Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/KOI 701.03


 * 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. While the overall topic is undoubtedly notable, the specific objects which may or may not be planets or even exist at all are not "automatically notable" and are therefore subject to WP:N, as well as WP:CRYSTAL. This may turn out to be a find of massive scientific import someday, or it may be nothing, or a ball of ice, etc... No prejudice against recreation as a redirect to some appropriate target. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:45, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

KOI 701.03

 * – ( View AfD View log )

The article discusses an exoplanet candidate, not even one officially announced. By definition there can not be enough reliable sourcing for something that the team themselves do not even yet know exists. If this article is notable enough to have an entry then pretty much every other possibility you can think of is. ChiZeroOne (talk) 18:34, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Basically you're saying that something reported by NASA (see reference) is not notable. It doesn't matter if the subject exists or not, the message was purported by a reliable source. De728631 (talk) 18:46, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So why not create an article on all KOI's? On all the objects in the list of false positives? on all the suspected Eclipsing Binaries? Is every bit of data from a scientific study notable enough for an article of it's own?  This wasn't announced by NASA, only the Kepler-11 planets were announced as actual planets.  Frankly your claim in the edit summaries that all "Astrononmy related topics are notable" is ridiculous, not everything related to astronomy is.  There are lots of things reported in reliable sources that don't necessarily deserve an article, all sorts of data from scientific studies are published all the time for example.  I think most people would accept they do not all deserve a separate article (or even a mention!), especially when it is not known whether they are even real effects. ChiZeroOne (talk) 18:59, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * "So why not create an article on all KOI's? On all the objects in the list of false positives? on all the suspected Eclipsing Binaries?" Actually that might be a good idea. There are lists on Wikipedia about almost anything that is remotely notable, e.g. all the lists of minor planets. De728631 (talk) 19:32, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "Frankly your claim in the edit summaries that all 'Astrononmy related topics are notable' is ridiculous, not everything related to astronomy is." There is consensus about geographical topics, e.g. all town and village stubs are generally not to be deleted so I don't see why this shouldn't be expanded to reliably sourced accounts of findings in astronomy. De728631 (talk) 19:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The consensus for astronomical objects only applies to comets and asteroids. Your consensus does not yet apply to candidate extrasolar planets.&mdash;RJH (talk) 21:02, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a patently absurd suggestion - there's no way every single object in astronomy is notable. SIMBAD lists 5 million distinct objects (mostly stars); NED has 162 million 'unique objects' (almost all galaxies); neither of those include solar system objects, and there are many many times that number of objects in various astronomical catalogues that no-one has bothered to incorporate into the databases. Very few astronomical discoveries are actually notable. Modest Genius talk 22:22, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Add to that an article in the NYT reporting the discovery of 1200 such candidates, 68 of which are similar to KOI 701.03 . De728631 (talk) 18:57, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And how many of them have an article? There's a reason for that, to most sensible people they do not yet have the notability to warrant a mention.  These facts have been noted on the Kepler (spacecraft) page, and that's as far as these objects need mentioning for now. ChiZeroOne (talk) 19:02, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:30, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:GNG&mdash;Candidate object of interest has no secondary sources available at this time. This object has the lowest vetting rating in the original, solitary source paper and thus might not even be real. How did the editor come up with a planetary mass? Is that OR?&mdash;RJH (talk) 20:46, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong delete. A candidate planet is definitely not notable until confirmed (with the possible exceptions of Planet X, Vulcan (planet) etc). There are more than 1000 such candidates in the latest Kepler data release alone, and they're only going to be become more numerous as more data is obtained over the next few years. The fact that this is the 'most Earth-like' candidate pulled out of their database is meaningless, since the numbers are essentially just educated guesses at present - there's probably only a 50% chance at best that there's even a planet there. It will almost certainly turn out that this is not the most Earth-like exoplanet known, just from the statistics and massive error bars. Modest Genius talk 21:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 *  Keep Keep or Merge Actually, NASA's Kepler Team ranges the possibility of being real about 90%. Oh, come on, look at the characteristics. What would happen if this turns out to be a real habitable planet,as it seems to be the probability by 90%?195.57.146.182 (talk) 14:46, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The actual Kepler team believe out of all these candidates 80% may end up being real planets, but many of the Kepler candidates are around stars which with present technology such small candidates cannot be confirmed (too bright etc). In all likelihood we won't know if KOI 701.03 is real or not for decades because currently the RV follow-up probably can't see it.  Btw, it was separate researchers that stated a possibility of 90%.  However even if the false positive rate for the entire sample turns out to be low, which we don't know, for individual objects and particularly ones thought to be as small as this one, the likelihood they are real drops dramatically.  