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Different sources give different names of several asteroids
I did some additional research on asteroid 8932.JPL Horizons and[1] gives a name ofNagatomo, but[2] givesNagamoto. I don't speak Japanese, but I can read some according to my Chinese knowledge. After some research on Google, I found the corresponding Japanese name ofNagatomo orNagamoto is長友信人[3], the asteroid was discoverred by小林隆男. I googled the keyword"長友信人" "Nagatomo" and get 31 results, while"長友信人" "Nagamoto" get only 3 results. So I think the correct translation might beNagatomo. --Yaohua200005:33, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Did these ever get resolved, after 14 years? I mean, the best way is to probably figure out who or what they were named for, and see if there's a consensus spelling for its/their name. Some of them are probably transcription errors between different alphabets and the like, mis-readings of unclear text, or just plain typos...146.199.60.87 (talk)21:13, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I am unaware if they were resolved yet, but I assume the name differences could be mis translation or typo. I think the best course of action would be to put both names, such as: "Anticlus, also known as Antielus"
I have just looked, no names are listed on this page, so this conversation is either out of date, irrelevant, or both. --Caez (any pronouns c:) (talk)16:03, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The page seems to have been split from the very beginning, so that this was presumably being used as a centralised talk page. Regardless, the name issues are resolved: the MPC is the authority.Double sharp (talk)05:03, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of the diameters listed in the tables look dubious to me; some are wrong by 1-2 orders of magnitude. To give just one example,470430 is given a diameter of 24 km, which at the absolute magnitude (H=16.83) given by JPL[4] would require an albedo of 0.0006 (which is unphysical). Where do these diameters come from, who calculated the ones that aren't direct measurements, and who is going to correct the 700,000 entries that would need to be checked?
Fixed. This is a very strange/rare case/mistake, and actually the only one I've ever seen on the LoMPs from Rfassbind, so I'd consider it a 1-off. Regardless, I'll be making my way down methodically from the 700k's with updated orbital & observational parameters, family memberships, discovery circumstances, etc. for the foreseeable future. ~Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)00:02, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Tom.Reding: Thank you. Are you aware that the information about discovery date and site is incorrect for many asteroids? I'd estimate about 5% of all asteroids are affected by this. For example, compareList of minor planets: 269001–270000#632 (2011 AK34 - October 24, 2005 - Mauna Kea - A. Boattini) to what's said in[7] (2011 AK34 - Discovered at Kitt Peak on 2003-09-29 by Spacewatch).Renerpho (talk)03:13, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
720000 is the lastnumbered minor planet, as of the time of writing. It was numbered in the most recent batch of MPC's in onJuly 14 this year. You'll have to wait till the Minor Planet Center numbers more.Double sharp (talk)11:24, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The list should be extended. . .and why am I getting reverted?
i don't know why but this is shocking that someone can edit for hours and get a BIG list of minor planets, i thank for your power and skillsNail123Real (talk)11:28, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would just correct these errors myself, but I'd rather find out what caused them, so we can eliminate other instances. The fact that there are four such erros in just one sub-list indicates there might be many more elsewhere.Renerpho (talk)23:45, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One more example, wrongly claiming a Catalina discovery, is561826.
I have only looked through the sub-lists from 500000-600000, and among those, only at asteroids where the discovery site is claimed to be Catalina or Mount Lemmon. I donot know if the error occurs with different sites because I didn't look at them. I also don't know if it spans numbers outside of that region, for the same reason.Renerpho (talk)00:13, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think I understand where the issue comes from. InSpecial:Diff/1039975874, Rfassbind made a manual edit toList of minor planets: 561001–562000, with an edit summarycorrection perMPC batch 10 Aug 2021 of assigned discoverers previously published on numbering. He corrects the discoverers, but neglects to change the discovery sites accordingly.
