Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of nearest exoplanets/archive4


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Giants2008 via FACBot (talk) 00:32, 21 May 2018 (UTC).

List of nearest exoplanets

 * Nominator(s): Nergaal (talk) 09:48, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

I worked on this quite a bit and I think I found a way to be both interesting and manageable. I targeted to have a table/list of about 50 of the nearest planets to the Solar System, which ought to be of highest interest for investigations with telescopes. There is a chance that if/when the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is launched, that this list will significantly increase in size, and thus require more trimming, but that won't be for many years.

Initially I wanted to have this list limited to a round number like 50 light-years, but there were around 120 planets in that range which made it very difficult to maintain considering that the list gets lots of updates (there were around 70 entires 4 years ago, and even those 70 had most measurement changed since). Currently, the cutoff is set at 10 parsecs, or around 32 light-years, a less intuitive but much more common unit among astronomers (think feet vs meters). Other similar astronomy lists use thresholds like 5 parsecs, but in the future simple hard cutoffs like "50-closest" could work too. Any feedback is welcome. Nergaal (talk) 09:48, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Comments from mfb

The introduction should be improved. Apart from grammar and style (which have been criticized in earlier nominations already...): It looks like a random accumulation of facts, especially in the second paragraph. It also uses light years everywhere while the image to the right uses parsecs, making comparisons difficult. Suggestion:


 * "Out of the total of 3,743 known exoplanets (as of March 8, 2018),[1] only a small fraction are located in the vicinity of the Solar System: 56 exoplanets have been discovered within 10 parsecs (32.6 light-years). Among the over 400 stars known within this distance,[b][3] only 26 had been confirmed to have planetary systems. Among the 51 stars visible with the naked eye in this range, 8 have known exoplanets."
 * Reduce the second paragraph to Proxima Centauri as nearest star with exoplanets and HD 219134 as system with most exoplanets in the list. Then have the third paragraph with exoplanet properties.
 * I reworked/trimmed the intro quite a bit. Nergaal (talk) 11:16, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Other comments:

I like the idea of the distance/number plot, but I think the current plot is poorly drawn. The binning is too fine to show the distribution but too coarse to show individual stars (it combines YZ Ceti and Tau Ceti, for example). One point/bar per star would make much more sense I think. And, following the rest of the article, it should be in light years. Minor detail: "Count" does not need subdivisions for 1/2.
 * I can't easily make an image like it without using NASA's software, and that software doesn't really allow for higher resolution without becoming unreadable without zooming in. And they use parsecs, which is an abstract unit that I tried to stay away from as much as possible. The only real option is to take out the image entirely, leaving the list quite dry-bones.Nergaal (talk) 11:16, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It is a simple chart with the source data easily accessible. If you want equidistant bins in a bar chart: Bins of 0.2 ly work well, HD 219134 can be moved to 21.4-21.6 to avoid collision with Gliese 625 (that bin is within the uncertainty anyway). Here is an example, put together in a spreadsheet: File:Distances to nearest confirmed exoplanets in light years.png. The formatting could be improved. A scatter plot would work as well. --mfb (talk) 14:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Hah, it didn't even cross my mind to use Excel (as the dataset is only 26 long). I had the full 3000+ dataset in mind when I was thinking of graphing it. Thanks for the easy solution. Nergaal (talk) 15:24, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Fomalhaut is mentioned as "directly imaged in 2013" twice, but the image refers to direct images from four different years. What is special about the 2013 image, and if it is so special why don't we show this one?

"Inclusion criteria" doesn't seem to have anything to do with the proximity of the exoplanets. Why is this needed here?
 * Various databases include "exoplanets" even those with masses that could sustain deuterium fusion. A paragraph explains why those are not included here, and also explains how the estimated mass might count. In addition, databases include some planets as confirmed and others as unconfirmed.  The current state of the article assumes NASA's as the "highest authority" and the first para in that sections lists those that are not listed by NASA but are by others. Nergaal (talk) 10:30, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Does renaming it to "excluded from the list" and moving it after the table work? Nergaal (talk) 11:21, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I think that would be better. --mfb (talk) 14:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

