Talk:Ceres (dwarf planet)/Archive 5

Archive 1

←

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Type

In the article, 1 Ceres is classified as a C-type asteroid in the Infobox planet, while it's categorized as a G-type asteroid. Here, also, 1 Ceres is exemplified as a G-type one. I've found this source where it's classified as a C/G asteroid and this other one where it's classified as a G asteroid. So, there is ambiguity. It would be better to report both the information in the Infobox planet and change the initial statement of this section. Do you agree? --Harlock81 (talk) 18:45, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

G is a subtype of C. Ruslik_Zero 18:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, and I've just noticed that it's already said in the Surface section. Thanks. --Harlock81 (talk) 19:06, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Dates Update Needed

In the Transits of Planets by Ceres section, it says: The most common transits are those of Mercury, which usually happens every few years, most recently in 2006 and next in 2010.

2010 is very nearly over. This needs to be updated. I would do it, but do not know the answer.

Not trying to be a smart, uh, mouth, just bringing it to folks attention. Thanks.

Outdated

4 Vesta has been recently determined to be a dwarf planet, not an asteroid. --76.180.168.219 (talk) 20:26, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Evidence please. Serendi^podous 20:59, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Kepler's earlier remark

See http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/dawnclassrooms/1_hist_dawn/history_discovery/exploration/tg_exploration.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.109.117 (talk) 16:19, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Mass relative to asteroid belt

Surely the statement in the opening paragraph "...it constitutes a third of the mass of the asteroid belt." is incorrect. In the articles on Dwarf planets and Clearing the neighbourhood, Ceres' planetary discrimant is given as 0.33. This is equivalent to Ceres' mass being 0.33 and the rest of the asteroids having a combined mass of 1.00, making Ceres 0.33/(0.33 + 1.00) or about a quarter of the mass of the asteroid belt.

This is further confirmed in the third paragraph of section 5 of Steven Soter's paper What is a planet? (This is reference 3 in the Clearing the neighbourhood page.) That paragraph reads: "Ceres, the largest asteroid, has a mass of 1.5 x 10^-4 ME, about 1/4 the total mass of the asteroid belt." Nickgard (talk) 18:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I think Soter is mistaken. See this. Ruslik_Zero 18:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

That paper gives the mass of Ceres as 4.753e-10 solar masses. Given that one solar mass is 332946 Earth masses, multiplying (4.753e-10)*(332946) yields 1.583e-4 ME, or just very close to Soter's value. siafu (talk) 18:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Clarification: the mass for Ceres is in Table 5 on page 184 of the Pitjeva paper, and is the only mention of the word "ceres" in the entire document, according to Adobe Acrobat's text find tool. siafu (talk) 18:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Pitjeva's is a rather crude estimate, as any of these probably are. We could use a more recent estimate of the mass of the belt. — kwami (talk) 19:21, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

It'd be great to have precise and accurate measurements of everything, of course, but we do apparently have two sources that are in agreement about Ceres' mass at least. siafu (talk) 21:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

That part's easy. It's the total mass it's a fraction of that's not well determined. — kwami (talk) 22:12, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Mentioning any fraction of the asteroid belt's total mass seems a self-evidently bad idea to me, seeing how many asteroids of unknown mass have not even been discovered yet, let alone had their mass determined. Furthermore, once we establish Ceres' mass in relation to, say, Earth, what difference does it make? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 04:18, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

That's what the error bar is for. Cited 0.28–0.35, which is about a third. — kwami (talk) 05:16, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

@Trekphiler. Mentioning it illustrates how big it is relative to the rest of the objects in the asteroid belt, something only an absolute figure could not do. I think such an illustration is useful. As for any undiscovered asteroids, those will be small bodies with very little mass. You'd need many millions of them to affect the figure in any significant way. There aren't any Vesta- or Juno-sized asteroids still lurking. The only thing that does somewhat meaningfully affect the figure is the uncertainty in the mass of the biggest asteroids, which, as Kwami has already said, is what the range is for. --JorisvS (talk) 06:12, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

"Mentioning it illustrates how big it is relative to the rest of the objects in the asteroid belt" I can appreciate that. We're already saying it's the biggest; why not say "'x' number of times bigger than the next biggest", frex, with an estimate of the total number of objects? That also gives a sense of scale; IMO, against the total number, it's actually more informative. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 07:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

There is no definable total number, only a total mass. — kwami (talk) 09:31, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

As Kwami wrote, there is a nearly infinite number of "ridiculously small" asteroids, but their combined mass can be estimated. Also keep in mind that the asteroid belt has far less mass now than it did 4 billion year ago. -- Kheider (talk) 09:36, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Obviously not as prima facie wrong as I thought. :( Note, I don't oppose the mass range; it's now clear to me it's the best option, if an agreed value can be found. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 22:51, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Flattening

Just wondering if flattening is a physical property that should be listed for Ceres, since it is supposed to be large enough to make itself spherical, wouldn't it be proper then to list spherical properties? Just wondering. I noticed that the radii given have some play ±, so not sure if this then would be a value reflective of that. If there are no objections someone who knows better than me can add it, or, if in a few days I don't hear back, I'll add it and if consensus is I'm wrong, you can remove. Thanks! --Turboguppy (talk) 13:58, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why flattening should not be included. However, the numbers I get are a little different: .0669 ± .0002. Tbayboy (talk) 16:26, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Ceres is large enough to be in hydrostatic equilibrium (this does NOT imply spherical!), flattening due to rotation is part of that! No large rotating body is perfectly spherical, most are oblate ellipsoids like Ceres. Earth and Jupiter are notably flattened, too.--Roentgenium111 (talk) 18:51, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

@Turboguppy:, can you clarify in detail which values you used as input and how did you calculate it, step by step? So we can check, given that another user gets a different value. Thanks! --cyclopia^speak! 19:44, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

FYI, I used the formula at the top of flattening, and the radius numbers in the infobox for the main number, then twice again adding in the error-bars to get (max-equitorial,min-polar) and (min-equitorial,max-polar) inputs. Tbayboy (talk) 01:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I get about 0.0669 +/- 0.007 this way. --cyclopia^speak! 10:41, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I re-calc'd it and got these numbers, too. I think I goofed previously by forgetting to add the error bars in the denomimator. Tbayboy (talk) 00:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry it took so long to get back to you--honestly at this point I don't remember where I got my numbers, but I think I pulled them from the equatorial and polar radii on the Ceres page, applied the flattening formula, then tried to guess the error based on the given error from the polar and equatorial radii (Perhaps guess isn't the right word, I calculated it somehow but I have no idea how at this point). And I meant to say hydrostatic equilibrium, really, I just had the word spherical in my head because I was working on oblate spheroids when I came across this :) Thanks for clarifying! Turboguppy (talk) 21:39, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Orbit

Went to remove the unwarranted precision in the update to the orbit, from NASA, when I thought it was a bit odd for the orbit to be changed significantly in just a few years. What's going on? Should we use NASA's figures? — kwami (talk) 09:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Orbital elements for asteroids are constantly changing and as a result are only valid at the epoch (date) that they are defined at. Without a defined epoch they are somewhat meaningless (very vague). -- Kheider (talk) 10:25, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Duh, of course. And the epoch is undefined either way. — kwami (talk) 12:38, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

There's a few things I went to get straight, in science, precision is fundamental, there is no exception in an encyclopediac database. I will be re-submitting this information, Minor Edit: I will simply reuse data the exact Epoch defined. Where you have stated that the orbit has changed, not a single value has been changed. There was not a single value which was altered, infact they were increased in precision by using scientific notations. If you have any reason to revert these changes again, look directly at the submitted data and reference the values which have actually been altered.

I need a direct reference as to the values which have changed which are not correct;
->Aphelion, ->Perihelion and ->Semimajor have simply been rewrote with notation which is better understood. They also had correct and reliable references attached, there were non existing.
->Eccentricity has simply had a reference attached, which is again is both correct and reliable.
->Surface Area has been rewrote to correct scientific notation, which again is better understood.
->Surface Gravity has been rewrote to further precision. AshleyJames (talk) 12:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The precision of the various orbital distances does not match, the semi-major has 100× the precision of the source, and the precision of the surface area is 1000× greater than that of the radii. — kwami (talk) 12:38, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The precision is correct, it has been machine compiled. The Surface Area has been calculated using the formula of 4*Pi*radius² which is correct formula, there is no defined flattening to make neither the geometry an ellipsoid nor a spheroid. I can't stress this enough, there is NO valid reference for the cited physical characteristics, which means that the values are incorrect on the original page, the stated Epoch is invalid and does not reference.AshleyJames (talk) 12:50, 3 December 2013 (UTC) Edit: If you need the formulas which have been used, I can easily and I will cite the formulas which exist on Wikipedia, as well as a dozen other sources I can find through Google.

In the infobox, next to "Orbital characteristics" it cites reference 7 (The JPL SBDB). I have changed the orbital solution to JPL SBDB EPOCH 2013-Nov-04. AU should be listed first and that is what the reference uses anyway. -- Kheider (talk) 12:57, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I hadn't considered that, thanks for updating the citation. I am going to compile the new values for a separate database and am willing to update the infobox with proper notation, unless someone else is already on the job I don't want to make conflicted values due to multiple people editing together so I'll hold off until I compile the data in full incase it's being done.AshleyJames (talk) 13:11, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Hatnote

I think the hatnote should be removed, per WP:NAMB. -- Ypnypn (talk) 03:20, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Done. — kwami (talk) 04:29, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Ceresian or Cererian?

From the start of the 2nd paragraph in the intro: "The Cererian surface is probably a mixture of water ice". Shouldn't that be Ceresian? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.154.229 (talk) 04:53, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

No. Latin final s usually either drops or changes to r or d. Like venereal from Venus or iridian from iris. — kwami (talk) 05:09, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I see we were using "Cereal" briefly... which makes sense but... I'm sorry but it's awkward-looking, probably because of breakfast cereal (or just cereal) (though TIL the word cereal indeed does come from the goddess Ceres, go figure). Anyway, I think we should use "X of Ceres" rather than "Cereal X", perhaps thinking of it as an extension of WP:MTAU; I don't often see English speakers forming adjectives with the -al suffix outside of medicine and science, and more often see confusion result when it's done outside of those contexts. I'd also consider using "Venereal X" in the sense of "X of the planet Venus" to be problematic somewhat because of the phrase venereal disease. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:28, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

It can be hard to navigate all of the false-analogy creations but at least the context lets us know to switch to Latin rules. I do enjoy the combination 'an Iridian X', but trying to mix 'the Venereal elliptic' into an astronomy discussion can only be seen as risky. Use of classical affixes is not always first-come, first-served, though. If we first get the knowledge of Ceres' existence out there ,"Cereal" could have another common meaning. JesseLiet (talk) 18:00, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

The -al forms mean pertaining to an attribute of X, while the -an forms mean pertaining to X. (Venereal diseases aren't diseases of Venus, but of love, which is an attribute of Venus.) So "Cereal" wouldn't be expected as an adj. form. — kwami (talk) 00:54, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely correct. I personally think "Cereal" becoming more common in this context would be awesome, but aiming for that goal is kind of opposed to Wikipedia's purpose of just describing what's in the sources. On the other hand, I could totally see an infobox entry for "adjectival form" (or whatever the appropriate term is), much like how infoboxes on countries tend to have demonym fields. If we did that, we'd both be informing those interested and have articles that avoid awkward phrasings where necessary. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:07, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

There already is such a field. It's good to gave it somewhere in the text too, though, as otherwise people often miss it. — kwami (talk) 22:18, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

There are three classical forms I've seen: Cerérian, Cereréan, and Ceréan. We might expect *Cérian as well, but I haven't come across it, and anyway it would be a homophone for Syrian in many dialects (for those who pronounce Sirius and serious the same), so probably isn't the best choice. I've sometimes seen Cerésian outside sci-fi, but often it's difficult to tell if it refers to Ceres, to Lake Lugano (the "Ceresian Lake"), or to something else. (Though evidently Lugano was named after Ceres.[1]) The genus Ceresia is named after Ceres. So like Venerean/Venusian, it looks like both forms are found outside sci-fi, though I've only seen Cererian/Cererean for the planetoid outside sci-fi. — kwami (talk) 00:32, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Both an asteroid and a [dwarf] planet?

