Jump to content

Wikipedia:Featured article review/Makemake/archive1

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Makemake

[edit]

Makemake (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

As of 17 December 2025, 13:09 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. A FAR coordinator will advance or close this nomination when consensus is reached.
Toolbox
Notified: 21.Andromedae, ArkHyena, Double sharp, Geni, Gog the Mild, Kwamikagami, Praemonitus, Renerpho, Serendipodous, Thirtyfourninety, WikiProject Astronomy, WikiProject Astronomical Objects  · 2025-11-06

I am nominating this featured article for review because I have rewritten the entire article and I want to ensure it stays up to FA standards. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 00:39, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To give context, I rewrote the entire article to address talk page complaints about the article's quality and outdated content from September 2025 (see previous version). I believe I have addressed these complaints, but I can't be sure unless someone else uninvolved agrees. I now have 82% authorship of this article; I've been editing this alone (with minor help from Renerpho), so surely I've missed something! For this reason, I am asking for feedback (preferably as soon as possible). I've decided to send this article to FAR instead of peer review because the peer review process is less popular and will not offer the same amount of timely feedback as an FAR would. Essentially, treat this like a featured article candidate (FAC)—this is not a "keep" or "delist" discussion.

Particular aspects of this article I would like reviewed include:

  • Check if sources are used correctly (WP:Verifiability)
  • Check that I did not synthesize differences sources to make one statement (WP:SYNTH)
  • Check that the prose is readable and understandable to a layperson. If there's anything confusing, please please please bring it up!
  • Images