As RJHall said this object has the lowest vetting rating, and I suspect it will remain so with present technology, so applying a blanket figure for false positives over the entire sample to a single candidate is logically incorrect. ChiZeroOne (talk) 19:37, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In addition it is not a particularly good candidate for being in the habitable zone anyway. The Kepler team have apparently not learned from the saga of Gliese 581 c and have used a definition of the habitable zone based on "these blackbody temperatures look nice". Oh well. Icalanise (talk) 19:42, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Merge or delete to its star article (whatever that may be, the article does not say). It is not overly notable until it is confirmed. As it is a candidate, it is not a real "geographic" location, it is only postulated. Its star is a real "geographic" location. If we can't determine the star, then delete per WP:CRYSTAL, it is not a location article, since the location specified in the article is not confirmed to actually exist, and many candidate planets are later found to not exist, so candidates are not inherently notable, unless the candidature has some other effect other than just being announced. 64.229.101.119 (talk) 20:18, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find this star in SIMBAD (either from the identifier or the coordinates) and the single source from the article only lists the KOI. It seems likely that the same source would need to be used for the star article, so it would suffer from the same issues. Probably in the future, when this star system is examined in more detail, there will be enough sources to build a proper article.&mdash;RJH (talk)
 * Keep this has a good chance to be a planet in the end, and it is super notable for being the closest Earth-like planet so far. Nergaal (talk) 21:20, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * But the error bars are so huge that it's almost certainly not the most Earth-like exoplanet that we know of, if it even exists. Modest Genius talk 19:51, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete or Merge - though I'm not sure where to at the moment (if we had a List of Kepler objects of interest that might be a good target). Previous consensus at WP:ASTRO is that unconfirmed exoplanet candidates are not sufficiently notable to warrant their own articles. As a general comment about the state of the article as it is now, pushing the habitability of a 1.73 Earth radius planet seems premature when all but the very hottest super-Earths (evaporated cores?) are turning out to be mini-Neptunes. Icalanise (talk) 23:44, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It could be merged into Kepler_(spacecraft), which already discusses other press releases and early results from the Kepler team. Modest Genius talk 19:51, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep or Merge to List of Habitable Planet Candidates or something similar. In the next few years, all of these candidate planets are likely to be either confirmed or disconfirmed, but because this one is currently thought to be one of the most "earthlike" of the bunch, it will certainly be under the most scrutiny. The number of notable articles in both academia and in the lay sphere will most likely cross the WP:SNOWBALL mark, if it hasn't already. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 20:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * keep Likely Earth-like planet awaiting confirmation. Planets are big things. They are inherently notable. A planet that looks like Earth that already has multiple sources talking about it and the number of sources is likely to grow? This should be an easy decision. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:36, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. When and if the presence of this object is confirmed, it might be notable enough to have an article on, but right now it's literally one of thousands of equally-non-notable signals that might be a planet in a large data set. Stating that it's noteworthy as the "most earth-like" candidate is silly - there's a large pool of such candidates. The fact that one looks slightly more earth-like than all of the others amongst all of the random noise means nothing. The "mission results" section of Kepler (spacecraft) does a sufficient job of summarizing the results as they presently stand. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 21:54, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * KOI 701.01 is one of a small handful in the dataset that are potentially both within the HZ of their stars and roughly Earth-sized. As such, it will be the object of close scrutiny by the scientific community and the public at large. Wikipedia readers want to know what objects the scientists are most interested in; Wikipedia editors have a responsibility to provide that information. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 00:54, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Per WP:CRYSTAL, write about it _after_ that "close scrutiny" occurs, not before. I'll also remind you - again - that it's entirely possible that a different candidate object will end up being the most earth-like _confirmed_ world even within this data set, so focusing on this one is very premature. You don't appear to appreciate how preliminary these results are, or how much uncertainty there is in the estimated properties of these candidate objects. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 02:00, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've read the paper, I understand the uncertainties involved. This is not an article about a planet...it's an article about an interesting signal. The fact that it's interesting makes it a subject of scrutiny in academia and in the media (along with the five or so other interesting signals). That alone establishes notability, whether or not the signal turns out to be a planet or mere noise. Also, I don't need a WP:CRYSTAL ball to tell me it will receive close scrutiny...I have several scientific papers and a couple media mentions that tell me it has already received close scrutiny. The fact that it will probably receive more makes it a case of WP:SNOWBALL. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 14:42, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment: Refreshing my memory about WP:NOTE, I find that, "A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below and is not excluded by WP:NOT." The General Notability Guideline says: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list." As a number of reliable sources have been provided, and many more are certain to come, it would seem that this article satisfies the requirements for inclusion unless there's something I haven't noticed in WP:NOT that would exclude it. In particular, I would note that there's nothing in the guidelines requiring a subject to be scientifically verified...or indeed real...merely being mentioned by a significant number of reliable sources is sufficient for exclusion. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 01:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I would draw your attention to the fact that we have articles on many non-real, and/or non-verified phenomena, a few examples of which I've listed below. In particular, notice that many of the specific items on these lists also have their own stand-alone articles.