The introduction states that Ceres is both an asteroid and a dwarf planet. I thought it would be classified as either, not both. Is that correct or the intro needs updating? Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 23:33, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

It's both, but it's not a planet.

The two classifications have nothing to do with each other, and 'asteroid' has no formal definition. — kwami (talk) 23:44, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification, but this report from NASA defines the difference between an asteroid and a dwarf planet:

Plumes of water vapor are thought to shoot up periodically from Ceres when portions of its icy surface warm slightly. Ceres is classified as a dwarf planet, a solar system body bigger than an asteroid and smaller than a planet.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-020&1

I'll just leave it on your desk. I am a biologist so I leave it to more competent editors. -BatteryIncluded (talk) 01:23, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually, no. That claim is simply wrong: A dp is not smaller than a planet, for example. (I assume the authors know better but are dumbing it down so they don't have to explain what a dwarf planet is.) We've discussed this before, and have several sources, including some from NASA/JPL, which call Ceres both a dp and an asteroid. — kwami (talk) 02:10, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

OK. Thank you. BatteryIncluded (talk) 22:52, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

We should repeat the infobox information within the article

Information presented in the infobox, e.g. the pronunciation etc, should be repeated within the main article text. I usually never read infoboxes, and I know other people don't either. Furthermore, I may copy-paste or print an article without including its infoboxes, or I may zoom the page to 500-600% and make the infobox too big that it goes at the top so that I just scroll down without looking at it. In general, my experience is that if something is in the infobox but not the article text then I almost certainly won't be able to see it. It has happened to me that sometimes I try to find some information and I wikipedize it, I don't get an answer from the main article text so I then google it, but I later discover that the information I wanted was wikipedized into the infobox rather than the article text, so I think that infoboxes should only repeat what's already in the article. Cogiati (talk) 23:13, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

There's a lot of numerical data in astronomical articles that would be silly to put in the main text, as it would be in tables that would simply duplicate the info boxes. If you don't bother to read the entire article, then you can hardly expect to get everything out of it. — kwami (talk) 23:31, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

We should include the pronunciation after the dwarf planet's name in the lead paragraph, what do you think? Cogiati (talk) 23:48, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

We used to have it there (I put it there), but people decided to move all pronunciations to the box. — kwami (talk) 22:37, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Ceres...On Old Planet reborn?

this is Interesting...It has been a long theory of mine that the asteroid belt is the remains of a planet that was destroyed by some event.....the fact that the debris remains in a fairly stable orbit points to this being the case.... now With Ceres spinning in the opposite direction from the rest of the asteroid belt this would cause all the debris to eventually gather at one point. thus creating a "new" planet.....Billions of years of course but I believe this is what will eventually happen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LordCaerdic (talk • contribs) 03:18, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Escape velocity

We had the escape velocity as 0.51 m/s², "calculated based on the known parameters". NASA has 1.855. Either NASA screwed up or we did, and if we did, there may be (probably are) other articles w the same error. — kwami (talk) 22:40, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

If you're talking about this NASA page, it's in km/h, not m/s. Looking at List of gravitationally rounded objects of the Solar System, .51 is about right (comparing it to similarly sized moons). Tbayboy (talk) 23:00, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

For a Ceres-sized object to have an escape velocity of 1.885 km/s, it will need a density of more than 25g/cm3!. Ruslik_Zero 12:57, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Look again, it says km/h. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.32.226.40 (talk) 13:36, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

King

I am not sure if the king mentioned was Ferdinand the First or Ferdinand the Third. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.237.209 (talk) 10:39, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Revisiting Flattening

Since the definition of Dwarf Planet includes hydrostatic equilibrium (and thus an ellipsoid shape), I believe we should add flattening to Ceres's statistics. The last time I brought this up I was asked to show how I arrived at my numbers, step by step, so I shall do so here. I am not a math whiz, so please, feel free to correct me if you see a mistake! (Heck, I probably slaughtered the problem, but hey, gotta learn somehow, right?)

I am using the flattening formula, f = (a-b)/a. Ceres's polar and equatorial radii are listen in its article as: Equatorial radius 487.3±1.8 km Polar radius 454.7±1.6 km.

Using the values: a = 487.3 km and b = 454.7 km, I arrive at f = 0.066899.

I based the uncertainty in the flattening on the uncertainty in the radii, so I calculated the full range of possible flattening by adding and subtracting the max and min radii uncertainties and plugging the new values in to the flattening formula: a = 487.3 + 1.8 = 489.1 and b = 454.7 - 1.6 = 453.1, and thus f(upper value) = 0.073605 and a = 487.3 - 1.8 = 485.5 and b = 454.7 + 1.6 = 456.3, and thus f(lower value) = 0.060144

Then I found the mean value for f from the upper and lower values above (I'm assuming the uncertainty should balance): f = 0.073605 + 0.060144 / 2 = 0.0668745

Then I check to make sure of my balance and get my uncertainty number: 0.073605 - 0.0668745 = 0.0067305 (uncertainty +) and 0.0668745 - 0.060144 = 0.0067305 (uncertainty -)

Therefore I would list flattening for Ceres as 0.0668745 ± 0.0067305

I don't remember if that's exactly what I came up with last time, but my old number was removed (rightly so) pending review and arrival at the correct number. Am I at least boarded on the right train here? --Turboguppy (talk) 23:23, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Much easier if you calculate the errors directly, once you know the way to do it. Check out here[2] and here.[3] (I'm not claiming those are great sources, but they're the first things that popped up when I searched, and they seemed okay.)

Basically, if you add a and b, you add the absolute errors. When you multiply a and b, you add the relative (%) errors. For a to the b power, you multiply the errors, etc. That's for things like calibration errors, not statistical errors. When dealing with standard deviations like we have here, you want to add the squares of the errors and then take the square root, like finding the hypotenuse of a triangle. Anyway, once you get the hang of it, and can derive a formula for the error for any given formula, you don't have to crank it out by hand and worry if you did it right.

This one[4] is a bit more rigorous, which might make it easier to use, depending on how you process this stuff. — kwami (talk) 01:17, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Note that flattening alone is not enough for determining hydrostatic equilibrium, since it also depends upon spin, material composition, and internal differentiation models. E.g., see Saturn. So I don't think it's very relevant; however, the planets' articles seem to have it, so why not Ceres?

Anyway, I think the number should be f = 0.066899 +(0.073605-0.066899) - (0.066899-0.060144), which is 0.066899 +0.006706 -0.006755. (assumuming you did the calcs correct above) I.e., nominal +(max-nominal) -(nominal-min). But I don't know how these things are done, either, so check kwami's refs. And if you do some reasonable significant digits, it's just 0.067 ± 0.007 whichever way you do it.

Note that we'll have accurate info in a year or so, and the error bars should be small enough to ignore, so I think this is mostly an educational exercise, and hopefully fun. Tbayboy (talk) 04:05, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

If it depends on composition, then the object is not in HE and so not a DP. Since icy moons 50% larger than Ceres have turned out to not be in HE after all, I do wonder about Ceres. It might be difficult to tell, since its spin might not have changed much over its history.

BTW, the flattening comes out as ±7.4%, or 0.067±0.005. — kwami (talk) 07:01, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

The composition thing is true of any body. It's not so much the raw material as it is the distribution of different materials (the differentiation), which change the gravity slope. Heavy-core with light-mantle gives a different flattening than an evenly dense body, and the relative densities of the layers affects the degree of flattening (assuming a spin, of course). That's why it was so hard to figure out Iapetus for certain, since the error bars for some internal models went within HE until more accurate measurements pushed them all outside. Tbayboy (talk) 12:39, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

You're right, of course. — kwami (talk) 21:04, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

I am not sure that you can calculate the errors for flattening in such a simple way—by treating polar and equatorial radii as two statistically independent variables. They are not because they are model dependent and were obtained by fitting some shape model to the available observations. Calculating errors in this way would be original research. Unless some reliable sources are found, flatting can be only claimed to be around 7% but not more than that. Ruslik_Zero 13:19, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, that throws a wrench in things. I doubt merely rounding would help. The axes are both given to ±0.36%, but if the flattening comes from the model, we can't infer precision from them at all. Wouldn't we need to say "0.067 (assumed by model)" or something? — kwami (talk) 17:19, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

How about forget the ± and use the approx: "~0.07"? Tbayboy (talk) 12:40, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

That might mislead readers into thinking that it is a measured value, or directly derived from measured values, rather than being generated by the model used to predict the shape of Ceres. If someone uses the flattening and spin rate to gain some insight into the structure of the asteroid, they're only recovering the structure assumed in the model.

I agree that if we had a measured value, that would be useful to include, but this is not. I think we should either note that it's artificial or omit it entirely, like we do unknown albedos. — kwami (talk) 16:48, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

On further reflection and after reading all the great posts here, I think I agree most with just leaving it off until we have an actual measurement, to avoid confusion. I'm grateful to everyone who helped me understand the problem better. Thank you!Turboguppy (talk) 06:32, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that equitorial and polar radii are listed and there's no reason - at least none given - to compute a value from them (ie. flattening) which hasn't been shown to be generally useful. Those who want it, can easily calculate it, can't they? (And of course the other readers, the 99.999%, could care less.)Abitslow (talk) 17:51, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Image is virtually useless - remove.

A couple of things. First and most obvious is the photo supposedly showing Ceres from Mars is useless. Ceres is not marked on it! If I had to guess, I'd guess the extremely faint smudge directly to the left of the word "Ceres" is the intended subject. On my monitor it barely registers above background - and I don't think it adds IN ANY WAY to the article. It should be removed for lack of relevance. Second, the "Classification" section contains a mostly irrelevant and incorrect discussion of Pluto and the 2006 IAU vote. It is historically wrong. The debate wasn't "about" Pluto - it was about the impact of the discoveries of several of what may be dozens (or hundreds) of objects of that size in orbit around Sol. It was about historical prescedent and utility. Pluto, discovered in 1930, is never visible to the naked eye and so, other than a couple of decades of grade school text books, is a minimally significant casualty of the new definition. (At least, it could be argued that way.) But what has Pluto to do with Ceres? And is it really relevant to discuss (in an extremely superficial way, without providing the actual context) proposed definitions that DID NOT get approved? That is an extremely nasty can of worms. How is a NON-definition relevant to Ceres' classification? Most of that should be removed. Although how it sweeps out its orbit is probably worthy of discussion and could be linked to the 2006 definition. Third and lastly, the article takes far too many words to say that there is no generally accepted definition for the word "asteroid" and that NASA describes Ceres as an asteroid as well as a dwarf planet; the two terms need not be mutually exclusive, but some sources consider them so.Abitslow (talk) 18:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Abitslow: I disagree with removing the image. There are few images of Ceres and we should leave them. It's not like we have a better one to add in its place. Plus, the article isn't flooded with images or anything, so it's ok to leave it there.