Of course, feel free to review any other aspects of this article that I have not named above. I look forward to your feedback! Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 00:39, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've started some basic copy-editing with things that probably don't need discussion. (Rv me of course if you disagree.) I'll post here things I'm not sure how to improve. For now, their search for planets and other Solar System objects beyond the orbit of Neptune seems a bit wordy/awkward; maybe just 'planetary objects' or 'large objects' beyond Neptune? They were after all looking specifically for things that would rival or surpass Pluto. — kwami (talk) 01:56, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fantastic, thank you for your copyedits! I agree that "planets and other Solar System objects beyond the orbit of Neptune" sounds too wordy; "large objects" will do. I've gone ahead and made that change. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 03:28, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"which led Brown to suspect that Ortiz's team had fraudulently made use of Brown's data to claim the discovery of Haumea" - although there was at least some unprofessional conduct in not mentioning that they had accessed the data, we don't actually know that there was any fraud, and is strikes me as a bit leading to suggest that again here where it isn't directly relevant. Maybe just delete this clause? After all, they´d worry about being scooped just from knowing that the data was publicly accessible. — kwami (talk) 02:05, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Kwamikagami: Hmm yeah, writing this section about the Haumea controversy has been a bit finicky since I wanted to be prudent about narrating the events so I don't make it sound like one party is at fault. I'll agree with you and lean towards deleting the sentence about fraud; it's not that relevant to Makemake. I have two possible ways of rephrasing the sentence preceding the fraud statement:
  • "However, this plan was upended when a team led by José Luis Ortiz Moreno at Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain controversially announced their own discovery of Haumea on July 27, 2005"
  • "However, this plan was upended when a team led by José Luis Ortiz Moreno at Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain announced their own discovery of Haumea on July 27, 2005, which sparked a controversy over the discovery of Haumea."
Which one is better? Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 03:37, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd go with the first but remove the word 'controversially'. You provide the link, which I think is enough. At first there was no controversy, but nonetheless Brown was worried about being scooped on Eris and Makemake, so the later controversy is irrelevant. It wasn't that Ortiz et al specifically might scoop them, but that anyone could. — kwami (talk) 05:34, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah I see, that makes sense. Removed the fraud part. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 05:38, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I restored 'Brown realized that his team's observing logs containing the positions of Haumea, Eris, and Makemake were unintentionally public and had been accessed by a computer at Ortiz's institution.' That explains why he was worried about Makemake but is purely factual. — kwami (talk) 05:51, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Kwamikagami: I see that you're restored the computer access part. I suppose that can be kept if that provides context for why Brown feared about getting scooped. So I won't object to that. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 05:52, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Haha whoops, you beat me to posting the comment. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 05:55, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I think it's relevant, and it doesn't say there was any wrongdoing. Ortiz et al. say they did this, and even if they were completely above-board, someone else might not be. — kwami (talk) 06:09, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Kwamikagami: I see that you've reworded the dwarf planet paragraph in the classification section. I'm unsure about the phrase "is believed to be a dwarf planet"; the word "believed" gives a more uncertain sense which contradicts all other sources I've read, which unquestioningly call Makemake a dwarf planet. Would it be better to replace "believed" with "considered"? Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 06:35, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have a hard time with the word 'considered'. People tend to use it for opinion standing in for fact, rather than for consideration of the evidence, or to avoid having to take a stand. I'd rather simply say 'Makemake is a DP' than the wishy-washy 'considered' to be a DP. Maybe something more along the lines that 'there is scientific consensus that MK is a DP'?
The named as a DP bit is also a bit fraught, as various astronomical groups and orgs did announce MK as a DP, but AFAICT it was never actually categorized as such officially. Popular accounts generally present its DP status as official fiat rather than scientific consensus, and I'd like to be careful not to be repeat such implications here. (Unless of course they turn out to be accurate.) — kwami (talk) 07:24, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose saying "scientific consensus" works better. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 07:40, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are cite errors involving the named reference "SWRI-geothermal", which is not defined nor used in the content. Should the reference be properly added to the article or removed from it entirely? Thirtyfourninety (talk) 03:15, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's a ref error arising from improper capitalization of "SwRI". I've fixed it. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 03:27, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"The commercial Solar Fire astrology software uses an alternative symbol" - is this really notable enough to include? There's at least one other symbol that was created for a series of books before the Moskowitz symbol became established, and a second proprietary software uses Moskowitz's Orcus symbol for Makemake. I don't know that any of them have spread beyond their creators or original software. — kwami (talk) 05:52, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you don´t want to imply that the Moskowitz symbol is the only one, maybe a comment could be made - with the same ref but expanded page numbers - that a few other symbols have been used in astrological contexts. Though I don´t think Seltzer's symbol had been identified and so isn´t named in that ref. (Though the Solar Fire symbol looks an awful lot like Seltzer's and so might be a modification of it.) — kwami (talk) 05:56, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hm. I'm ambivalent about keeping the Solar Fire mention. I do agree that Moskowitz's symbol isn't the only one for Makemake, but I'm not familiar with astrology and what constitutes as a reliable source for that. The Seltzer symbol was mentioned in the Makemake article before I rewrote it, but I removed it because I couldn't find any source that backs it up. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 06:12, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"maybe a comment could be made - with the same ref but expanded page numbers" - not sure what you mean by that, could you elaborate? Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 06:13, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I just meant that the same ref mentions another symbol, but I don´t think on the same page. Personally, I don´t think any of the other symbols (or the software) are notable enough to mention by name, but we may want to mention that other symbols exist. — kwami (talk) 07:11, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. Sure, that would work. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 07:18, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As for Seltzer, his stuff can be found online, but I don´t know of any 2ary source. He actually designed the other symbol for Eris that made it into Unicode; for whatever reason, his Haumea and Makemake symbols didn't. His Eris symbol isn´t notable either, IMO, but as a Unicode character it's useful for other things. — kwami (talk) 07:33, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is the orbital period expected to vary from 307 years because of interaction with the planets? Because that's what 'about' implies to me -- either that or the sigma in the measurements affects the last digits. If we only mean that we've rounded off to the nearest year, I think that's understood -- just about any measurement we give is going to be rounded off. — kwami (talk) 06:09, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Kwamikagami: Depends on what reference frame you're looking at. In a reference frame centered on the Solar System Barycenter (SSB), the orbital period does not vary much and stays fixed at 307.60 yr with very little variation (much less than two decimal places shown here). I've made it clear in the article that SSB-centric orbital elements are preferred and used.
For a reference frame centered on the Sun (heliocentric), the orbital period of Makemake does appear to vary over time; the Makemake heliocentric orbital elements list given in reference 43 shows how the heliocentric-frame orbital period of Makemake (labeled 'PR', in units of days) changes over 200-day intervals. The web page for this shows a heliocentric-frame orbital period of PR= 1.118183827349468E+05 (306.14 yr) on 1995-Oct-10, and a period of PR= 1.116172203556945E+05 (305.59 yr) on 1996-Apr-27. So in a heliocentric frame, the instantaneous orbital period does change by a couple years over time because of the Sun's movement around the SSB (which in turn makes the Sun move relative to Makemake, which messes up the orbital period).
In summary, the SSB-frame orbital period of 307.60 yr is the exact figure. I suppose you can drop the "about" in this case. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 06:55, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the origin section, the note that A 2021 review paper by Jeffrey M. Moore and William B. McKinnon notes that there have been various hypotheses that give time interval estimates ranging from "few tens of Myr [millions of years]" to ~600 Myr after the Solar System's formation, though more recent hypotheses favor the former—this would imply the dwarf planets formed closer to 4.6 billion years ago is misleading. Moore & McKinnon are referring to the formation of the Kuiper belt as a structure, not of the objects themselves which would have happened earlier. @Nrco0e: I know we have discussed that exact reference before, and I probably said something different at that time; but I think the footnote can just be removed. This belongs into the Kuiper belt article, not here. Renerpho (talk) 05:44, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. Removed the footnote. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 05:45, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article says, "The axial tilt of Makemake has not been measured, although it can be reasonably assumed that its rotation axis is aligned with the orbital plane of its moon". Why is that reasonable? I'd expect the obliquity to be at right angles to the moon's orbital plane just from angular momentum arguments. Otherwise the article seems in reasonably good shape and is FA worth. Praemonitus (talk) 21:23, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Praemonitus: "I'd expect the obliquity to be at right angles to the moon's orbital plane just from angular momentum arguments." Yeah, I meant to say that "its rotation axis is aligned with the orbital [pole/plane normal] of its moon." Which phrasing is clearer? Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 21:29, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Turns out I was following the phrasing from the Parker et al. (2016) paper:
    "...if spin pole of Makemake and the orbit plane of S/2015 (136472) 1 are aligned..."
    I don't think this would be semantically accurate?
    Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 21:32, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The paper says that "the projected long axis of Makemake ... runs nearly North-South," while the satellite "likely evaded detection in previous satellite searches due to a nearly edge-on orbital configuration," which I think would put the pole axis perpendicular to the satellite orbit plane (for a low obliquity). I dunno; the more I read it, the more confused I get. Praemonitus (talk) 22:35, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The word choice may not be exact, but I get what Parker et al. were trying to say. I think it's fine if I just say "...assumed that its rotation axis is aligned with the pole of its moon's orbit." Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 05:57, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Works for me. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 03:48, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

