Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects/Infoboxes planets

Body name

[image of object]
Discovery
Discovered by	___name___
Discovered on	___date___
Orbital characteristics (Epoch J2000)
Semi-major axis	km (AU)
Ortbital circumference	Tm (AU)
Eccentricity	number
Perihelion	km (AU)
Aphelion	km (AU)
Orbital period	d (other units, such as Julian years)
Synodic period	d (a) (w/respect to Earth)
Avg. orbital speed	km/s
Max. orbital speed	km/s
Min. orbital speed	km/s
Inclination (to Ecliptic)	° (° to Sun's equator)
Longitude of the ascending node	decimal ° (° ' ")
Argument of the perihelion	decimal ° (° ' ")
Satellites	number
Satellite of	planet (only for Moons)
Physical characteristics
Mean diameter	km (axis × axis × axis for ellipsoids)
Equatorial diameter	km (Earth units)
Polar diameter	km (Earth units)
Oblateness	number
Surface area	km2 (Earth units)
Volume	km3 (Earth units)
Mass	kg (Earth units)
Mean density	g/cm3
Surface gravity	m/s2 (gees)
Escape velocity	km/s
Rotation period	d (h)
Rotation velocity	km/h (m/s) (at the equator)
Obliquity	°
Right ascension of North pole	° (h min s)
Declination	°
Albedo	number
Surface temperature	min mean max nnn K nnn K nnn K
Atmospheric characteristics
Pressure	kPa
most common	%
next-most-common	%
etcetera	%

Most of these entries should be measured in SI units. Some of them, however, should have more "human-accessible" units, in addition to SI units. I've indicated some cases with a second unit name in brackets. In the case of times (orbital periods, rotation), I think it best to give all periods in days for comparison purposes, and provide a translation (in parentheses) into years, days, hours, etc.; whatever is most appropriate for the duration being described.

Oh, and compared to table templates for things like the elements, I think that this template should be considered somewhat more flexible. Moons with no atmosphere whatsoever could skip the atmospheric composition section entirely, for example (though atmospheric density would still be listed). Moons also wouldn't have their orbital radii listed in AU, since AUs are such large units. For planets, use "perihelion" and "aphelion" instead of "periapsis" and "apoapsis."

In the case of "number of moons" and "is a moon of", only one of these rows will be used by any given object. There aren't any moons with moons (yet), though perhaps "co-orbital with" might be a useful row to add in a few cases.

A set of colours for use in the 2-column headers of this table:

rocky terrestrial body	Transition metal color from the periodic table; rocky planets have lots of metals compared to the icy ones. Also, red is a "warmer" color than green, which fits the distribution of rocky and icy planets in the solar system.
icy terrestrial body	green contrasts nicely with the pink of rocky planets. Also, on the periodic table, it's the color of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and other common components of outer-solar-system ice.
gas giant body	blue skies, and noble gases on the periodic table (including helium, which is only found in large quantities on gas giants. It escapes from smaller planets). Also, two out of four gas giants prefer the cool soothing color of blue.

On orbital characteristics: The orbital circumference should be computed from the semi-major axis using Ramanujan's approximation for ellipses. The ratio of that circumference to the period then gives the average orbital speed. The minimum and maximum speeds follow from Kepler's laws: $v_{max}=2\pi a^{2}{\frac {\sqrt {1-e^{2}}}{Ta(1-e)}}$ and $v_{min}=2\pi a^{2}{\frac {\sqrt {1-e^{2}}}{Ta(1+e)}}$. Note that, by convention, all orbital parameters are given in the primocentric reference system (heliocentric for the planets).

On physical characteristics: The surface area and volume of non-spherical objects (e.g. moonlets, asteroids) must use the proper ellipsoid formulae, because even slight departures from sphericity will make a large difference, particularly for the area.

On the subject of obliquity: Obliquity is the angle between the object's axis of rotation and the normal to the plane of its orbit. Do not confuse this with the Tilt listed in the JPL pages, which is a measure of the angle between the local Laplace plane and the primary's equatorial plane. In fact, most inner moons have synchronous rotations, so their obliquities will be, by definition, zero. Outer moons simply have not been seen from close up enough to determine their true obliquities (although Phoebe, recently seen by the Cassini probe, is an exception; see Talk:Phoebe (moon) for the derivation of its obliquity).

Conversion log

Still to be done:

• For Neptune:
  • Nereid

Done:

Mercury Venus Earth Moon Mars Phobos Deimos Jupiter Metis Adrastea Amalthea Thebe Io Europa Ganymede Callisto Leda (still stubby) Himalia (still stubby) Lysithea (still stubby) Elara (still stubby) Ananke (still stubby) Carme (still stubby) Pasiphae (still stubby) Sinope (still stubby)

Saturn Phoebe Pan Prometheus Pandora Epimetheus Janus Mimas Enceladus Tethys Titan Dione Rhea Hyperion Iapetus Atlas Telesto Calypso Helene

Uranus Cordelia (work in progress) Ophelia (work in progress) Bianca (work in progress) Cressida (work in progress) Desdemona (work in progress) Juliet (work in progress) Rosalind (work in progress) Belinda (work in progress) Puck (work in progress) Miranda (work in progress) Oberon (work in progress) Ariel (in progress) Neptune Triton Proteus (in progress) Pluto Charon

Template: Infobox planet

Earth

Template: {{Infobox planet}}

The above fields need incorporating into this template.

Footers

• Template:Solar System - Planets in the Solar System
  • Template:Mars - Mars' natural satellites
  • Template:Moons of Jupiter - Jupiter's natural satellites (exhaustive)
  • Template:Moons of Saturn - Saturn's natural satellites (exhaustive)
  • Template:Uranus - Uranus's natural satellites
  • Template:Neptune - Neptune's natural satellites
  • Template:Trans-Neptunian dwarf planets - Plutoids
    • Template:Moons of plutoids - Natural satellites of Pluto, Haumea and Eris

Useful sources

• JPL's SSD, Natural Satellite Physical Parameters
• JPL's SSD, Planetary Satellite Mean Orbital Parameters
• Solarviews
• The Nine Planets

Extrasolar planets

TrES-1

Orbital characteristics
Semi-major axis	0.0393 (± 0.0007)
Eccentricity	0.135 (± 0.096)
Orbital period (sidereal)	3.030065 (± 0.000008)
Inclination	88.2 (± 1)
Physical characteristics
Mass	0.61 (± 0.06)
Mean density	?

• {{Extrasolar Planet}}