Regarding the other things you mentioned, you can modify the content yourself if you don't like the way it's presented Tetra quark ^{(don't be shy)} 19:17, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Wow, now that I checked, that image of Ceres from Mars is duplicated. We need to remove one of them from the article Tetra quark ^{(don't be shy)} 19:19, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Gallery

I don't think a gallery section is needed for this article because I think it does not belong to those articles for whom "a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images", per WP:Gallery. Hekerui (talk) 00:04, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi Hekerui. The gallery currently shows the history of the gradually improving quality of the images taken of the dwarf planet. That's something that is not "easily or adequately described by text". Whether or not the article needs a gallery, is highly subjective but I appreciate your opinion. Maybe other editors should decide. Galleries have several advantages, for example they avoid articles to get too cramped with images; and I think Ceres_(dwarf_planet) is a potential candidate to suffer from this fate in the near future (take 4 Vesta for example, and imagine the article without the section "Observations from Dawn", which is basically just a gallery). BR, -- Rfassbind -talk 00:54, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

IMHO the gallery of images of improved observations of Vesta has nothing to do with Vesta per se, who managed fine in 4.6 billion years without observation. That gallery should rather be in Dawn (spacecraft) which was created by carbon based life forms, with whose history the spacecraft correlates. The observation history belongs to the space craft and the carbon based life forms. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 08:16, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Not going to comment on any specific gallery at this point, but images of explorational history help give an idea of where the current understanding of an object comes from; once the understanding based on those images was current, too. Small traces of even what today is considered hopelessly outdated views could still be part of contemporary theory. --Njardarlogar (talk) 17:18, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

1 Ceres

I know that "1 Ceres" is an official name. But seeing that "1" pop up in text looks strange. How about after the introductory section, just call it "Ceres"? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:39, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Which image for infobox?

So User:Tetra quark has reverted me a couple of times now on this, so I figured I should bring it to the Talk page. Should the image in the infobox be the animated GIF that is a composite of a few frames shot by Dawn on its approach to Ceres, or should it be a processed still image, with the animated GIF appearing further down in the article?

My reasoning behind preferring the latter approach is: 1) it comports better with articles about other Solar System bodies (we don't use an animation of Earth, Jupiter, or the Sun in their infoboxes, for instance); 2) the GIF requires a lengthier caption to explain what it depicts, which is better suited to a thumbnail image than an infobox, IMO; and 3) in a few weeks' time, Dawn will be returning much higher-quality still images of Ceres, and the animated GIF will likely end up relegated to a position further down in the article, as it was in my edit, if it is still used.

I'm open to hearing what other editors have to say about the issue. -Kudzu1 (talk) 08:09, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Kudzu1: Thanks for bringing this discussion here and sorry if I seemed rude or anything.

1) I understand your point, but the lead images of Earth, Sun, etc have very good definitions. It is better to use an animation when the quality is low (see Pluto, for example).

2)I agree. The thing is that the caption of that image is unnecessarily long. I would cut it by half if I could.

3)So, in a few weeks we'll change the image. Tetra quark ^{(don't be shy)} 08:20, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

FWIW - *entirely* agree with the comments made above by User:Tetra quark - yes, image caption could be trimmed a bit I would think - hope this helps in some way - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 12:24, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done - BRIEF Followup - image caption trimmed to the following => "Ceres viewed by Dawn, January 13, 2015.
(A bright spot and possible craters seem to be key features of this composite animated video.)" - seems better - *entirely* ok w/ me to rv/mv/ce of course - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 12:45, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

If someone knows how to and is interrested, I have made a stabilized version of the animated GIF of Ceres to replace this jumpy one => https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6TcblMsDQMWNi1iU3JrSjY2TGs/view?usp=sharing93.196.86.2 (talk) 16:22, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the "stabilized" Gif animation *may* be better - however, removing the "flashing" white horizontal bottom border on the animated image may make the animation even better I would think (I'm unable to remove this border with my "Jasc Animation Shop" program for some reason) - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:42, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done - @93.196.86.2 - your "stabilized" version has now been cropped (using JASC Animation Shop v2.02) and uploaded => File:PIA19168-Ceres-DawnSpacecraft-20150113-Animation.gif - Thanks for your help with this - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:37, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Will we get more surface, or less?

It looks like nearly the entire surface of Ceres is illuminated. Does anyone know, as the year progresses, will more surface be illuminated, or less? I'm wondering if Dawn will be able to map the entire body. — kwami (talk) 01:31, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Judging by this comment, not much will be in the shadows at any given time. Except from the nightside, obviously, which Dawn will be photographing a lot of in the next few weeks. --Njardarlogar (talk) 08:51, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Good to know. Hopefully we'll get less that 3° concealed at the dark pole. — kwami (talk) 19:05, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

New animation (from Feb 12)

[5]

What's taken so long with the stills? — kwami (talk) 19:07, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

That's the 4 February animation; only two frames from the 12 February imaging session have been released through the normal channels thus far. The 19 February images will probably be released either today or tomorrow; though when the first full rotation animation (from RC1/12 February or RC2/19 February) will be released is anybody's guess. --Njardarlogar (talk) 10:51, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I miss the raw-image release we got with Cassini, even if Dawn isn't returning very much. — kwami (talk) 02:38, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I thought Ceres looked a lot like Tethys. That's even more apparent with the Feb 19th images. (Except for Ithaca Chasma, of course.) Little doubt just from looking at it that there's a lot of ice. — kwami (talk) 19:03, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Emily Lackdawalla has a nice montage of Ceres with some icy moons, including Tethys. Umbriel is another good match. Tbayboy (talk) 13:36, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Not Quite Round

Looking at the most recent photographs of Ceres, it appears that the northern hemisphere has some fairly significant deviations from being spherical. Has NASA or anyone commented on whether or not that's significant? Titanium Dragon (talk) 02:38, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I doubt it will make much difference as to whether Ceres is a dwarf planet, because the de facto definition of a dwarf planet is whatever the IAU declares to be one. — kwami (talk) 03:32, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Additional DAWN reference(s)

To quote: (CNN) NASA's tractor-trailer sized Dawn spacecraft will snuggle up to Ceres on Friday, getting close enough to be pulled into orbit and to complete the first mission to a dwarf planet. "I'm just delighted that Dawn is now on the doorstep of Ceres," Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division said in a news conference on Monday. Ceres was discovered in 1801 (Pluto wasn't found until 1930) and was the first object found in our solar system's main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. ... ... ... [As you all know, right?]

Headline-1: NASA spacecraft nearing mysterious dwarf planet Ceres

• http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/02/us/dawn-spacecraft-ceres/index.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec3_lnk3%26pLid%3D621681

QUOTE: "Ceres was demoted to an asteroid because 19th century astronomers couldn't be sure it was round. But it was bumped up to a dwarf planet when that category was created in 2006." -- AstroU (talk) 13:28, 3 March 2015 (UTC) -- PS: FYI for future editing.

As the discussion above already indicates, Ceres was neither demoted in the 19th century nor promoted in 2006. News blather isn't a reputable source for scientific or historical fact, no matter how many television personalities in search of a headline repeat it. Although the term "asteroid" was coined to describe Ceres and similar bodies soon after its discovery, it continued being referred to as a planet for some decades, and the term "minor planet" was widely used until being superseded by "dwarf planet" in 2006. But that's just a substitution in terminology, not a promotion. And nobody ever "demoted" Ceres in the first place. Astronomers simply stopped calling it a planet in the same sense as the "elite eight," and almost everyone else was blissfully unaware of its existence. Perhaps if people didn't assume that the IAU or any other organization creates reality when its members vote on what to call something, we wouldn't need to talk about things like "promotions" or "demotions" that suggest important distinctions for something that hasn't changed at all in the course of human civilization. P Aculeius (talk) 14:00, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

The term "minor planet" (asteroid) was used to separate Ceres and other asteroids from the major planets much as the term "dwarf-planet" was used to separate Pluto and other dwarf-planets from the major planets. From a cultural standpoint both of these events are notable. When I went to school I was not taught that there were 10000+ known planets in the Solar System because "minor planets" are treated different than (major) "planets". And Yes, Ceres received a much deserved promotion to spherical dwarf-planet in 2006! -- Kheider (talk) 14:31, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The technical terms dwarf planet and minor planet are not at all synonyms. There are currently five dwarf planets (plus several candidates) and roughly 670,000 known minor planets. In astronomical parlance, a "minor planet" is any natural object that directly orbits the sun but is neither a planet nor a comet, which includes essentially all of the asteroids. The creation of the new category "dwarf planet" was definitely meant to distinguish a specific new classification of objects, and is not somehow a redefinition of "minor planet". Dragons flight (talk) 14:36, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

In Classification: "By the 1860s books seldom referred to Ceres as a planet"

There's a "citation needed" on this. See the Hilton ref (on the immediately preceeding sentence). The sentence is not correct as is, but I'm not sure how to phrase it. For a starter, though, it would be more correct to say "by the 1870s", since the change took place during the 1860s. Also note that one important astronomical almanac listed the asteroids as a sub-category of planets until 1932. There was a quick differentiation into "planet" and "minor planet"/"small planet"/"asteroid" that took place during the 1860s (thanks to the new numbering system published in 1854), but the idea that a minor planet was not a planet took longer. There's not really any specific date, even decade, when Ceres ceased to be a planet. Tbayboy (talk) 01:26, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I took a stab at it. Feel free to try a different wording. A2soup (talk) 02:44, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Seems logically worded now. But I thought I'd clarify something in here. Ceres never ceased to be a planet. We just stopped considering it one! It didn't become a planet in 1801, either. Whatever it is, it was long before 1801, and probably will be long from now. But as stated, there was never a date when people stopped considering it one. In fact, the term "minor planet" wasn't superseded until the adoption of the term "dwarf planet" in the last few years. So we've been able to call it a planet all along! But it must have been much earlier than 1870 when it became apparent that Ceres wasn't the same kind of thing as the other planets. Even in 1807, when Vesta was discovered, it was rather obvious that there was something different about "asteroids," as William Herschel called them.

