Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cold Neptune


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Spartaz Humbug! 19:38, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Cold Neptune

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There is no particular indication that these terms are commonly-used in the literature about planets. For example, an ADS search for "cold Neptune" reveals only two papers that use the term, and a search for "cold Jupiter" gives a list of 6 papers, only 2 of which use the term. It therefore appears that neither term has gained much traction, and it may be best to either delete these articles as non-notable classification system or perhaps to merge them into Gas giant. Icalanise (talk) 09:46, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: I don't think it's appropriate to have two articles (Cold Neptune and Cold Jupiter) in the same deletion discussion. --Gyrobo (talk) 13:15, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The main page Articles for deletion has a section "How to list multiple related pages for deletion". If you do not agree with having multiple nominations in the same discussion then you should take that issue up on the main AfD talk page: at present it remains a valid course of action. Icalanise (talk) 13:29, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Since User:Thincat asked me to expand on my reasons for the nomination, here's what I posted at their talk page in response to their enquiry: "Hi, the reason I nominated these is because the usage of the terms seems to be little more than an adjective+noun combination and thus trivial. The terms are also poorly-defined, where for example do you draw a line between "warm Jupiters" and the "cold Jupiters"? This contrasts with the hot Jupiters which represent a distinct population of objects, as evidenced by the mass/period diagram for radial-velocity exoplanets which shows a cluster of giant planets at roughly 3-days orbital period and masses typically around 1 Jupiter mass.(The other major population of giant planets identifiable in the mass/period diagram appears to be orbital periods longer than ~100 days, and a wide range of eccentricities, i.e. the eccentric Jupiters.) If you regard these terms as an atmospheric category, we already have the Sudarsky extrasolar planet classification. In short, I do not think these classifications are independently notable." Icalanise (talk) 13:35, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep both articles. They cite reliable sources such as The Astrophysical Journal, Astronomy Magazine, Space.com and National Geographic Society, and there are several scholarly articles on each. --Gyrobo (talk) 13:56, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Note that the majority of the references in Cold Jupiter are in fact all to do with the press release surrounding the now-disproven planet VB 10b. Essentially the article is extrapolating an entire class of planets from this one discovery. Icalanise (talk) 14:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The sources referred to by Cold Jupiter labeled VB 10b as a "Cold Jupiter" based on its size and distance from its parent star &mdash; the existence of VB 10b is not at issue here, only that "Cold Jupiter" is a category to which planets like it belong. --Gyrobo (talk) 22:18, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually the discovery paper for VB 10b (available on arXiv here) does not use the term "cold Jupiter" at all, it was only used in the press release. Not particularly convincing that this is used a scientific term for a category of planets. Icalanise (talk) 22:47, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If the sources are using "Cold Jupiter" as a common name, it's still acceptable. The issue is not terminology, it's whether such a category exists. The sources say that it does. --Gyrobo (talk) 23:06, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There is also a notability criterion to consider. Is "cold Jupiter" actually generally used for a specific class of planets, and how is that class defined (and can we verify that definition)? As far as I can see on the Cold Jupiter page as currently exists, we have one reference that uses the term "Jupiter twin", and four rehashes of the VB 10b press release (one of which is to a blog post, which may call into question the suitability of it being used as a reference anyway). The literature search appears to indicate the primary usage of the term is in the sense of "let's set up several models of Jupiter-like planets at various levels of insolation, label them 'hot Jupiter', 'warm Jupiter', 'cold Jupiter' for convenience". That is to say, mostly this term is just used as a convenient label to compare various theoretical scenarios, rather than an actual specific class of objects. The VB 10b press release (cited via 4 separate links) seems to be little more than a convenient label for "not hot Jupiter". At this point I would argue it makes more sense that if we keep something at "Cold Jupiter" it should be a redirect rather than a stubby article for a poorly-defined term. Icalanise (talk) 23:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:33, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep: This article is the opposite of the more notable Hot Neptune. I knew that some scientific papers use the term Cold Neptune. BlueEarth (talk | contribs) 20:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If it is just the opposite of the term "hot Neptune" it becomes essentially a dictionary definition. Question is whether "cold Neptune" is a specific term in its own right (e.g. the hot Jupiters are clearly a specific population of objects), or just an adjective+noun combination (i.e. a "Neptune" that is cold). I see little evidence that the term is anything other than the latter. Icalanise (talk) 20:45, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete both. No evidence either in the article or in GB or GS that "cold Neptune" is a term used by astronomers. For cold Jupiter, the article has a blog reference pointing at the press release already mentioned, but again nothing on GB or GS. It seems like WP:NEO. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 00:20, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Neptune is by definition, "cold", it is an "ice giant". And nothing in the article explains why this category is different from the ice giant category actually used by scientists. ;; As discovered by other users, "Cold Jupiter" is a term used to exclusively describe a planet that does not exist, and is a simple combination of "cold" and "Jupiter", rather than being any actual category of planet. It should never have existed as an article, it should have been a redirect to the planet in question (which does not exist), if that. As it is a horrible name for a redirect, it should not exists at all. 110.173.235.68 (talk) 10:50, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.