While being a manual edit, this seems to be a systematic issue affecting all stations equally, and will not be limited to numbers between 500000 and 600000. As far as I can tell, the problem occurred every time Rfassbind implemented this kind of change, which will have happened with every new MPC batch. This means that nearly every sub-list starting at some point will have some wrongly defined discovery sites.Renerpho (talk)00:46, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, the MPC is very error-prone. Even theirerrata have errata. And sometimes it can take several updates for them to fix an entirely wrong line, so a discovery date might get fixed, but the discoverer isn't, sometimes the discovery site is fixed and the date isn't. I don't know if it's a staffing or an oversight issue. However, while errors are relatively regular, I think they're only in the 1% range, with the vast majority of data they provide being correct on first publishing. In the medium term, I have plans to update theLoMPs with the most recent data. ~Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)13:04, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Tom.Reding: Can you help me understand how the error worked then? In Rfassbind's edit summary I cited above, in which he points to the MPC batch of 10 August 2021, he's referring tothis, right? Where in that document do the changes that he makes come from? For instance, the first asteroid changed was (561117) 2015 PW310. But "561117" does not appear anywhere in that MPC batch. Neither does that batch have an "errata" section. And the new discovery site for that asteroid, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, is only mentioned once (in an unrelated context). The latest WGSBN Bulletin by the time of that edit has no errata either.[8]
Just had a look at 561117, and I've also found that the MPC and JPL give conflicting discovery information. JPL gives June 4, 2003 by Spacewatch at Kitt Peak, while the MPC gives September 26, 2000 by SDSS at Apache Point, although judging from the MPC link, seems like MPC might have the correct information. Probably an oversight from JPL, but thought I'd mention it.Procyon117 (talk)10:58, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Procyon117: We are trying to find out why so many asteroids in the Lists of minor planets have wrong discovery information. I hope that you may be able to shed light on this issue.
Inthis edit, you corrected the discovery information for some asteroids, perhttps://www.wgsbn-iau.org/files/Bulletins/V004/WGSBNBull_V004_009.pdf according to your edit summary. In particular, the discoverer of 281973 was changed fromMount Lemmon Mount Lemmon Survey toKitt Peak Spacewatch. That's despite the fact that the WGBSN bulletin givesMount Lemmon Mount Lemmon Survey, which agrees with theMPC database.
Which is why it can sometimes take days for me between edits. Although looking at the other stuff above, there seems to be other issues at play. So sometimes mistakes made by me can slip through. I can stop editing though until any issues are solved, if that will help.Procyon117 (talk)01:01, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Procyon117: I don't think you need to stop. I'm curious about the process though: Is this a case of copy/pasting a wrong line? What exactlyare you doing when you make those edits?Renerpho (talk)06:30, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well I go to each wgsbn bulletin from their website, go to the errata section, and just one by one manually replace the date, discoverer and discovery location (if applicable for each one). I think they started putting out errata with each bulletin from the middle of last year, so it doesn't go back all the way to 2021 or whatever. Usually I Ctrl+F the last four numbers so that I'm sure that I'm on the right one when making an edit to a minor body entry. When there's hundreds, probably thousands that I look through and edit, a couple might slip through the cracks. But that's basically what I do when I go through them.Procyon117 (talk)06:47, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if this can't be (semi)automated, using the JSON files[9]? It should be less prone to error, and less time consuming. I'm not the person to ask how to script this, but it's probably not difficult...Renerpho (talk)09:14, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I actually did ask Tom.Reding something like that a while ago (in October), and he said it (theoretically) was doable, but tedious and slow even with automated tools (AWB in that case). Didn't know those JSON files existed though. Maybe he could give some insight in that regard.Procyon117 (talk)10:15, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's definitely true. Considering he's said further up thatIn the medium term, I have plans to update theLoMPs with the most recent data., I will probably stop updating the corrections here, since if he does go ahead with that, it will all be updated at some point anyway.Procyon117 (talk)12:26, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I just remembered that I was in the middle of a bulletin before this, so I'll finish that off, and then I'll stop there for the time being.Procyon117 (talk)07:14, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I remember lerning from a talk or article by/about Claes-Ingvar Lagerkvistthat when was entitled to name a number of asteroids he disovered, his choiceof a name like Bill och Bull (after two iconic fictional cats in a series ofchildren's books by author Gösta Knutsson) was prevented by an IAU rule thatrequires each body name to consist of a single word only (a sensible rule;in my mind), and he thus resorted to the compound name "Billochbull" ("och"is Swedish for "and"), does anyone know where this rule can be found and ifso, does such a factoid deserve mention in connection with the list, or the individual objects such as {q|Q426016}en:8537 Billochbull. I accessed the IAUWebsite, but I'm not familiar enough with their publications to figure outwhere the rules for naming minor bodies are.SM5POR (talk)13:05, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Names that were assigned before that rule was implemented are grandfathered in, and of course the IAU can decide to make exceptions at their own discretion.Renerpho (talk)13:42, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The list entry forasteroid 6781 listed its name asSheikhumarrkhan. I corrected this toSheikumarkahn, which is the spelling that appears on theMPC website. However,JPL has the former, apparently incorrect spelling. The originalnaming citation has the current MPC spelling, and the referencedWGSBN Bulletin only corrects its discovery information, so it seems the JPL spelling has never been officially used. What's going on here? Does the JPL database have other typos?SevenSpheres (talk)22:12, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@SevenSpheres: I got a reply from Davide Farnocchia. This was more than a simple typo, quote:
The reason why JPL had a different name is that the MPC published this erratum in 2021:[10] However, it looks like the original name was the correct one, so we fixed this and we will report this problem to the MPC.