When we went to school, "how many planets are there in the solar system" was a typical question, and we all knew that the answer was nine, just like it had been since the 1930's. But I don't think people asked that in the early 1800's. Each new discovery suggested that there was more out there. Ceres was discovered only twenty years after Uranus, and then Pallas turned up the same year. Three years later came Juno, and Vesta three years after that. If they were all planets, that meant we'd gone from six to eleven in twenty-six years. For a while there was calm, but another asteroid turned up in 1845, then Neptune in 1846, then three more asteroids in 1847, followed by a ceaseless parade after that. So if you counted them all as planets, there was no way to know how many there were. But I don't think there was ever a point when planets and asteroids were distinguished; it was just a gradual process. P Aculeius (talk) 03:16, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

When Ceres was discovered is was thought to be the missing "planet" between Mars and Jupiter based on the Titius–Bode law. Ceres and Pluto are the only dwarf-planets that were treated as planets for many decades. The term minor planet (and later dwarf-planet) was created to separate these numerous objects from the major planets that clear their orbits of similar-sized-objects. -- Kheider (talk) 18:02, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• The discovery of 5 Astraea in 1845, followed quickly by numerous other asteroids that could not be resolved into a disk, is what brought an end to Ceres as a (major) planet around the 1850s. I thought the Google Books Ngram Viewer was an excellent way to quickly summarize this with computer results. -- Kheider (talk) 02:59, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Except it seems like "asteroids" was early used (except by Herschel!) to designate a group of planets, much like we might say "gas giants". Also, in that era, English wasn't yet the lingua franca of science, and French and German sources were each as significant (or more so) than the British, and the American sources were minor players. Does the Google search incorporate that? Tbayboy (talk) 04:23, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Obviously the Google count is for books written in English, but this is the English Wikipedia. I have yet to see a better summary source for published books from that period. The term asteroid did not start taking off until the 1850s when it was obvious Ceres was truly one of many. -- Kheider (talk) 04:39, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, and since this is the English Wikipedia, the usage at that time in another language may be nice to know, but surely would not be relevant for the decision on what the primary topic of the word is in English. Double sharp (talk) 10:42, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

This section isn't about the asteroid versus goddess issue. This is about when Ceres ceased to be considered a planet, which is a scientific issue that cuts across many languages, same as the current planet definition. Tbayboy (talk) 13:39, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I should really read the section titles...struck out the above comment. Double sharp (talk) 15:18, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Dealing with news reports

As Dawn approaches and begins its primary science mission around Ceres, there will be lots of news coming in over the next days, weeks, and months. While Wikipedia is not a newspaper, I do think one of its strengths is its ability to incorporate breaking findings into its articles. My concern in this case is where those breaking findings (which have already started to trickle in) will go and how they will be organized. Right now, they seem to be ending up at the end of the lead, which I think is a bad trend. While this article will inevitably be shaken up a lot in the coming months, we should try to keep some semblance of FA-class organization and balance. Accordingly, I propose confining the newsfeed-like reports from Dawn to the exploration section, where they can be presented in roughly chronological order, with potentially some grouping by subject (e.g. the bright spots). That section needs a cleanup/rewrite anyways.

What do people think of this plan? I would also love to hear any alternative strategies and/or additional suggestions for keeping this article looking good over the coming months. A2soup (talk) 06:53, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Why not a subheading under Exploration titled something like Dawn mission discoveries? Editors could add fully sourced new findings there. Some will eventually be superseded by newer discoveries in which case they'll be removed, and if enough sources confirm the info over a longer period of time the stuff could be added to the proper sections. After the furor fades and the new info drys up, this could simply be a section for highlights of the mission. Anyway, my thoughts on it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:17, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Another possible suggestion for the "Ceres" article (as well as the "Dawn" article?) may be a "Timeline" (section or new article?) - similar to the present "Timeline of the Opportunity rover" (for the "Opportunity rover") and the "Timeline of the Curiosity rover" (for the "Curiosity rover") articles - in any case - hope this helps in some way - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:38, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I think that a subsection for the Dawn mission seems like an appropriate place to mention new discoveries, at least until the majority have trickled in and can be evaluated for importance. Eventually anything of major significance will probably need to be incorporated into the lead. But since announcements could be made prematurely and then contradicted by subsequent data within a few weeks, and the relative importance of each discovery needs time to be weighed, confining them to a section or subsection devoted to the Dawn mission seems like a good idea for now. But I think a timeline would be less appropriate for Ceres than it would be for Dawn. A timeline for Ceres would probably begin with its discovery in 1801, and have almost nothing else on it until Dawn (maybe "Hubble takes pictures" or "Ceres included on list of Dwarf planets as defined by IAU"), and since Dawn is likely the last source of new information for the foreseeable future, it'd also end there. So it'd read like a timeline of Dawn, plus one or two other items at the beginning. A timeline makes more sense for Dawn, since it'd be more compact, with events spread out along its history, including many items not directly relevant to Ceres. P Aculeius (talk) 13:49, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Where do you watch?

I believe the 'SLOOH' observatory community will have a 'live' video broadcast and commentary tomorrow, Friday 3-6-2015.[6] Are there alternative websites for the Ceres event?
Try: http://live.slooh.com/stadium/live/dawn-to-arrive-for-ceres
As suggested, I check the DAWN/exploration article subsection. -- AstroU (talk) 01:53, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Aviation Week sends out a note, very interesting and informative (with excitement) http://aviationweek.com/space/dawn-closes-orbit-ceres -- AstroU (talk) 13:43, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Original texts by Giuseppe Piazzi on Italian Wikisource

Please be informed that you can find/read the 2 original texts announcing the discovery of Ceres by Giuseppe Piazzi on Wikisource in Italian language.

• Risultati delle osservazioni della nuova stella (1801)
• Della scoperta del nuovo pianeta Cerere Ferdinandea (1802)

Can you please use/add these texts to the article as source or bibliography? Thanks. --Accurimbono (talk) 14:28, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Page protection

might wanna protect the page briefly Saturn star (talk) 02:18, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Unreferenced sub-surface ocean of water ......

I removed the statement ( and may harbor an internal ocean of liquid water under its surface ) from the lead until it is put into the body of the article with a citation from a Reliable Source. Ceres is too small to have an internal heat source at its core to heat up the mantle to form an ocean, it is too old and too far from the sun to have residual heat remaining from its formation to keep the ice melted, and unlike the moons of Jupiter (and Saturn), there is no constant gravitational tug from a gas giant to internally heat it and melt the ice into an ocean. If there has been some more-or-less recent well-grounded theory on why Ceres could have such an under-surface ocean of water like Europa almost certainly has, I have personally never come across it. If someone has a good journal or other reference, please summarize and re-add it to the article with a proper cite. I would ask that editors please refrain from some offhand remark by an astronomer who might be just speculating from a news-media outlet - that is not the same thing as proper research appearing in a journal such as Nature. A while back, someone made the statement in one of the TP archives about Ceres having an ocean and it was questioned, but the originator never responded. HammerFilmFan (talk) 06:42, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

See the 2 references I just cited. WolfmanSF (talk) 08:06, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for providing a Reliable Source citation for the previous un-referenced statement. Interesting - but I doubt this planetoid has enough volcanism to provide the necessary heat. The probe may determine this. HammerFilmFan (talk) 12:40, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Volcanism is not necessary. In fact, surface volcanism would tend to release heat instead of retaining it. --JorisvS (talk) 13:04, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Not on the surface - undersea volcanism, such as is suspected on Europa.HammerFilmFan (talk) 11:52, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that instrument was cut to reduce cost. But subsurface oceans are theorized even for TNOs, where pressure is high enough for liquid even at low temperatures. — kwami (talk) 00:52, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 26 February 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move at this time. HiDrNick! 13:37, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

---

• Ceres (dwarf planet) → Ceres
• Ceres → Ceres (disambiguation)

– Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Currently the Ceres disambiguation page says that the dwarf planet and the goddess are both primary topics, but that seems incorrect. The dwarf planet has about 3000 views daily, whereas the goddess has only 400 views daily. In addition, Google's search results for Ceres overwhelmingly display results for the dwarf planet, with a few results for the cities named Ceres, and no results for the goddess in the first several pages! Thus I believe it is clear that this page is the primary topic, and should be located at Ceres. Chessrat (talk) 15:44, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Survey

It seems to me that the high daily views currently seen for the dwarf planet is due to the approach of the Dawn spacecraft. A better indicator a to whether the dwarf planet is truly the primary topic would be a look at daily views before Dawn's apporoach. EJM Missouri (talk) 16:25, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I checked several other dates and the dwarf planet is viewed more than tBESThe goddess at about a 4:1 ratio. —  AjaxSmack  16:43, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support The goddess is not a particularly major figure even in classical mythology, the dwarf planet is of some importance as the largest of the asteroids. PatGallacher (talk) 18:09, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose, due to the long-term significance of the Roman goddess. Compare Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Sedna, and Salacia, all of which go to disambigation pages directing to either the minor planet or the mythological figure, and Ceres (one of the twelve major gods of the Roman pantheon) has more long-term significance than the other mythological figures. Pluto is different, but, given its unique history amongst minor planets, it makes sense that Pluto should be different. Egsan Bacon (talk) 18:15, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support Ceres (dwarf planet) is the primary topic and has received ~4x as many hits as the goddess since 2007. Unlike other recently discovered dwarf planets such as Eris, Ceres was treated as a planet from 1801 until around the 1850s. Ceres will continue to increase in exposure during the Pluto flyby in July 2015 because of the general public's interest in the planet debate. The re-directs can always be changed as warranted in 2 years but I suspect former planet Ceres will always generate significantly more hits. -- Kheider (talk) 18:18, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support although I notice 2 Pallas, 3 Juno and 4 Vesta are numbered (along with 1 Ceres) and not primary topics, and they are called asteroids, not dwarf planets!? All have XXX (asteroid) redirects I guess. Tom Ruen (talk) 18:36, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

2 Pallas, 3 Juno and 4 Vesta are technically asteroids, classified as small solar system bodies in a third class below dwarf planets and planets according to the official IAU definition. Also, the disparity in page views between the astronomical and mythological referents is more equal for Vesta than Ceres and reversed for Pallas and Juno, where the goddess has far more. A2soup (talk) 20:18, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Ceres is the only asteroid classified as a dwarf planet. — kwami (talk) 19:55, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose, as per Egsan Bacon. Simon Burchell (talk) 18:41, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support exoplanetaryscience (talk) 18:53, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Primary topic even w/o current Dawn mission. We can always revisit. Not sure if a similar move for Vesta would be warranted (probably not), but the TNOs mentioned in the opposition above have not been visited by spacecraft, and won't be for at least several decades. — kwami (talk) 19:55, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Weak support Oppose. Moving will undoubtedly help people find what they're looking for, but we should be wary of letting Wikipedia be modulated too much by current events. My support therefore relies on the fact that the dwarf planet page has had 3-5 times more views going back to 2007. My opposition therefore derives from a consideration of the relative significance and popularity of the goddess and celestial body as quantified by several different metrics. The other dwarf planet pages mentioned by Egsan Bacon should probably be moved as well, since the mythological figures are quite obscure in English. Perhaps a good rule of thumb would be give dwarf planets but not small solar system bodies the primary page, unless the dwarf planet's mythological referent is particularly prominent. A2soup (talk) 20:18, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Agree, far from clinching the argument there is actually a tenable case for treating the astronomical object as the primary meaning in at least some of the cases listed by Egsan Bacon. PatGallacher (talk) 21:06, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Long-term evidence that there is greater interest in the dwarf planet than the mythology figure from which the name derives. I would also take a look at potentially identifying a primary topic for the other dwarf planets and some of the solar system's more prominent moons. Dragons flight (talk) 20:50, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Seems to be the primary topic even without Dawn. With Dawn, it will definitely be the primary topic for at least the coming years. This move can always be revisited in the future. --JorisvS (talk) 21:30, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Gods and goddesses should always be primary with respect to objects, people, or places named after them. We wouldn't be considering this move if the other topic were a work of literature, a television series, or a comic book character, no matter what the ratio of search results showed. I also think that the range of sources discussing the asteroid is extremely limited. You don't run across references to Ceres every day, unless you're browsing astronomical sources. In my whole life I don't think I've ever heard Ceres the asteroid come up in conversation, although I do remember the goddess being mentioned in school. If you want to say that both topics are primary and therefore require disambiguation, fine. But it makes no sense to require it for the goddess and not the asteroid named after her. P Aculeius (talk) 00:24, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

