A proposal about "Extrasolar Speculations"

If anything the speculations forum is a bit redundant, many subjects that come up there could go into planetology (mainly going by what went in there on EV1). Furthermore, the Planetology forum seems to be specifically about the planets themselves: the description given does not lend itself well to the discussion of planetary systems - i.e. orbital configurations, multiple-planet systems, resonances, retrograde planets, whatever.

Proposal

I propose removing the Speculations forum, adding an "Extrasolar systems" forum (or come up with a better name).

Current topics in speculations can go as follows:
Lightning bonanza --> Extrasolar Planetology
Habitable planet requirements: OGLE-2006-BLG-109L --> systems
"double orbit" --> systems

p.s. nice choice of colours for the poll question - black on black is very readable

Lazarus wrote:p.s. nice choice of colours for the poll question - black on black is very readable

Do you have your monitor set to display IR wavelengths? Or are you using visible?

More seriously though, I haven't figured out how to correct this issue. It annoys me, too. The code is posted here, if you want to have a try at it. I haven't given up on it yet though.

As for my thoughts about the proposal, it makes sense. I suppose you can only go so far with a speculations forum. Besides, speculations could also fall into the category of the "General questions".

Yeah, I suppose let's continue to rake in votes.

...surely there are more than 3 users round these parts...

This is the same issue I faced earlier, trying to ask what everyone thought about EVII.

I like the idea as well.

Lazarus wrote:adding an "Extrasolar systems" forum (or come up with a better name).

How about "Extrasolar Orbital Mechanics"? Or perhaps simply "Extrasolar Mechanisms/Mechanics", as discussing tidal locking of a planet wouldn't quite qualify as "orbital" mechanics.

Darkness nova wrote:I like the idea as well.

Did you vote the wrong way? (i.e. contrary to what you wanted to put).

Edasich wrote:Extrasolar Mechanics? It's the same of planetology!

I think it's a bit more broad. Where does one discuss resonances and such, as Lazarus previously said. We're considering "planetology" to be discussing specifically individual planets or their characteristics. What Lazarus is proposing is somewhere to discuss their orbital interactions. Planet-Planet interactions are certainly significant.

One idea would be to simply change "Extrasolar Planetology" to "Extrasolar Mechanics". (or something), and simply add "orbits" in the description.

Planetology is more dealing with the planet itself (consider geology, which is the study of the Earth - it does not particularly take into account the Earth in the context of the solar system as a whole). My proposal is for a forum dealing with properties of systems as a whole: e.g. which systems could support habitable planets, things like that, which isn't actually a property of the planets themselves but of the system as a whole.

With the thread about the potential for additional 55 Cancri planets, as well as many good points stated earlier in this thread, I've decided to rename the "Speculations" page to "Mechanics". I chose "Mechanics" over "Systems" because "systems" may hint that it does not include the properties about the planets themselves. So... there, we'll see how it goes.

"Discussions about the behavior of extrasolar systems, their orbits, behaviors, habitability and interactions."

you've got behavior(s) twice... how about

"Discussions about the behavior of extrasolar systems, their orbits, habitability and interactions."

Oh, lol, yes of course. I apologize. A bit tired at the moment.