There could be a section where individual planets are discussed if they have something special (e.g. Fomalhaut as one of the rare exoplanets with a direct image, complex discovery histories, ...).
 * A long time ago that would have made sense. But over half of the current entries did not exist 3 years ago. Having a discussion section (besides the criteria one) will mean that likely it too will have to get rewritten soon. Other planets might get directly imaged too. For example, 3 years ago, most known planets in this range were Jupiter-sized, so the discussion 3 years ago would have talked how Earth-like planets are so rare, when today they form the majority of the entires in the table. Nergaal (talk) 10:30, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Lists can change over time, that is nothing new. List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches was at 1/3 the current size three years ago (15 launches instead of 51). A good list has recent information, if this recent information is relevant. --mfb (talk) 14:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I am not arguing that it wouldn't be nice to have one, just that I am trying to reach a realistic balance with maintaining it. The F9, is a chronological, stable list, which adds on sequentially. Once you plug in a payload mass into the table it won't change. Sep 2015 the Gliese 876 system had here very different "best guesses" for inclinations and eccentricities (and mass). That's why I tried to focus on the most basic stuff. All the more notable things I had thought of I had put in the introduction (most planets, first planets, etc), as stuff like smallest planet, or most habitable might change (even planets like around Alpha Centauri was considered confirmed a while ago but now NASA doesn't list it as such). Nergaal (talk) 15:24, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand the use of # in the table, and in general the large number of footnotes, comments and so on is a bit unfortunate.
 * Great catch. It's supposed to follow the yellow-background entries (for colorblind people), but I forgot to update the # with the yellows. Nergaal (talk)

The mass numbers in the table look too accurate. I doubt we have three significant figures for them.
 * You are right about it. I manually trimmed down the excess sig-figures for most of the numbers and left behind enough to make the ordering listing option meaningful. For example, for Proxima Centauri b, the minimum mass is 1.27 with +0.19 to -0.17 given to it. I will try to remove most of the 3-figures numbers, but what do you suggest to do with numbers like 1.27+0.19-0.17? Nergaal (talk) 10:30, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * If this would be a scientific publication I would keep that number, but for Wikipedia I think 1.3 +- 0.2 is better. Rounding is advisable especially if you don't explicitly give the uncertainty. --mfb (talk) 14:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I went and looked carefully, and the error bars on masses are relatively huge (rarely under 10% and usually around 30%). And that isn't even taking into account orbital inclination estimates. I removed everything beyond the 2nd sig fig, and even left a single sig fig for the more gigantic error bars. Nergaal (talk) 16:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I like the tables, but their arrangement is chaotic with nearly every browser width.

--mfb (talk) 19:58, 25 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you mean by chaotic (they appear to look fine on Chrome). Thanks for all the comments; I tried to fix them as much as I could. Let me know what you think, . Nergaal (talk) 11:19, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Looks better already. --mfb (talk) 14:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I tried to fix things further. Am I still missing anything? Nergaal (talk) 09:33, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It is much better than before already, but I think it could be improved further. --mfb (talk) 12:36, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Any specifics? Nergaal (talk) 15:48, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I gave a few more go-throughs. I am not sure what else can I improve on. Any suggestions? Nergaal (talk) 13:34, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You can do a lot just by going through the article and fixing grammar and so on. As long as there is an obvious grammar error in the second sentence already this list won't get featured. The second paragraph makes an exoplanet a report, and so on. The references should be formatted consistently, and YYYY-MM-DD is an uncommon date format here. The weblink check linked at the top of the page finds two issues. These are all things that should not need external review. --mfb (talk) 22:30, 7 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Fixed more stuff. Nergaal (talk) 08:22, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Since this is a perennial issue with this list, I've just gone ahead and copyedited the prose myself. Please verify that I dind't inadvertently change something to not be true. -- Pres N  19:41, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Looks good. Nergaal (talk) 13:23, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Comments by Dudley

 * I too have done some copy edits. Of course, change anything which is wrong.
 * "In that range there are over 400 known stars,[b][4] 51 of which are visible to the naked-eye,[5][c] 26 have been confirmed to have planetary systems, and 8 have confirmed exoplanets." I do not understand this. Presumably a planetary system is a star which has one or more planets, so should not the number be smaller than the number of exoplanets?
 * I believe your copyedit made this a bit confusing- the idea is 400 stars, of which 26 have planetary systems. 51 of those stars are visible to the naked eye, and there are 8 planets confirmed for those 51 stars. Although, is that even true? The statistics table for visible stars says 8 systems, not 8 planets. -- Pres N  20:55, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The original I've had a long time ago was "Among the over 400 known stars within this distance,[b][4] only 26 have been confirmed to have planetary systems. Among the 51 stars in this range that are visible the naked-eye,[5][c] only eight have confirmed exoplanets." But reviewers have consistently complained about copyediting throughout all FLCs, so I've given up on having a 'personal' edit.  I would rather have reviewers be happy, so feel free to rephrase it in a correct and clear manner. Nergaal (talk) 21:20, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it was already ambiguous because of previous edits and I misread it. How about: "Among over 400 known stars within this distance,[b][4] 26 have been confirmed to have planetary systems; 51 stars in this range are visible to the naked-eye,[5][c] eight of which have planetary systems." Dudley Miles (talk) 09:26, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Looks fine to me. Nergaal (talk) 18:18, 15 May 2018 (UTC)