  Always? Even with Pluto? Far from convinced that we wouldn't be discussing a move under circumstances stated. Just checked, the other dwarf planets mentioned by Egsan Bacon are Kuiper belt objects only discovered in the 21st century, Ceres was discovered back in 1801 and it is an issue of some significance in the history of astronomy about how to classify it. PatGallacher (talk) 01:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

  So Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus should all link to mythological figures rather than planets? Your argument is silly in its extremism. We can argue about where to draw lines, but you can't simply assume the earliest person / thing to bear a specific name is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. It is not uncommon for a later usage to surpass the original in terms of prominence. Dragons flight (talk) 01:58, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Dudes, you are going to upset many imaginary friends if you don't give them their due prominence over reality. BatteryIncluded (talk) 02:18, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

It is the public's interest in their "belief" that Pluto has to be a planet that will keep both dwarf planets Pluto and Ceres more relevant than the gods for several years. -- Kheider (talk) 02:32, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I've read so many arguments; but this was most flawed. Dragons flight, already noted the BIG FLAW in your argument's premise. – nafSadh did say 02:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Quite a lot to respond to here... first of all, I didn't say that all other uses had to be demoted to secondary importance. Two uses could be equally primary, or to put it another way, there might be said to be no primary topic for a given name because two or more uses are of similar significance. What I said is that celestial bodies shouldn't be primary over the deities for whom they're named. Users looking for "Ceres" shouldn't be directed to a page about an asteroid instead of the goddess.

If you read the guidelines for choosing a primary topic, you'll find two relevant conditions. First, readers should not merely be more likely to be looking for information about one topic than the other. They should be much more likely to be doing so. Secondly, as several people have pointed out, merely because current events cause the asteroid to be a more popular topic at the moment doesn't mean that it has long-term cultural significance. If you ask a typical person what the name "Ceres" refers to, chances are at least as likely that people will have learned about the goddess in school as about the asteroid. And if you want more in-depth knowledge, people are far more likely to recognize "Ceres" as the Roman equivalent of Demeter, and a goddess of grain or agriculture, mother of Proserpina, the goddess after whom cereal grains (and breakfast cereal) are named, than to know anything at all about the asteroid except that "it's an asteroid named after the Roman goddess." Literary references to "Ceres" will invariably be about the goddess; so will appearances in painting, sculpture, and other forms of art.

There is indeed some discussion as to the status of dwarf planets, which is almost entirely of interest to nobody but astronomers and astronomy buffs, with the lone exception of whether Pluto is a planet. And that's significant solely because millions of schoolchildren learned that it was for several decades. If it hadn't been discovered until 2005, then we'd be discussing it in the same category as Eris, Sedna, Orcus, etc., and the fact is that the vast majority of people have no conscious recollection of any of these; or if they do it's only because of the news coverage of their discovery and subsequent naming or classification as dwarf planets. But most people have very limited interest in astronomy; perhaps a majority can name all of the current planets plus Pluto, but chances are most can't point to a single star and name it, or find any constellations other than "the Big Dipper." So other than a disproportionate interest in whether Pluto is a planet, and a vague awareness that there are a bunch of small planet-like things floating around the solar system, the debate over the status of Ceres doesn't even enter the public consciousness.

I don't think it helps the debate to call arguments you disagree with "silly in their extremism" or to imply that people who disagree with you are "extremists." Nor does it help to belittle an argument by suggesting that the person making it is worried about "upsetting his imaginary friends" or is somehow divorced from reality. These are not valid arguments, and do nothing to help sort out the opposing arguments. All it does is make people less willing to speak up. Ridiculing people or their views is not a good way to conduct this discussion. P Aculeius (talk) 03:07, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't mean to ridicule you or offend you, but do you stand by your very first sentence: "Gods and goddesses should always be primary with respect to objects, people, or places named after them"? If so, then it is entirely logical to ask what you think about all the articles on planets that serve as primary topics instead of their mythological namesakes. If you want to retreat from the position that "gods and goddesses should always be primary", that's fine. Nuance is good. Dragons flight (talk) 03:35, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

My opinion is that the gods and goddesses after whom planets, moons, or other celestial bodies are named should never be relegated to secondary importance. It doesn't matter whether you want to say that both are primary or that neither is primary. The proposal under debate is to remove disambiguation from Ceres, the asteroid, thereby making it primary and all other articles secondary. That's what I'm opposed to. In my opinion, cultural priority is the most important factor in this debate. Greek and Roman gods and goddesses are neither obscure nor clearly secondary to planetary bodies; so according to Wikipedia's own guidelines for assigning primary topic status they shouldn't be relegated to secondary status while their own namesakes are elevated to primary topics. P Aculeius (talk) 05:45, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

History should record that Ceres was the first dwarf planet ever discovered, so both Pluto and Ceres are very relevant to the "What is a planet debate". -- Kheider (talk) 04:13, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

And it was originally considered to be a planet. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:46, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Which doesn't change the facts that 1) hardly anybody outside of astronomy knows anything more about Ceres than that it's an asteroid named after a Roman goddess, 2) nobody outside of astronomy cares whether Ceres becomes a planet again, and 3) hardly anyone in the astronomical community supports the idea of recognizing Ceres as a planet. So no, public consciousness of Ceres has no relevance to the debate over Pluto, nor does the debate about Pluto add much weight to whether Ceres the asteroid ought to be considered primary for the name.

The fact that Ceres was considered a planet when it was discovered in 1801 isn't particularly instructive, since at the time the existence of asteroids hadn't been established. The word, however, was coined the following year, by none other than William Herschel, the discoverer of Uranus. For the next fifty years the words "planet" and "asteroid" were used interchangeably. From 1807 to 1845, the solar system contained eleven planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. But over the next ten years, thirty-three more asteroids and the planet Neptune were discovered. So Ceres stopped being spoken of as a planet, at least in the sense that Mars and Jupiter were planets, before the great-grandparents of most people living today were born. So the fact that it was commonly spoken of as a planet during the first half of the nineteenth century isn't any more relevant than the fact that prior to 1801, Ceres always referred to a Roman goddess.

I fear we're losing sight of the real issue here. It's not whether the asteroid Ceres is notable, or has some importance to science. The issue is whether it should clear the field of other uses of the name, including the goddess after whom it was, and is, named. And due to the cultural significance of the goddess, priority in time, and the fact that the asteroid is named after her, I think it would be a mistake to demote the goddess herself to secondary status in favour of an asteroid that doesn't even enter most people's consciousness. Perhaps the Dawn mission will bring people's attention to the asteroid for a few days, a brief news cycle for those who still pay attention to science news. But within a few months most people will have forgotten that; if they remember anything about the story, they'll probably have forgotten the name of the asteroid. Ceres the goddess has long-term cultural significance; the asteroid is a relatively small body within the solar system; more than thirty known planets and moons are larger. If not for its significance in the history of astronomy, far fewer people would be aware of it at all. So while I don't mean to argue that it's insignificant, I will argue that it's not clearly and far more important than the goddess for which it's named; and those are the criteria by which primary topics are supposed to be assigned. P Aculeius (talk) 05:45, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

What is your opinion about the fact that the article about the object has multitude of more visits than that of the goddess? – nafSadh did say 05:55, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

hardly anybody outside of astronomy knows anything more about Ceres than that it's an asteroid named after a Roman goddess - I suspect that is too generous, and that the average person (or at least a very large fraction of the relevant population) has heard of neither the goddess Ceres nor the dwarf planet Ceres. Now that the dwarf planet is coming into view as a planet-like world rather than a blob in Hubble's images, the dwarf planet is likely to receive a permanent boost in coverage and public attention, though how much is impossible to say at this point. --Njardarlogar (talk) 14:35, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Weak Support. The dab (dwarf planet) sounds really weird and the astronomical object is of more interest to people than the goddess. Only thing that weakens my support is the fact that, the word Ceres first came as the name of goddess and everything else was named after that; and I was rather hesitant to support the move. But, the more I think about it, I side more with the proposed move. Ceres, be Ceres with you. – nafSadh did say 02:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
  • The goddess may be the original usage, but I think the important thing for WP is what the most common usage of "Ceres" is, and I think it's now the asteroid, not the goddess. For example, I think all the planets' names are now far more commonly used for the planet than for the god, and that's why they all don't use disambiguation – save Mercury only, and even then it's because of the element and not the god. Double sharp (talk) 06:20, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Especially because of Dawn, Ceres the dwarf planet is certainly the primary topic. I don't think it's necessary for Vesta though: "4 Vesta" is a very neat, simple, and short disambiguation. As for the other dwarf-planet KBOs, they don't have a spacecraft going to explore them yet except for Pluto, which doesn't have the disambiguation. Double sharp (talk) 06:20, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose per Google Books where the goddess is overwhelmingly the absolute majority topic. This would really confirm wikipedia as a non-serious attempt to write an encyclopedia if we do this. Also this seems to have attracted astronomy editors. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:46, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment I believe the argument may be stacked by posting this on the Ceres (dwarf planet) talk page, and a more neutral venue should have been chosen. Simon Burchell (talk) 09:33, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I would think this is exactly where it should be as long as any other heavily searched Ceres are also notified. And it looks like the Roman God talk page has been notified. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:02, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support - You know I wasn't sure about this move. Even if the Dwarf Planet had 4x the searching in the past as some have said and now has 8x the searching. It was named after the God and the God still gets a small number of search hits. But after reading the points being made here I do feel that the dwarf planet Ceres is only going to snowball upwards in searches in the years to come as more and more info continually pours out of NASA. A few weeks ago I found myself reading about it on CNN and then clicking over to wikipedia to check out details on the space object. Our readers are paramount in determining these article titles, and with two Dwarf Planets being photographed and videoed in the months and possibly years to come I think it best to move Ceres (dwarf planet) to the same status as dwarf planet Pluto. And as User:JorisvS stated, we can always come back and look at this in a couple years if things drastically change. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:25, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Fyunck(click) I have to ask, did you follow me here from the Serbian tennis player RM? I don't recall you having an interest in gods and planets. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:45, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. As the first thing I checked even Newton acts as a disambiguation page and this is even thought articles such as Isaac Newton are disambiguated by first names like Isaac. I don't see the point of displacing a topic by the thing that was named after it. I have no objection to a move such as Ceres → Ceres (deity). GregKaye 10:55, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. The deity and dwarf planet have comparable usage levels, once offline sources are included. That might change for a few months while the latter is visited by a spacecraft, but is likely to be only a temporary effect. Disambiguation is still the best way to go. Modest Genius ^talk 15:30, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose page views should not be considered a factor in determination of what is and is not a primary article for a given title. I can and do see that the nature of the internet and its users on its own will tend to give greater attention and thus prominence to those subjects which science geeks (which many internet users are) are interested in and/or which receive more current attention. I would think the primary determinant would be which subject is more likely to receive more links to and from other wikipedia articles. Given the number of topics relating to mythology in various other reference sources, even if they don't all exist here yet or are at a poor level of development, I would have to think that the article on the goddess will reasonably receive more internal links than the dwarf planet will. John Carter (talk) 16:22, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

