Talk:Vulcan (hypothetical planet)

Article
I think we should change this article to Vulcan (astronomy) -- since neither of the two Vulcan's in question are really planets. --Ed Poor

Corrected the paragraph on the perihelion precession of Mercury. Classical perturbation theory was completely capable of predicting the advance itself. The famous 43 arc seconds is the difference between the observed value and the predicted value, and is a high order anomaly. -- Decumanus | Talk 21:54, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * "Other than Mercury, asteroid 2007 EB26 with a semi-major axis of 0.55 AU (82,000,000 km; 51,000,000 mi) has the smallest known semi-major axis of any known object orbiting the Sun." - stated in the first paragraph...yet the link to the wiki page about asteroid 2007 EB26 says it has the second smallest known semi-major axis. One of these is incorrect.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.193.95.209 (talk) 14:43, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
 * If you'd read the entire sentence at the page, you'd see both sentences say the same thing. --JorisvS (talk) 07:45, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Vulcan revived section
The first paragraph of this section seems fairly important, as to why it is hard to look at the Sun - should it be nearer the top of the article? Orange Goblin 07:46, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Star Trek and Vulcan
IIRC in the episode of the original series where a spaceman from the late 20th century ends up on the Enterprise, he asks Mr Spock if the latter comes from Vulcan-near-the-Sun. A passing mention of this passing mention could be included here.

Jackiespeel 18:05, 11 May 2006 (UTC) There are TWO other articles on Star Trek and Vulcan (Vulcan Star Trek & Vulcan Star Trek Planet--so I'm going to delete the Star Trek references as they they come off as totally off the wall in an article about our own Solar System.Warren Platts (talk) 11:56, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

General Relativity
"This hypothesis has now been rendered obsolete by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity."

General Relativity is a theory,not a fact,it has not been proven,so can the hypothesis be rendered obsolete? Dudtz 10/5/06 7:24 PM EST
 * that is beyond silly for too many reasons to list. --Deglr6328 10:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)


 * If Einstein's theory of General Relativity is being used to "disprove" Vulcan, where's the math, where's the physics, where's the documentation showing this to be within an acceptable margin of error? If the written proofs cannot be produced, then it is just as hypothetical and hear-say as any other claim and should be removed from the article. Mseanbrown (talk) 13:50, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree, it would be useful to have some explanation regarding the observations and General Relativity. Currently it reads like any BBC Science documentary post 2000. "By clever maths it can be shown ... but we're not going to show you the maths." I think it is relevant to this article to have a paragraph or two explaining how the theorized planet's existence was disproved. 85.210.133.10 (talk) 09:54, 5 May 2016 (UTC) Sam, UK
 * Wikipedia is a general purpose reference for the general public. This article doesn't contain the Newtonian math that Le Verrier used to theorize the existence of Vulcan either. Both sets of math equations would clutter up what should be (and is) a short article on something that ultimately does not exist. As with other Wikipedia articles if you want more details like this, you can see the footnotes at the bottom of the article for further reading. The scholarly article in footnote #1 in this particular article contains the math you require.  --Krelnik (talk) 12:58, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

SOHO
Shouldn't something be said of the virtual absolute impossibility of vulcan since the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory observations of the past decade have seen nothing in the way of stable orbits inside Mercury's?--Deglr6328 10:46, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Revived section
"Courten believed that an intra-Mercurial planetoid between 130 and 800 kilometres in diameter was orbiting the Sun at a distance of about 0.1 astronomical unit. Other images on his eclipse plates led him to postulate the existence of an asteroid belt between Mercury and the Sun."

130-800 kilometers... ok, now that just dosn;'t add up, how would it survive that close in.... how big is the earth?--Jakezing (talk) 01:41, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Astrological/astronomical symbol
Did this have an astrological/astronomical symbol? 76.66.193.224 (talk) 22:30, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * According to there is an astronomical symbol. 76.66.193.224 (talk) 09:14, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Seems to be on at, viewable with  76.66.193.224 (talk) 10:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, the Fishhook of Doubt. —Tamfang (talk) 16:03, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * List of Astrology (pha!) glyphs including hypothetical planets, shows a symbol for Vulcan . Sawatts (talk) 10:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

"Unreliable"
The article is at pains to denominate a larger number of sightings (even by trained astronomers) as "unreliable."