 * "The International Astronomical Union took a public survey in 2015 about renaming some known extrasolar bodies," If you want to mention this, you should give the results of the poll.
 * The poll was a while ago and I thought it was a cool idea. But it is unclear to me if scientists (those who write papers on this stuff) actually care for the "official" names, so I was a bit reticent in pushing the non-standardized names.  I will add a clarifying note about the names to mention the results better. Nergaal (talk) 21:23, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * If there is no move to actually use the names, I would delete. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:26, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It is unclear to me how much the names have been adopted. It seems to be an "official" move/name, but since it did not get wide attention like say the debate about Pluto's planetary status, there has been no additional clarification to the wider public.  I am guessing a few decades from now, these names will have caught on. Nergaal (talk) 18:18, 15 May 2018 (UTC)


 * It would considerably enhance the value of the list to make the columns sortable.
 * Good catch! It's always been sortable, but one of my last edits broke that. I fixed it. Nergaal (talk) 21:09, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * " The International Astronomical Union has detailed that "a period of at least five years since the discovery has been considered as a simple and satisfactory criterion to include exoplanets which can be considered as confirmed"." I am not sure what this means - obviously not five years without confirming evidence. Does it mean five years without anyone disputing the claim?
 * Yes. If someone says "we are confident there is a planet there, and we have evidence X, Y and Z", if nobody says X, Y and/or Z are false, or that X1 says different from X, they are assumed tacitly confirmed.  It's a quote from experts in the field, so I tried to not touch it, but feel free to improve the clarity. Nergaal (talk) 21:14, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem is that it is a quote which is only explaining part of what they are saying. I suggest not quoting and saying something like "The International Astronomical Union has declared that an exoplanet should be considered confirmed if it has not been disputed for five years after its discovery." Does this seem OK? Dudley Miles (talk) 09:26, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Changed. Nergaal (talk) 18:18, 15 May 2018 (UTC)


 * It looks to me as if there are no problems which cannot be easily fixed this time round. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:43, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking a look at the list. Let me know if there is anything else I can work on. Nergaal (talk) 22:09, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Support. My concerns have been dealt with. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:41, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Review by PresN

 * The "1 candidate and a disc" confused me for a bit; maybe make it "additional candidate(s)" in that column, or add a note to the column header that it's notes on non-confirmed planetary candidates and planetary discs
 * How is the new title? Nergaal (talk) 21:45, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with Dudley; the columns should be sortable. This may require dropping the "separator" column, I think.
 * Yeah, I noticed that trick I tried broke the sorting. Nergaal (talk) 21:45, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The table does not meet ACCESS requirements; specifically it's missing colscopes and rowscopes.
 * Does every single row require it even if no "!" is used? Nergaal (talk) 21:45, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Missing accessdates on some Exoplanet.eu -- Pres N  21:11, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Good catch. Weird how the bot missed those. Nergaal (talk) 21:51, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking some time to look through. I think I fixed all these issues. Let me know if I missed anything. Nergaal (talk) 22:08, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Looks good! I did the rowscopes myself (you do need the '!', which means that the first column needs to be on it's own line); note that I'm manually overriding the way rowscopes bold the first column so as to not change your preexisting formatting. If you'd prefer that, just drop the font-weight bits on each star. Support ing, pending the last few bits from Dudley Miles above. Additionally, Source Review passed. -- Pres N  17:45, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The alignment seems a bit off, but I don't know enough html to figure out how to center it. Any idea how to get them perfectly balanced, as all things should be? Nergaal (talk) 18:25, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, it's because the rowscope tag makes it a "header" cell, and header cells for sortable tables get extra space on the right for the sorting arrows. Adjusted to remove that space. -- Pres N  17:03, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

You reviewed this list a while back; are you satisfied with the changes since? -- Pres N  17:04, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Looks good now, I support the nomination. The graph could be improved - I made it as demonstration how a graph could look like without spending much time on its quality. --mfb (talk) 06:46, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Giants2008 ( Talk ) 22:04, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.