  I might interest you to know that Ceres (mythology) (and redirects) has incoming links from 457 Wikipedia articles, while Ceres (dwarf planet) (and redirects) has incoming links from 543 articles. Dragons flight (talk) 17:32, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

  • It might also perhaps interest you that, although I am unfortunately making a bit of an appeal to authority here, and I hate seeing anyone do that, that I have looked over a rather largish number of encyclopedic reference sources relating to the field of religion and mythology and have found much to my displeasure that our content is dramatically weaker, both in terms of number of articles and length of articles, than virtually every other source I have looked at. I acknowledge up front that the material for modern science gets much more attention from more editors than the sometimes more problematic content relating to old stories and legends, and that I would expect the more easily definable content of the former to have been better developed than the less broadly interesting material and less easily definable content related to older literature and stories. And, of course, there is a rather real chance that the ambiguity and overlap of Ceres/Demeter may play a role here as well. I specifically mentioned the issue of well-developed and comprehensive coverage and the number of links I would expect there, not the existing often inadequate coverage of broadly historic matters such as Greco-Roman mythology. John Carter (talk) 17:47, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

  Why should internal links matter? Shouldn't they always be directly to the end page, avoiding redirects? Tbayboy (talk) 18:57, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

  • By internal links, I meant the number of articles which would link directly to any other given article, and, like I said, given the comparatively poor level of development of literary/mythological material here relative to astronomical material, as someone who has an interest in both topics, having gotten an astronomy scholarship and studied archaic religions, I have the definite impression, at this time unverifiable here, that the number of other articles reasonably necessary for comprehensive coverage of topics which would usefully link to the goddess probably exceeds the number that would usefully link to the minor planet. John Carter (talk) 19:47, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

That's how I understood the term. But you still haven't explained why it's important, or at least more important that doing what's best for the audience. I would think that the important metric is which page is most desired by people who type "Ceres" into the search box. Page hits may or may not be an accurate reflection of that (i.e., hits via internal, non-dab links wouldn't count towards this). I would guess the best metric is the number of times Dwarf Planet is clicked on the Ceres dab-page versus the number for mythology. Tbayboy (talk) 00:30, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. If anything, Ceres the goddess would be the primary topic per Wikipedia:Disambiguation: " topic is primary for a term, with respect to long-term significance, if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term." Paul August ☎ 16:29, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

By the way I'm certain that many many more people have heard of Ceres the goddess, than have ever heard of the dwarf planet. Paul August ☎ 16:39, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I suspect your statement(s) might grossly be in error 6 months from now. -- Kheider (talk) 17:44, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Nothing that can happen any time in the near future can possibly change the two topics relative long-term significance. Paul August ☎ 18:12, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

If significant signs of bacterial life are suggested by the Dawn mission, the goddess will quickly lose her significance. Ceres will be a topic around water coolers for the next 6+ months as images of both Ceres and Pluto come back. The goddess will probably keep falling in popularity over generations as I do not expect the goddess Ceres to visit the Earth any time soon. -- Kheider (talk) 18:38, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Also I hope you agree that the primary topic for "apple" ought to be (as it currently is) the fruit, and not the company, search frequency and recent notoriety notwithstanding? Paul August ☎ 18:20, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Sure, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. But Ceres is not an edible fruit or the richest business in the world. -- Kheider (talk) 18:37, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Of course, all "if" statements are fairly obviously violations of WP:CRYSTALBALL and are probably best dealt with at the time those "ifs" become a reality, not before then. John Carter (talk) 19:01, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Regarding long-term significance, it is entirely possible that a celestial body discovered and named in modern times can usurp the long-term significance of its namesake, as in the case of Neptune and Pluto. So the argument that the namesake should always be primary is invalid. What we must do here is make a judgement call as to whether, at this time, Ceres has usurped its namesake (as with Neptune), remains overshadowed by it (as with Titania), or is too close to make a definitive judgement (as with Titan). A2soup (talk) 19:03, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment People have heard of the goddess Demeter and the asteroid Ceres. Practically no-one has heard of the goddess Ceres. And with the mission soon to be all over the news, the difference will only become greater. — kwami (talk) 18:29, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. This move request—as well as most of the supporters' comments—is a clear case of recentism. The concept of a primary topic should not depend on whatever happens to be in the news at the moment, nor should it be mutable in accordance with every change in people's attention. The current situation, with a search for "Ceres" leading to the dab page, is the best one possible. Deor (talk) 21:39, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Even years before the Dawn mission, the dwarf planet received ~4 times as many hits as the goddess and this will simply snowball in the next month. -- Kheider (talk) 22:46, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The number of "hits" is not the sole justification for a topic being primary, another is "long-term significance" as several editors have pointed out. And when talking about a topic which has been important for thousands of years, thinking in terms of the last few years seems like recentism to me. Paul August ☎ 23:01, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The dwarf planet has significantly surpassed the goddess for all the accessible "traffic history". I hardly call that recentism. And with the Dawn orbiter and New Horizons flyby this notable difference will snowball. -- Kheider (talk) 23:21, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

That's pretty much the definition of "recentism." P Aculeius (talk) 03:26, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

The dwarf planet has received 4x as many hits as the goddess since 2007 which gives the dwarf planet 8+ years of dominance. All current "planets and dwarf-planets" that have been accepted as planets in the past have gone on to surpass the gods that they are named for. (Eris has never officially been accepted as a planet and 4 Vesta is not officially a dwarf-planet.) -- Kheider (talk) 13:48, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment It appears that some of you are not letting the fact that the dwarf planet receives more views than the goddess sway your opinion on whether the article is the primary or not, but frankly if one is receiving more vies than the other, then that means it's more popular on wikipedia, and although it may not be the unanimous favor of the people browsing the internet or the general populace, it's those people who are the ones who actually matter in the article being the primary, and a 4:1 ratio of views to either should be quite enough to count as the primary. I don't see why all of you are spawning such a huge discussion over it, when the only difference it makes is another click to each article. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 04:38, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment if anything, the long term significance argument goes for the asteroid, not the goddess, since the goddess' significance is lower than her equivalent Demeter, and the dwarf planet has been around for billions of years longer than the goddess has existed. Clearly longterm existence goes to the dwarf planet. Its place in the understanding of the Solar System is also much greater than an element of a dead religion. Whether the goddess or the dwarf planet is the primary topic , well it is not the goddess, because of religious equivalency, the equivalent Demeter is what has a higher profile, and the asteroid has had a higher profile long before the asteroid mission currently in the news was even proposed. The only question is if the dwarf planet is the primary topic or not, not if the goddess is the primary topic, which it isn't. -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 05:48, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support; clear WP:PRIMARYTOPIC based on all considerations of the guideline. The dwarf planet has more long-term significance (the dwarf planet has been around for nearly 4.6 billion years), more incoming wikilinks, substantially greater page views, and more press coverage/studies. Frankly, the oppose !votes appear to be bordering on WP:IDONTLIKEIT as arguments. StringTheory11 (t • c) 18:28, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment long-term significance doesn't mean that the subject has received a lot of attention in the last few years. The goddess Ceres has been the subject of worship, art, literature, and the namesake of countless persons, places, and things for at least 2,700 years. Ceres the asteroid has only been known for about 200 years, and for most of that time it was nothing more than a tiny speck in the most powerful telescopes. It's received almost no attention outside the astronomical community until the announcement of the Dawn mission, and even that hasn't brought it very far into public awareness.

I did a survey of articles mentioning "Ceres" in the New York Times archives, dating back to 1851. I searched the first 200 entries, and wrote down the dates and brief quotes from the articles explaining the significance of the name, omitting duplicate articles and a few instances where the word appeared to be misspelled from something else or had no clear context. Here's a summary:

• Articles discussing the goddess Ceres, or depictions of her in art and literature: 1855, 1882, 1896, 1897, 1916, 1930, 1931, 1935, 1955, 1956, 1963 (2), 1984, 1990, 1992.
• Persons described as Ceres or sons of Ceres: 1861, 1922
• Agricultural societies, awards, mottoes, varieties of grain, or flowers named after Ceres: 1881, 1889, 1936, 1937, 1947, 1950, 1952, 1978
• Ships (and one floating grain elevator) named after Ceres: 1858, 1860, 1861 (2), 1862 (5), 1863 (5), 1864 (7), 1865 (2), 1867, 1882, 1883, 1884 (3), 1885 (2), 1895, 1896 (2), 1899, 1915, 1916, 1920, 1923, 1936, 1939
• Horses and horse races named after Ceres: 1888, 1934, 1943, 1955
• Places named after Ceres (mostly U.S. Towns, but also one in Brazil, a fruit-growing region in South Africa, and a name for a point in Morocco near Ceuta): 1891, 1893, 1902, 1905, 1906 (2), 1917, 1925 (2), 1935, 1936, 1943, 1950, 1953, 1959, 1960, 1964, 1980, 1995, 2000, 2002
• Companies named after Ceres (mostly agricultural): 1882, 1936, 1973, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2015
• Ceres environmental principles adopted after the Exxon Valdez disaster: 1993, 1994
• Environmental group named after Ceres: 2006 (3), 2007 (3), 2008 (2), 2009 (3), 2010, 2013, 2014 (2), 2015
• Ceres Union (fraternal lodge, 1858–1973): 1912, 1919, 1935, 1941, 1948, 1950, 1959
• Ceres Gallery, apparently specializing in artwork produced by women: 1987, 1997, 2005, 2007 (2)
• Persons with Ceres as a surname: 1899, 1923, 1927 (2), 1929, 1932, 1939, 1941 (2), 1950 (2), 1956, 1961, 1965, 2001
• Persons with Ceres as a given name: 1918, 1922 (2), 1923 (2)

All of which are ultimately derived from the goddess Ceres, as is the asteroid itself.

• Articles mentioning the asteroid Ceres: 2001, 2007 (3), 2012, 2014, 2015 (2)
• Articles about mnemonic devices for remembering the names of the planets, including Ceres: 2008, 2015 (2)
• Works of art named after the asteroid: 2013

Of note, the 2001 story merely mentioned Ceres in passing; it was about the discovery of Ixion, which was then thought to be the largest known asteroid, surpassing Ceres; in this context Ceres serves the purpose of the proverbial football field, aircraft carrier, or Olympic-sized swimming pool as a measuring device. All of the other stories are about the Dawn mission, except for the 2014 article, which mentions the unexpected detection of water vapor on Ceres, and two of those, from 2007, merely mention that the launch has been delayed.

