08-19-2018, 01:58 PM
Long time lurker here, you can call me Mike. I have Asperger's syndrome and my affinity is astronomy. I have been aware of OA since 2003 after researching the old style reactionless drives. I was present in the old Yahoo mailing list and was probably one of the first to come over to this forum when it was created. But anyway...
Last week I was having a discussion with a friend about different types of planets and I sent him a link to the NoLWoCS EG to show it to him. After reading the article again, I noticed a couple of discrepancies. The big one making me break over a decade of lurking is the article for the LithicGelidian type, which cites Pluto as an example. At .002 Earth masses, Pluto is below the .05 Earth mass lower cutoff for the Terrestrial class. Also, at 2,376km Pluto is well above the 1,000km diameter upper cutoff for the Planetoid class. In short, Pluto is not massive enough to be in the Terrestrial class and has too large a diameter to be in the Planetoid class. This is happening because one class uses diameter as its defining size parameter while the one immediately above it uses mass, which are two different things that don't line up with each other very well. Although I understand why diameter was used to define the smallest of bodies in the NoLWoCS, a probable solution would be to change the size parameter for the Asteroid and Planetoid classes to mass like it is in the other classes.
The next one is probably a typo. On the Asteroid class EG, the third paragraph from the top defines a size parameter of 5 meters to 50km while everywhere else says 50 meters is the lower cutoff, even in the paragraphs above it. Most likely the 5 is supposed to be a 50.
The last one I can remember right now, Chthonian worlds appear to be both a subtype of the Superterrestrial class and a class of their own, independent from the six main classes of the NoLWoCS. Why are they a separate class? I think it would make more sense if they were a Terrestrial and Superterrestrial subtype, Chthonian and Superchthonian respectively. If Chthonian is a Terrestrial subtype, its not listed as such.
I want to close this by saying that the NoLWoCS is a work of art. John Dollan and all who contributed to it, if you're on here and haven't though of this already, please introduce it to the IAU so they can start using it. Responses to the above queries is appreciated.
Last week I was having a discussion with a friend about different types of planets and I sent him a link to the NoLWoCS EG to show it to him. After reading the article again, I noticed a couple of discrepancies. The big one making me break over a decade of lurking is the article for the LithicGelidian type, which cites Pluto as an example. At .002 Earth masses, Pluto is below the .05 Earth mass lower cutoff for the Terrestrial class. Also, at 2,376km Pluto is well above the 1,000km diameter upper cutoff for the Planetoid class. In short, Pluto is not massive enough to be in the Terrestrial class and has too large a diameter to be in the Planetoid class. This is happening because one class uses diameter as its defining size parameter while the one immediately above it uses mass, which are two different things that don't line up with each other very well. Although I understand why diameter was used to define the smallest of bodies in the NoLWoCS, a probable solution would be to change the size parameter for the Asteroid and Planetoid classes to mass like it is in the other classes.
The next one is probably a typo. On the Asteroid class EG, the third paragraph from the top defines a size parameter of 5 meters to 50km while everywhere else says 50 meters is the lower cutoff, even in the paragraphs above it. Most likely the 5 is supposed to be a 50.
The last one I can remember right now, Chthonian worlds appear to be both a subtype of the Superterrestrial class and a class of their own, independent from the six main classes of the NoLWoCS. Why are they a separate class? I think it would make more sense if they were a Terrestrial and Superterrestrial subtype, Chthonian and Superchthonian respectively. If Chthonian is a Terrestrial subtype, its not listed as such.
I want to close this by saying that the NoLWoCS is a work of art. John Dollan and all who contributed to it, if you're on here and haven't though of this already, please introduce it to the IAU so they can start using it. Responses to the above queries is appreciated.