It might be more neutral to say these detections have not been duplicated since (year). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.175.108.185 (talk) 22:35, 11 November 2011 (UTC)


 * It is not up to science to prove that something does not exist. Science requires verifiability. -- Kheider (talk) 22:44, 11 November 2011 (UTC)


 * i won't rest until the science community admits there was infact a vulcan planet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asfd777 (talk • contribs) 06:52, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Mike Brown today admitted that "If we had had an Alpha Cen Bb around the sun, it'd have been called Vulcan." :-) Alpha Centauri B b, is the first Earth mass planet seen around a Sun-like star, and it is the closest star system to us. Real science is far more exciting than made up Velikovsky-style gossip. -- Kheider (talk) 00:07, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The statement "No such planet was ever found, and Mercury's orbit has now been explained by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Searches of NASA's two STEREO spacecraft data have failed to detect any Vulcanoid asteroids." is inaccurate. The main article itself references numerous citings of the planet. Popular Science Monthly / Volume 14 / April 1879/ The Intra-Mercurial Planets published a number of citings as well. That a group within the scientific community has chosen to not accept it does not mean that it has not been found. The verbiage suggested in place of this text allows for the reference to the documented citings while leaving the conclusion open. One wonders why the insistence of changing the verbiage to something that is clearly not accurate nor in alignment with the bulk of the text in the article below? Mseanbrown (talk) 21:41, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


 * 1. Please do NOT remove a reference to Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity from the lead that explains the orbit of Mercury and why Vulcan does not need to exist.
 * 2. Le Verrier himself never observed Vulcan.
 * 3. Not everyone accepted the veracity of Lescarbault's "discovery", "Numerous reports — all of them unreliable". (Seeing sunspots does not necessarily mean you are observing an unknown planet. You could be observing a passing Near-Earth object transiting the Sun.)
 * 4. During a solar eclipse objects near the Sun could just be dim Sungrazing comets.
 * 5. Accepted scientific theory is that Vulcan does not exist.
 * 6. Please do NOT add fringe theories / weasel words / original research to a scientific article. -- Kheider (talk) 22:34, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The statement of "No such planet was ever found" is not a true statement. At least a dozen citings intra-mercurial objects have been reported. I'm not disagreeing that the established scientific community currently fails to recognized that there is anything there, what I am disagreeing with is your insistence to use words that are misleadingly strong and do not correlate with the main article posted below. I am deleting the "no such planet was ever found" and leaving your explanation for it. Mseanbrown (talk) 01:03, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Reported and verified are two very different things. You do know that Vulcan does not exist? -- Kheider (talk) 03:02, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * No, I personally do not KNOW that Vulcan exists or not, for I would suggest that the evidence that is publicly being cited is inconclusive. I do know that the Vatican owns most of the satellites that point towards the Sun. I also am unable to find any of the documentation of the data and math that uses Einstein's theory of General Relativity to disprove Vulcan. It may be "reported" that Relativity satisfies the aberrations in Mercury's orbit, but have you "verified" the physics of that claim, or can you even point towards the documentation that proves this? If not, your claim that Relativity satisfies the orbital peculiarities is just as word-of-mouth and intuition driven as a claim that a planet documented by more than a dozen astronomers exists. 13:48, 31 January 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mseanbrown (talk • contribs)