This coverage from 2007 to the present is indeed very recent, historically speaking, which is why it doesn't qualify as "long-term significance." If it did, then we might have to conclude that the environmental group Ceres is primary, since it's received much more news coverage from 2006 to the present. P Aculeius (talk) 18:06, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

It is funny that the New York times started in 1851. You do know that around 1845 Ceres was demoted from a planet to an asteroid? From 1801 to ~1850 Ceres was a planet. -- Kheider (talk) 18:33, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't know what's funny about it. It just happens to be the only major newspaper of national importance that I know allows searching of this type without a special archival subscription (or buying each article separately to see what it's about, hardly practical when trawling for mere mentions over a hundred and sixty-five years). And Ceres was never "demoted" from a planet to an asteroid. If you read the above, William Herschel coined the term "asteroid" for Ceres and similar bodies in 1802, the year after Ceres was discovered. It just happens that by the 1850's it was clear that there were many asteroids, of which Ceres was simply the biggest. Nobody "demoted" Ceres, though. There was no sharp distinction between planets and asteroids during this period. P Aculeius (talk) 19:53, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

By 1845, numerous asteroid were being discovered and that is what truly lead to the demotion of Ceres to "one of many asteroids". Herschel coined the term "asteroid" out of spite for "Planet Ceres" becauce he was biased towards his own discovery of planet Uranus. Herschel probably disliked planet Ceres as much as you seem to. -- Kheider (talk) 20:18, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Significance does not mean newspaper coverage. Newspapers have a very skewed view for both (recent) events and things the common people can relate to. --JorisvS (talk) 18:35, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. But neither do Google hits, Wikipedia links, redirect pages, or even page views, all of which are much more likely to be skewed by factors other than awareness by the general public, than is news coverage in a single, reputable publication over more than a century and a half. What that coverage does show, however, is that Ceres, the goddess, was well-entrenched in public consciousness over that entire period.

That's why there are so many works of art depicting Ceres, from antiquity to modern times, only a tiny number of which have been mentioned in the news; dozens of ships of various nationalities named after her; as well as people, towns, regions, fraternal organizations, companies, art galleries and environmental coalitions. Not to mention the first "planet" discovered between Uranus and Neptune. It also shows that from 1851 to the announcement of the Dawn mission in 2007, there was no significant attention given to the asteroid; and all but one of the stories since then have been about the Dawn mission.

Unmanned space missions fade from public consciousness pretty quickly, no matter how lovely the photographs they send back or how useful the data is to astronomers. If you were to rattle off names like "Viking, Mariner, Explorer, Pioneer, Voyager, Huygens, Dawn," or "New Horizons," how many people could confidently tell you where each went or what it did? At best a high percentage of people might have a vague recollection of Voyager. If you ask them to name a few space missions, other than "Apollo" or "the Space Shuttle," chances are most people won't come up with any of these names. Within a couple of years of the main news coverage of Dawn ending, most people won't remember what it was and they won't have any special recollection of Ceres. I can't tell you whether you'd get a better response from "have you ever heard of the Roman goddess Ceres" or "have you ever heard of the asteroid Ceres?" But until 2007, I suspect the overwhelming number of responses would be for the first, and I believe that's likely to be the case ten years from now. P Aculeius (talk) 19:53, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Wow, excellent work, although I suspect you may have missed some references to the celestial body by searching for the "asteroid Ceres" rather than the "planet Ceres" (as it was regarded until the mid-19th century, and newspaper references to it likely would have outlasted its scientific classification as such) or the minor-planet designation "1 Ceres". Nevertheless, the point is well-made. I think younger people like myself (a college student) perhaps put too much stock in the first few pages of Google results when it comes to determining significance. The disparity between your findings and my Google results is striking. (Bing has a less dramatic focus on the celestial body for me-- perhaps Google has learned my interests?)

It is true, however, that newspapers represent just one skewed perspective on usage. This inspired me to do a query of Google Ngrams, which gives the frequency of the occurrence of phrases in English books over time through 2008. I queried "goddess Ceres", "asteroid Ceres", "1 Ceres", and "planet Ceres" (which will also return references to "dwarf planet Ceres") in the range 1800-2008. I couldn't think of any other ways to specify the goddess in two words. In any case, the results show that while the goddess loses to the combined frequency of the three celestial names at some times in the past and since about 1975, the difference is not dramatic. Combining your survey of the Times with my Ngrams query and my general findings in online searches, I don't clearly see the celestial body as the primary topic-- it is definitely a dab situation. I will change my !vote above to "oppose". A2soup (talk) 19:12, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Searching for "goddess Ceres" vs. say "asteroid Ceres", I think would provide a skewed result, since for all but a tiny bit of the relevant time frame (~ 2500 years), one would refer to the goddess simply as "Ceres", the qualifying "goddess" would have been unneeded. Paul August ☎ 20:21, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

That's very likely true, but I needed to distinguish them somehow. Here is a somewhat more sophisticated query (press the search button on the page that comes up if it doesn't work at first), looking at the frequency with which "Ceres" is modified by "goddess", "planet", "asteroid", and "1" according to Google's automated grammar parsing. Relative to the initial query that only searched for definite phrases, this query turns up more results in which "Ceres" is being used in a goddess context than in an astronomical context. This backs up your contention that the less the specification of "Ceres" is constrained, the more likely it is to refer to the goddess, even in the last 10 years. A2soup (talk) 20:52, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I could not get your new table to load, but I have the concern that any book talking about asteroid Ceres will mention the goddess it is named after. -- Kheider (talk) 20:56, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that any book would also mention the goddess, at least not in a way that would show in the Ngram results, but that is definitely a potential source of error in the Ngram queries. I don't think it is likely to be a greater source of error than the asteroid-favoring bias that Paul August mentioned above, though, but all this is obviously pretty speculative. A2soup (talk) 22:10, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

"temple of Ceres" is also a pretty good ngram for the goddess. Dragons flight (talk) 22:24, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think your search procedure resulted in a very complete list. Here are some NYTimes articles mentioning the asteroid Ceres prior to 2001: 1874 [7], 1891 [8], 1930 [9], 1941 [10], 1963 [11]. Those aren't intended as an exhaustive list, just a note that older stories do exist. I also don't think there is a lot to be learned from articles that merely mention things named Ceres, unless they also mention either the Goddess or the asteroid. I don't think stories about a ship named Ceres or a town named Ceres, necessarily confers notability on its namesake any more than stories about the deceased princess of Wales increases the notability on the goddess Diana. Dragons flight (talk) 19:35, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Regarding a complete list, he describes looking at the first 200 results, so I think he was going for a representative sample rather than an exhaustive survey. Whether the top results of the Times archive search are unfairly biased against the asteroid is a different question, but I don't see any reason to suspect that would be the case. A2soup (talk) 19:46, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't looking for an exhaustive list, precisely. I didn't search for "goddess Ceres" or "asteroid Ceres." I searched for all references to "Ceres" at any date, and noted uses for the first 20 pages of results. That took over three hours, and the results were well-distributed over most of the period of time, so I considered it a fairly representative sample. There may well be more mentions of the asteroid here and there, but there are probably a lot more references to the goddess, works of art depicting her, people and places and things named after her, too. And I didn't see a simple way to count all of the articles in any of these categories and know that none had been left out. That's why I stopped at 200, and summarized those. P Aculeius (talk) 20:03, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

With respect to the point about news coverage of Princess Diana conferring notability on the goddess, I'm not claiming that it does. But a list of prominent people named after the goddess would not be unusual in Wikipedia. A more relevant point would be that the news coverage of Diana over nearly thirty years would easily eclipse the goddess, but still not make the late Princess of Wales primary for the topic. Diana, Princess of Wales, has far more long-term significance based on news coverage and current cultural awareness than the asteroid Ceres does. But it's still very recent compared with the goddess, and if one of them has to be primary, it should be the goddess, not the princess named after her. Of course, one could simply decide that there are too many significant uses to make any of them primary. But the topic of this survey is whether to make the asteroid primary and the goddess secondary. And that should yield the same result, recent coverage of the Dawn mission notwithstanding. P Aculeius (talk) 20:10, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that looking at the first 200 results is a reasonable sampling approach in the absence of something better, though we can't really know whether the NYTimes relevance algorithm biases the early results in some way relative to a truly random sample. The fact that your sample got no stories about the asteroid at all prior to 2001 makes me a bit suspicious, though I couldn't say why a bias might exist. Dragons flight (talk) 20:35, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support. The above arguments have convinced me that the dwarf planet is indeed the primary topic. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:50, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

• Weak oppose I think this is a line drawing exercise. Large numbers of astronomical objects are named after ancient deities. Which gets primary topic should not be a popularity contest, but should be decided with some consistency. We give primary status to planets. The five known in the ancient world were identified with their deities. Uranus and Neptune and Pluto were also planets when Wikipedia started and their article originated. I wouldn’t change Pluto because of its reclassification, in part because that is still somewhat controversial and in part because there is another candidate for primary: Disney has a dog in this fight. What pushes me into the no change camp is our treatment of the Galilean moons of Jupiter. All are disambiguated (moon). I would argue that these moons are at least as important as Ceres, historically and scientifically.--agr (talk) 22:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

  I would think those four moons of Jupiter should probably be primary topics. I wouldn't make my mind up based on potential errors in other articles. Go with what's best for readers on the topic of Ceres. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:20, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

  I disagree with your decision, but holy cow that might be the cleverest thing I've ever read at Wikipedia!! Good job!! ArnoldReinhold, you deserve a cookie! Red Slash 00:54, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

  In the future, an argument might be made for setting some (or all) of the Galilean moons as primary topics. In those cases, the mythological characters referenced are mostly important mortals rather than Gods, suggesting somewhat less historical prominence than a case like Ceres. It is also true that all of the moons have more page views than their corresponding mythological entity, though the difference varies from a rather low 2:1 to about the same 4:1 shown here. Anyway, that's an argument for a different time and place. Dragons flight (talk) 03:06, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

  Thank you Red /. With large collections of article names for similar topics, I think it best to follow a standard convention. Currently all articles about named solar system moons except Earth's are titled Xxxxx (moon). Changing that opens the door to endless controversies like this one, with discussions about popularity, cultural significance and even the validity of ancient religions. There will likely be many more dwarf planets and I think our readers are best served if their articles all are titled Xxxxx (dwarf planet). I except Pluto for the reasons given above and I say weak oppose because I can at least see an argument for an exception for Ceres. But I'm still concerned about opening floodgates to endless space rocks vs goddesses arguments.--agr (talk) 16:49, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I would not support Eris (dwarf planet) as being the primary simply because Eris has never been accepted as a planet. Ceres on the otherhand was treated as a planet from 1801 until around the 1850s. -- Kheider (talk) 17:26, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Most, not all. Enceladus lacks "(moon)", as do all the preliminary satellite designations like S/2000 J 11 where there is not yet an assigned mythological name. I'm pretty sure that previous general discussions about WP:DISAMBIG have rejected adding parenthetical expressions to titles solely to maintain naming consistency across a series. Dragons flight (talk) 17:56, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I would also add that the flip side of the "label all moons with (moon)" argument would be to require "(mythology)" on all Roman gods / goddesses, since most of their articles have it already. Exceptions among the main deities would include Apollo and Minerva. I don't agree with requiring parenthetical expressions on all members of an article series, but if that is what you want, then it is worth noting that it could go both ways. Dragons flight (talk) 18:23, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

• Strong support. Three points: first, LOL at the idea that a made-up fake goddess is somehow going to matter more in the future than an actually existent planet. Second, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC says pageviews are a strong factor in determining primary topic, and there you have a blowout. Third: I generally think that things that are real are more significant than things that are not. Red Slash 00:54, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
• Strong support per both the pageview and long-term educational significance criteria of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC Red Slash 01:26, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I take issue with your third point (and the same reasoning seems to underlie your first point as well). In an encyclopedic context, Ceres the goddess is just as "real" as Ceres the asteroid. This debate can get metaphysical quickly, and this isn't the forum for it, but the argument that physical existence makes something more worth documenting doesn't hold water. Should Titania be a dab or the largest moon of Uranus instead of the Shakespeare character because she's a made-up fake fairy queen? Should Merlin be a dab or or any of the "real" things bearing that name instead of the made-up fake wizard? No, and I would argue that the "made-up fake" nature of these entities doesn't count against them at all in terms of their primacy. A2soup (talk) 02:30, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

