering both Earth's own rotation as well as that of the Moon around it, and for how far the Moon is from Earth). Heck, even entering separate sizes for each partner in a binary (or trinary) is a bit of a bodge where you have to insert inline headings to the Dimensions cell. And such characteristics aren't even mentioned on this article page. Unless I'm missing something obvious in both cases?

Binary/trinary planets and asteroids are a somewhat new concept in astronomy, but compared to the age of WP itself they're old news (the particular object I hit trouble with was first determined as a binary back in 2001). Surely it should be possible to register their details correctly and in full? 146.199.0.203 (talk) 18:54, 4 March 2018 (UTC)