 * The physics and math are explained here if you want to read it. This has been well documented since Clemence. Please do not add unreferenced original research to the article. -- Kheider (talk) 16:16, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * This will take some time to read. I think this would be a great reference in the wiki article. This is some of the best 'meat' on this topic. Good citation. Mseanbrown (talk) 20:08, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * An article regarding Mercury's chaotic orbit was submitted to the archive at Cornell on October 18, 2012. (A simple model of the chaotic eccentricity of Mercury) It's considerably much more detailed and harder to read than the one you cited. It does not mention any intra-mercurial planets/objects. Paragraph 3.3 addresses Relativity. It'll take some time for me to fully process it, but it is interesting to note this thorough study being so recent. Mseanbrown (talk) 02:08, 1 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The orbit of Mercury and Mars are both chaotic over billions of years. This just means we are not sure what will happen in the very distant future. -- Kheider (talk) 05:45, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Somebody calculated what. based on Le Verrier's observations, Vulcan would be like: 0.17 AU, 26 day Orbital period; diameter - 1,100 miles (1770 km); density - 6.5; gravity 0.16 G; 26 tide locked day; temperature 1220 degrees F sun side; 950 degrees F twilight area; near absolute zero nightside. Now how this was calculated I have no idea so I didn't put it in the article.--2606:A000:7D44:100:54A3:9E8:58FD:BC1 (talk) 00:23, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

You can't fool all of the people all of the time
So what was it? What caused people to think naked eye stars next to solar eclipses are planet(s) without checking the catalogs? What could've caused so many nonexistant transits be seen by scientific men? If it was just mistaken identifications, which should cause random "orbit" distribution then why'd it take so long for explanations and rationalizations of the inconsistancies to fall apart? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:29, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Article name
Vulcan is not a hypothetical planet, it's a fictional planet. --82.170.113.123 (talk) 19:07, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * No, it is hypothetical because it was once firmly believed to exist. Ruslik_ Zero 16:27, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm very sorry, I didn't read the article. I thought it was the Vulcan (Star Trek) article. --82.170.113.123 (talk) 18:22, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

gentilic or demonym
As the origin planet for Spock and the Romulans, it would be interesting to have a demonym, an inhabitants'name, to simplify sentences. Example: Spock plays ¤Vulcano¤ lute. (Replace ¤Vulcano¤ by future consensual demonym.) Magnon86 (talk) 04:18, 9 March 2018 (UTC)magnon86

Reservation of the name
Is there a citation for this?

(And how would it work exactly? A large intra-Mercurian planet is already ruled out. Or is it that if the first vulcanoid asteroid were discovered tomorrow, it would automatically be named "Vulcan"? That would seem to have some poetic justice to it, but again, citation?) Double sharp (talk) 15:18, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

'Existence Disproved' heading
Is this an accurate heading for this section? As I understand it, the General Relativity theory accounted for the pecularities in Mercury's orbit, meaning that those pecularities need no longer be attributed to an unfound planet. That does not actually show that a planet inside Mercury's orbit doesn't exist, only that it isn't needed to account for observational data. I am not claiming that Vulcan does exist, but to follow the normal rules of scientific 'proof' shouldn't this section rather be headed something like 'General Relativity Explanation'? Sbishop (talk) 14:52, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The planet Le Verrier's calculations showed existed actually didn't exist. So for Vulcan, yes, it was disproved by General Relativity. Whether other things exist inside  Mercury's orbit is not the topic of this article, this one is about Vulcan. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:51, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Per chasing down 's observation below and going through material that was actually buried in the article and further sources it looks to me like it would be better to say Le Verrier's hypothesis was disproved, not the (maybe?) existence of the planet. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 23:30, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The subject of this article called vulcan is defined by its orbit which explains the mercury orbit in a newtonian cosmos. But in an cosmos described by relativity theory things changed. If the subject of this articles exist as proposed the calculated mercury orbit would not fit to the measurement. If there are any planets in an orbit between mercurys orbit and sun they would not be vulcan. Or in short: a hypothetic planet without hypothesis is a nothing and does not exist.—Hfst (talk) 18:23, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Lithographic map having wrong date?
It seems that Vulcan was first put forth into the public conscious in 1859, so how is the most widely used map of it dated to 1856, 3 years before it was even hypothesized? Benjaminaventi (talk) 23:17, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant the map is dated to 1846. That's over 13 years before. Benjaminaventi (talk) 23:19, 18 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Good catch. Looking into other sources show the article and some of the sources are a little wrong, or a little misleading. Searches for an intermercurial planet date back to the invention of the telescope and even the name "Vulcan" predate Le Verrier Some of the information was in the article, it was just out of context. I took a whack at straightening it up. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 00:44, 23 March 2022 (UTC)