As the purpose of this discussion is to seek consensus, or perhaps even build it, I fail to see what can be accomplished by using the most provocative and insulting language possible. Our ancestors held Ceres in reverence as a great goddess for well over a thousand years; and for centuries since then scholars and artists have viewed her as a powerful symbol and personification of nature; hence the countless depictions of Ceres in art and literature, the use of her name as a family name and even a personal name, the countless ships and organizations that take her as their symbol and patroness. If the other people participating in this discussion held the same opinion as you, we wouldn't even be having a debate. And if astronomers did, we wouldn't have an asteroid named Ceres to be discussing; it'd be called "Sol 4.5" or something. I can't imagine anyone calling the god of Israel a "made-up fake god" and getting any community support; but that's just how disrespectful those words come across to me. But just to end this post on a lighter note, I've re-imagined our solar system with names given by people who don't want to wreck up the place with made-up fake gods. Moving outward from the sun, and including (formerly) Ceres and Pluto: Pee-wee, Flash, Dirt, Red, Tiny, Spot, Jug-Ears, Blue, Bluer, and Pipsqueak. P Aculeius (talk) 13:51, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

;-) Paul August ☎ 13:59, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I strongly and sincerely agree with Paul's statement here, and very much hope that the closing admin consider primarily the comments based on policy and guidelines first and foremost, and take into account the rather remarkably off-topic nature of some of the comments, and consider those sometimes extremely dubious statements and their irrelevance to the substance of this discussion in their closing. John Carter (talk) 17:45, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Incidentally, I tried looking into the surname Ceres, and what little I could find tended to suggest it was mostly a coincidental or indirect association rather than a intentional reference to the Goddess. They offered histories of the surname that go through other surname like de Serres (French) and Syres (Scottish) not directly related to the Goddess, and that writing it the same way as the Goddess is probably a more modern variant rather than something that would have existed in antiquity. Though it is perhaps unsurprising that few, if any, people would use her name as their own at times when she was actually worshiped. Being called Mr. or Mrs. Goddess would probably be seen as a bit pretentious if not heretical. Dragons flight (talk) 17:25, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the Greeks made extensive use of theophoric personal names, like Demetrius (souce of modern names like "Demi" and "Dimitri"), while "Cerealis" ("devotee of Ceres") was a common Roman surname. But modern surnames rarely derive from classical ones; from the sixth century until 1000–1200, hereditary surnames were exceptional in western Europe, and almost exclusive to the aristocracy. Even then they weren't used everywhere, or consistently for hundreds of years. And at that time, nobody was worshiping Ceres directly, as the emperors of the late fourth and fifth centuries had all but outlawed traditional religious practices, closed pagan temples, removed the altars of the gods from public places, and made it untenable for non-Christians to hold public office. A sort of pseudo-worship within the bounds of Christianity returned during the Renaissance, mostly restricted to the arts. And that's the period when hereditary surnames started to be common throughout Europe, so it's not at all unlikely that someone would call himself after an ancient god or goddess. After all, personal names like "Minerva" came into use, and we know that "Ceres" was used at least occasionally as a personal name. But I'm not saying that everyone named Ceres is proven to be named after the goddess; but it seems unlikely that few or none of them are. P Aculeius (talk) 18:58, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

• Ceres the goddess is an important part of the culture of the ancient Romans, a culture which had an incalculable effect on first Western and then worldwide civilization. Look at Ceres (mythology)#Legacy. There are statues of Ceres on government buildings in a country that never worshipped her, put up by people who surely never considered her to actually exist because of of her cultural significance and what she represents. She appears in the works of Shakespeare, who I think we can safely say did not put her there because he was secretly a worshipper of the Roman pantheon. Ceres the asteroid is a rock. A big rock, sure, but a rock. In space. Frankly, it's stunning that we even need to have a discussion as to which has superior long-term educational significance. The answer should be obvious.

As to the pageview ratio, if we allowed a 4:1 ratio to overwhelm long-term significance, Pink would be about the singer. There's also the many move requests for Madonna (entertainer) as primary topic based on pageviews of around 4:1 in favor of the singer which never go anywhere (if you've never been, pack a lunch, you'll be a while: 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014). As to "existing" vs "not existing", I suppose that means that James Bond (Canadian football) has more significance than the fictional spy as well. As does space rock 9007 James Bond, named after the fictional spy. You know, because they're real. Egsan Bacon (talk) 19:19, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

• This "space rock" (as you insultingly call it) is a differentiated dwarf planet that use to have a subsurface ocean. This gives the dwarf planet significant educational value as a planetary embryo. -- Kheider (talk) 19:36, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I'm moving your comment down here. Please do not break my comment into two pieces. And I call it a space rock because it is a rock and it is in space. Therefore, it is a space rock, and it really isn't as important as some here seem to think it is. I appreciate that, for some, the circles they spend time in may make it seem like astronomy issues have more widespread interest in society than they actually do, but it just isn't so. Egsan Bacon (talk) 19:57, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I suppose you would call Earth a space rock. -- Kheider (talk) 20:10, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, it is not a rock. A good percentage of Ceres is ice, not rock. --JorisvS (talk) 20:31, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

This discussion is an example of the overlap between astronomy and religion. -- Kheider (talk) 20:43, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

(In regards to Egsan Bacon's comments about the primary link for Madonna and Pink): Singers will always die and often begin to be forgotten by the general populous 100+ years after their deaths. Ceres the dwarf planet will be around long after your statues of Ceres have weathered away. Singers have nothing to do with what should or should not be the primary link for Ceres. -- Kheider (talk) 19:51, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I am actually not at all sure I have ever seen a more completely and utterly irrelevant comment in an RfC. It might surprise some here to realize that we do not necessarily expect each and every article here to survive in their current form or by their current name until the deaths of planets. Nor are we necessarily supposed to take into account our opinions of the possible views of individuals several hundred years in the future. Our purpose at this time is to make the encyclopedia most immediately and obviously useful to people living on the planet Earth in the current day. As we cannot even be sure that there will be a history of humanity extending several centuries into the future, there is no reason as per policies and guidelines to write for the primary purpose of those purely hypothetical individuals of the far future. I realize from the history of this discussion that one or more individuals have a very strong opinion regarding their favored outcome of the discussion, and that is fine. However, those individuals might be at some point wish to read WP:POV and related pages and part of that bias would certainly be presumptions about the content of the current day and its usefulness or lack of same into the far future. John Carter (talk) 20:12, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose- As I understand the original request, it is proposed to make one of two equally prominent subjects in the Ceres dab page, the "primary" subject. When a user types "ceres", it is unknown whether their intention is to seek the name or the object, so it is up to the user to select their target at the disambiguation page. Therefore, I oppose the change and I suggest we leave the Ceres dab page as it is: stable and useful. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 20:47, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

That will probably be the result of this discussion this year. But I suspect if anything remarkable about Ceres is discovered in the next 1-2 years, we will need to revisit the "significance issue". Without a doubt interest in the dwarf planet will snowball over the next 6 months. The science mission does not even start until April. -- Kheider (talk) 21:04, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, it seems that many of the points of disagreement in this discussion will resolve themselves in a few years. This move will surely be revisited then. A2soup (talk) 23:55, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Comment- This issue can be alleviated- if the dwarf planet is moved, there can be a hatnote saying "For the goddess, see Ceres (mythology. For other uses, see Ceres (disambiguation)". This is common practice for topics that have a clear secondary topic in addition to the primary one.Chessrat (talk) 09:01, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose Per WP:BIAS/WP:PRIMARYTOPIC/User:ArnoldReinhold (long-term significance) User:P Aculeius (WP:RECENTISM) and User:Fyunck(click) (sic) ("I do feel that the dwarf planet Ceres is only going to snowball upwards in searches..." = WP:CRYSTALBALL/WP:NOTNEWS). The asteroid might be the single most important topic but is not primary. —  AjaxSmack  21:24, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support. Initially leaned oppose due to long term significance of classic mythology, before seeing that argument soundly defeated. Ceres is on par with Pluto. Most of the planets are named after Romanized Greek mythological figures. However, on careful thought, these mythological figures are neither more "long term" nor more "significant". It is probably a good thing for astronomical appreciation if Ceres were given higher prominence vis a vis the asteroid belt. Venus (mythology) has tremendous human cultural significance, Ceres (mythology), somewhat less so. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:02, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

• We cannot assume that everything called Ceres was named after the goddess, Ceres Nunataks in Antarctica was named after the dwarf planet, Ceres, Fife in Scotland derives its name from the Gaelic for "west", and in some contexts it is an acronym. PatGallacher (talk) 01:56, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose There is no primary topic. I think that (at least in the UK) if you asked a sample of people in a poll what "Ceres" was/meant, the goddess would be better known. Clearly the planet is a big thing with those interested in astronomy, but most people won't have heard of it. Johnbod (talk) 13:38, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

superceded merge discussion
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. someone has already merged these two, since this was proposed NOTE I've proposed that CERES (disambiguation) be merged to Ceres (disambiguation) -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 05:48, 28 February 2015 (UTC) That's nice. Please feel free to fill in the redlink "Discuss" section with a link to where the discussion regarding that proposed move is to take place. John Carter (talk) 16:59, 28 February 2015 (UTC) That would be difficult, since Talk:Ceres is the location for the discussion, but it could be moved to Talk:Ceres (disambiguation) should this move request go through. But at Ceres, the discussion is bluelinked. -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 00:07, 1 March 2015 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Why do bright spots depend on angle?

In the movie of the Feb 19 images, the crater containing the twin bright spots (center of our lead img) looks ordinary until it's directly in front of Dawn, at which point the bright spots suddenly appear. You can even see that the dimmer "twin" lies within a small crater within the larger crater; both spots appear to lie dead center in their craters. Any idea what would cause them to be visible below (and to the east), but not to the west? Is it just a matter of illumination? — kwami (talk) 00:25, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I was wondering about that, too. Fresh ice down the side of a slope, acting like a mirror? I think snow would be too diffuse with its light scattering, making it less angle sensitive. Before those images, I thought Ceres might be like Callisto, with white spots where impacts punched through a thin, dark surface covering to expose fresh ice, with that (now those) bright spot(s) just being the largest. But the two spots don't seem to have much company, suggesting either that they're from a freak event, or a short-lived effect. Whatever, it's nice to see that Ceres is going to give us (well, the astronomers) a mystery. Tbayboy (talk) 01:41, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Or, maybe they do have company, but in craters further north or south that aren't in a direct angle with the sun.

For days, I'd assumed that the clip wasn't a full rotation, with the point where the bright spots appear being the start of the series. It was only today that I noticed that the crater really did come around again. — kwami (talk) 01:50, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

See Emily Lakdawala's blog: some Dawn people think they might be active plumes. Tbayboy (talk) 00:28, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

The spots show in near infrared. A thermal phenomenon is happening there beyond simple albedo, so I think that confirmation of outgassing plumes will be in the menu soon. BatteryIncluded (talk) 00:52, 21 March 2015 (UTC)