That erratum changed the name of the asteroid itself, but also the citation. JPL wasn't just spelling the name of the asteroid differently, but also had a citation that started "SheikHumarr Kahn (1975-2014) ..."[11] rather than "SheikUmar Kahn (1975-2014) ..."[12]
One thing is really odd though: On 27 September 2019,[13]Rfassbind added a paragraph about the asteroid to our articleSheik Umar Khan, with a hidden note to expect an erratum:In 2019, asteroid [[6781 Sheikumarkahn]]<!--expect correction of spelling by the next MPC publication-->, discovered by American astronomer [[Henry E. Holt]] at [[Palomar Observatory]] in 1990, was named in his memory. Rfassbind himself removed that note on 2 May 2021,[14] with the edit summary "correction per MPC batch 25 March 2021". So, Rfassbind knew that the correction was coming, and had said so all the way back in 2019, and yet the correction is wrong? Note that the infobox for the Wikipedia article has been spelling his name "Sheik Humarr Khan" all this time.
Thanks for looking into it, that's interesting. ...and just now I notice there's also an inconsistency in the spelling of his last name, is it Kahn (as in the MPC naming citation) or Khan (as in JPL and his Wikipedia biography)?
Davide:Note that the Humarr version of the name can be found online:[15] At this point I am not really sure which of the two names is the correct one. I'll see what the MPC says.
The inconsistency in the last name was introduced by the 2021 erratum, so there definitely wassomething wrong with it. I tend to believe that the erratum was correct as intended, but incomplete, that it didn't make it into the MPC database for some reason, and that JPL had it correct until a few hours ago. But we'll see.
We have a word in German that comes to mind:verschlimmbessern. To make something worse, with the intention of making it better.Renerpho (talk)19:40, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Citation spelling on JPL is fixed (changed toKhan). That may or may not be correct, but it's up to the MPC now to resolve the issue.Renerpho (talk)19:43, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@SevenSpheres: Davide writes:The IAU WGSBN confirmed that the correct name is Sheikhumarrkhan. I changed it back accordingly. The MPC has been informed that they have the wrong name. The IAU WGSBN will issue a correction to the citation on Monday, and we'll pick it up then.
The only thing left to correct on the MPC page is the citation, which is what today's erratum was about. Right now, it still says "Sheik Umar Kahn".Renerpho (talk)18:28, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Asteroid 795646 is missing from the list. I could add it, but I'm not sure what albedo is assumed to calculate diameters (it seems to be different for different asteroids?) and if asteroids are being missed the maintainer (Tom.Reding) should be aware of it.SevenSpheres (talk)15:51, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
795646 was, and still is, malformed onthe MPC website in an apparent buffer-overflow sort of way. I suppose I can write in a specific exception for it, but I'll wait until the next major update with new numbered MPs to do that. Ping me if I forget. ~Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)20:47, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mapa1212 has labelled the infobox chartc:File:Minor_planet_count.svg as outdated. It stops in 2019, and I agree that an update would be welcome. The latest numbers in the chart are 794,832 known minor planets, 541,128 numbered minor planets and 21,922 numbered minor planets. As of today, those numbers stand at 1,457,773 known (+83%), 847,427 numbered (+57%), and 25,586 named (+17%).
However, the inactivity is not because the chart has been abandoned. It hasn't, and the current version is from 2023. Rather, it is because theMPC Archive Statistics, the source we are using, has not been updated since May 2019. We either need a new source for this (and I am not aware of any other place where these numbers are neatly presented), or we have to accept that the Minor Planet Center has abandoned the necessary statistics page. Alternatively, it is possible to compile some of this data manually (statistics for numbered and named minor planets are relatively easy to reconstruct; total minor planets known is more challenging, and exact numbers for the last six years may not be publicly available). For numbered and named MPs, all that is required is a considerable amount of work sifting through some large files. Even that would border onWP:Original Research.
Fixed. This is a very strange/rare case/mistake, and actually the only one I've ever seen on the LoMPs from Rfassbind, so I'd consider it a 1-off. Regardless, I'll be making my way down methodically from the 700k's with updated orbital & observational parameters, family memberships, discovery circumstances, etc. for the foreseeable future. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 00:02, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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