adding in some potentially controversial changes (or changes i'm currently not equipped to carry out yet) i'd pitch:

  • (about 3.6% Earth gravity) – probably needs a footnote for how this figure was calculated
  • ...although the ring could potentially be replenished if cryovolcanic eruptions could eject carbonaceous dust into orbit around Makemake – would it be better to say if eruptions are able to eject... instead?
  • Larger moons could be hidden if they orbited very close to Makemake. – i'd suggest specifying that "hidden" in this context means WRT telescope observation capabilities. a reader could plausibly read this as being hidden physically by Makemake itself.
  • Makemake is not known to have rings. – this feels slightly vaguer than Makemake does not have any known rings. to me, even if it's intended to hedge WRT the rings hypothesis (is not known—to whom?). however, i don't believe that is necessary since the authors disfavored that hypothesis.
  • i feel like some content from this paragraph beginning with Despite being exceptionally bright, Makemake was discovered relatively late... could better fit the History section. overall, the Observation section could be condensed—it's much larger than similar (sub)sections found in Pluto and Ceres's; Eris lacks one entirely (albeit all three have not been revamped in quite a while.) ArkHyenawoop! (she/they/it) 23:12, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hm. Not too sure about that. Most of the time I'm ambivalent about discussing precoveries in the Discovery section or in a standalone Observation section, but here I'm leaning towards keeping it in the Observation section since there's plenty to talk about. The prose of the precovery paragraph feels more "distant" compared to the narrative-driven Discovery section, so putting these together would feel jarring IMO, if you get what I mean.
    But I do agree that the precovery paragraph should be somewhat trimmed. I've attempted trimming out the list of surveys and publication dates. Let me know if the result is fine. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 01:35, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @ArkHyena: (err... courtesy ping. I forgot to do that.) Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 01:37, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Nrco0e and ArkHyena: Is calling it "exceptionally bright" really warranted, when the source we give (Moltenbrey, p. 212) doesn't use that phrase, and instead says that the reason for its late discovery is "similar to the case of Haumea"? What's exceptional about it when the only similar dwarf planet was found under essentially identical circumstances? The two have essentially the same brightness, and were even located in roughly the same part of the sky. "Exceptionally bright" is a quote from Mike Brown, and it's fine quoting him earlier in the article ("Mike Brown found the object in his inspection of the images and identified it as exceptionally bright"), but I'm not sure about adopting that as fact. Renerpho (talk) 02:22, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Renerpho: Would it be better if it was rephrased as either "Despite being very bright..." or "Despite being one of the brightest trans-Neptunian objects..."? Which is better? Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 03:06, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The latter seems to work best. The Sun is very bright; trans-Neptunian objects are not. Renerpho (talk) 03:12, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Got it. I've changed it accordingly. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 03:38, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cryovolcanic outgassing of methane has been hypothesized to be ubiquitous among large trans-Neptunian dwarf planets like Makemake. -- The source [1] doesn't say "large trans-Neptunian dwarf planets". It speaks of "KBOs similar in size to Charon or smaller (but large enough to have undergone differentiation into bodies with a rocky core surrounded by an outer ice shell and possible subsurface ocean)". Are those the same thing? In the source, the relevant reference 37 (Neveu's "Prerequisites for explosive cryovolcanism on dwarf-planet class Kuiper belt objects") doesn't seem to limit itself only to a subset of dwarf planets. Why don't we write "ubiquitous among large trans-Neptunian objects like Makemake", or "among trans-Neptunian dwarf planets like Makemake"? Renerpho (talk) 08:14, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll stick with "among trans-Neptunian dwarf planets like Makemake" for clarity. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 09:09, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sounds good. Renerpho (talk) 10:29, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

revisiting since it's been quiet for a bit, but after another read through and a spot check of a handful of references i can't spot any remaining major issues. if i haven't missed anything major, it's probably time to close this FAR (of course, i'd like some help doing a full final check for any sourcing issues before doing so) ArkHyenawoop! (she/they/it) 00:22, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Makemake/archive1&oldid=1325972288"