 * List of UFO sightings
 * Spontaneous human combustion
 * Cold fusion
 * Loop quantum gravity
 * Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 01:23, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * All of which have been significantly discussed in wider sources and have some historical significance to make them notable. KOI 701.03 has not. This distinction was hinted at further up the page when Planet X and Vulcan (planet) were noted as exceptions by User:Modest Genius.  They may be hypothetical but the subject is widely discussed, often over decades/centuries, and hence are notable for that reason. Neither KOI 701.03 or any of the others yet to be confirmed are, the only reason some appear to think it is notable is because if it even exists it may be "Earth-like", which as has already been pointed out a number of times is original research anyway.


 * Btw I should point out "other stuff exists" is not a terribly good argument, a lot of **** on Wikipedia has simply not been cleared out yet. ChiZeroOne (talk) 02:33, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * No. The notability is not directly related whether the object is earthlike or not. Notability is based solely upon whether it is mentioned in reliable sources or not--not whether they're historically important, not whether they're verified or not--but only, only because they are found in reliable sources. The fact that it could be an earthlike world might be the sources' underlying reason for mentioning it, but that's not the reason for including it here. Yes, less recent examples are likely to have more scholarship, but Wikipedia policy does not provide a hard line for what constitutes "significant" coverage in reliable sources. I contend that several scientific papers and a couple of newspaper mentions--and almost certainly lots more to come--constitutes significant coverage. {{Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 14:29, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Btw, whether you consider our articles **** or not has little to do with why they're there. Many of the above mentioned articles have already survived deletion attempts for the same reason that this article should survive; because their discussion in WP:RELIABLE sources is sufficient for inclusion per the low bar set by WP:NOTE. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 15:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment: As mentioned above, this is NOT an article about a planet, it's an article about an interesting signal, and its mention in reliable sources establishes notability per WP:NOTE. Despite this, some editors have been quick to point out the likelihood of verification, or lack thereof. The Borucki paper does assign each of its candidate planets a confidence interval ranking number of 1 through 4. KOI 701.03 is in Rank 3, which means it has a greater than 60% likelihood of confirmation. Of the other four "interesting signals", KOI 1026.01, KOI 268.01, and KOI 854.01 are in Rank 3 or 4, both of which are in the roughly >60% confidence interval, while KOI 326.01 is in Rank 2, which makes it >80% confidence. Also note that Rank 1 is only given to those candidates already published elsewhere as confirmed planets. Finally, note that the article's wording has now been cleaned up a tad to avoid OR (more cleanup to come) and new sources have been added (likely more sources to come). Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 15:08, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment if this proves to not be a planet, it will quickly be forgotten, as many other such signals indicative of planets have been already, with no further study or mention of them ever to come about. So, either this is WP:CRYSTAL planet or a WP:NOTNEWS article about a signal. If it's a signal article, it would appear to violate WP:NOTNEWS. 65.94.45.238 (talk) 06:27, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: WP:NOT says "Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events." The first reports of potentially habitable exoplanets are of enduring import, even if some of them are later found to be false positives. See our articles on Martian canals for a similar case. This isn't some passing fad or flash-in-the-pan fluke; it's an historic moment regardless of the outcome of followup research. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 18:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * When writing an article about the first 'potentially habitable' (which is a very poorly defined term anyway) exoplanet, the first detection of a signal of it would indeed be notable and should be included in any such article. But until the planet is confirmed to have those properties, the signal is just one of many hundreds of promising candidates. As an analogy, if an oncologist came out with a paper saying that they had identified a promising new cancer drug, would that be worth an article? If it did indeed turn out to be an effective treatment, as shown by further trials, then it would indeed be notable. But if it turned out not to work (a quirk in the data) or to have serious