Wikipedia:Peer review/Ceres (dwarf planet)/archive3

Ceres (dwarf planet)

Previous peer review

I've listed this article for peer review because it has recently attained GA and I would like to see what is required to get it to FAC.

Thanks, Serendi^podous 15:20, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

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With one reservation, the article is worth of FAC status. The reservation is that, rightly or wrongly, the impression gained was that several facts about Ceres were needlessly repeated several times e.g it has ice at least on its surface.

Here are some other things. They are all extracts from the article, with dot point comments following:

The first asteroid known, 

• That is an odd way of putting it i.e. "known"

which is a now-discredited hypothesis that was first proposed in 1766. 

• The "that" is not required

 the law of Titius and Bode, 

• earlier it was referred to as the Titus-Bode law

William Herschel's discovery of Uranus in 1781[18] near the predicted distance for the next body beyond Saturn increased faith in the law of Titius and Bode, and in 1800, a group headed by Franz Xaver von Zach, editor of the Monatliche Correspondenz, sent requests to 24 experienced astronomers (whom he dubbed the "celestial police"),[19] asking that they combine their efforts and begin a methodical search for the expected planet.[19] 

• This sentence is too long

He was searching for "the 87th [star] of the Catalogue of the Zodiacal stars of Mr la Caille", but found that "it was preceded by another".[18] Instead of a star, Piazzi had found a moving star-like object, which he first thought was a comet.[21]

• What is the Catalogue of the Zodiacal stars?

To recover Ceres, mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, then 24 years old, developed an efficient method of orbit determination.[21] 

• "recover" is an odd way of saying it

Perhaps. But it is the official term used in astronomy. Serendi^podous 09:48, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

On 31 December 1801, von Zach and fellow celestial policeman Heinrich W. M. Olbers found Ceres near the predicted position and thus recovered it.[21]

• ditto for "recovered"

The early observers were only able to calculate the size of Ceres to within an order of magnitude. Herschel underestimated its diameter as 260 kilometres (160 mi) in 1802, whereas in 1811 German astronomer Johann Hieronymus Schröter overestimated it as 2,613 kilometres (1,624 mi).[23]

• So what was the actual size?

The old astronomical symbol of Ceres is a sickle, ⟨⚳⟩,[33] similar to Venus' symbol ⟨♀⟩ but with a break in the circle. It has a variant ⟨⚳⟩, reversed under the influence of the initial letter 'C' of 'Ceres'.

• None of the sickle signs look like a sickle

To me they do. And anyway, they were intended to be sickles, whether they look like them or not. Serendi^podous 09:51, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Looks more or less like this one, at least. Double sharp (talk) 14:10, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

A proposal before the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the global body responsible for astronomical nomenclature and classification, for the definition of a planet would have defined a planet as "a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid-body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet".

• Too long.

Since the IAU declaration in 2006 there has been some confusion as to whether, now that Ceres is officially a dwarf planet, it remains classified as an asteroid.

• Clumsily put; better as, "Since the IAU declaration in 2006, now that Ceres is officially a dwarf planet, there has been some confusion as to whether it remains classified as an asteroid.’

Several sources, such as space.com and even NASA, have declared Vesta, the belt's second-largest object, to be the largest asteroid.

• Too many commas; is space.com a reliable source?

The IAU has been equivocal on the subject, often contradicting itself, sometimes in the same source,[43][44] though its Minor Planet Center, the organization charged with officially cataloguing such objects, notes that they may have dual designations.[45]

• Too long

 though some deviations from an equilibrium shape are not yet to be fully explained

• Clumsy phrasing

These may be cryptic craters, an

• What is a cryptic crater?

4423 boulders larger than 105 m (344 ft) have been observed on the surface of Ceres. 

• Don’t start a sentence with a number

As of 2021, two competing models for Ceres's interior, a 2-layer and a 3-layer model, not counting a possible small metallic core, are proposed:

• The colon is not needed

It's unknown if it contains a rocky or metallic core, 

• Do not use contractions

seems rather that Ceres formed as a centaur, most likely between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, and was scattered into the asteroid belt as Jupiter migrated outward.[15] 

• What is a centaur?

Ceres is rich in carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, but the two other crucial biogenic elements, sulfur and phosphorus, have proven elusive.

• Where does the term "biogenic" come from?

The relaxation of Ceres' topography across its surface is evidence for a liquid layer some 60 km (37 mi) below the surface, or at least pockets of brine, that may persist to the present.[70]

• Felt that this point had already been mentioned several times, or variations on it.

In February 2017, tholins were detected on Ceres in Ernutet crater

• What is a tholin?

Sandbh (talk) 06:38, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Everything else done. Thanks for your advice. Serendi^podous 14:40, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Procedural close: No comments after a week. Taking this to FAC. Thank you for your input. Serendi^podous 16:04, 9 August 2021 (UTC)