side-effects that prevent widespread deployment, it would not be notable enough for an article. KOI 701.03 is in a similar position - if confirmed, this could potentially be important. But it could turn out not to be a planet at all, or if it is a planet it could (in fact is highly probably that it will) turn out not to be 'potentially habitable'. Modest Genius talk 22:08, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You might not find it notable, but reliable sources do, and therefore Wikipedia does as well. Also, you shouldn't make assumptions about the likelihood of confirmation (estimated at 60%), nor about how Earthlike it'll turn out to be. I believe the radius error bar is something like +/- .61, so it's equally likely to turn out to be MORE earthlike as it is to turn out less earthlike. And, yes potential medicines should be in Wikipedia if they generate comment by reliable sources. In fact even medicines that are proven to be ineffective can have articles. See Homeopathy and Snake Oil. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 01:37, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This isn't even one of the first reports. If looking at the first reports of potentially habitable planets other than Earth, there is Mars itself, which you point out we have an article for Martian canals. As for exoplanets, there have been many claims of habitability prior to this hypothetical planet. One of the first exoplanets announced, 70 Virginis b was called "Goldilocks" because of potential habitability of hypothetical moons around it. Then there's the relativley recent Gliese 581 c. This is only one of the latest in a long line of reports of potentially habitable planet candidates, that date back to the 1800's. As it is not one of the first potentially habitable planets announced, that reason goes out the window. 65.94.47.11 (talk) 07:44, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There have been a grand total of less than ten exoplanet candidates that appear to be the right size and position to be habitable. You'll notice that both 70 Virginis b and Gliese 581 c have articles even though neither is anything approaching earthlike. So, why do they have articles? Because they generated significant coverage by reliable sources, and therefore they are notable. The current Kepler finds hold even more promise than those two, and they are far more notable than the dozens of other exoplanets that we currently have articles for. Again, the threshold for notability is coverage by reliable sources, NOT whether individual editors find them important. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 14:47, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The difference between KOI-701.03 and the cases of 70 Vir b and GJ 581c are that the latter two planets are confirmed to exist, regardless of whether or not they are located within the habitable zone. On the other hand, the existence of KOI-701.03 is not (yet?) robustly demonstrated. Previous consensus at WP:ASTRO is that unconfirmed exoplanets are not notable. Icalanise (talk) 23:01, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The are a lot of RS for PSR 1829-10 planet, the first pulsar planet announced, first seemingly solid exoplanet announced, but we don't have an article on it. That planet does not exist. This planet candidate has not been proven to exist, so it is just a news event at the moment. It is not the first planet candidate to be announced to be potentially habitable, it is not the first exoplanet candidate, it is not one of the first in either of those categories. It's just another in a long line of planet candidate announcements, several of those announcements being potentially habitable. There have been more than 10 such announcements in the past. (such as 5 in 1999 another in 1996 -- this has been going on for decades) 65.94.47.11 (talk) 08:19, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The candidates you cite from '99 and '96 were gas giants. These candidates are more than two orders of magnitude smaller than those. Again, these are the first that are potentially earthlike in both size and orbital radius. That's a significant distinction. As for "PSR B1829−10 planet-", we do have an article about its host star, PSR B1829−10. The sole claim to notability: that it was the subject of a retracted exoplanet claim. If, as a compromise, you want to merge this content into an article about KOI 701 in order to follow the PSR B1829−10 precedent, I can get behind that. Although I would prefer, as I've said above, to merge this and any other KOI articles into an article called Earthlike exoplanet candidates or something similar. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 15:51, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree that an "Earthlike exoplanet candidates" article would be a good idea: you'd have to come up with a decent definition of what constitutes an Earthlike planet. Furthermore it is not entirely clear that KOI-701.03 would meet such criteria. Icalanise (talk) 22:16, 11 February 2011 (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.