[Data-modeling] Astronomy: Celestial Objects and Natural Satellites

[Ed Laurent]

I created an Artificial
Satellite<http://www.freebase.com/view/user/spatialed/artificial_satellite>domain
to serve as a sandbox for experimenting with types that mostly apply
to artificial satellites but may have relevance to natural satellites. This
will allow my links to be easily deleted if found redundant or overly
complex. I'll also focus on orbits and payloads so as to limit the overlap
between domains.

I'll post on this new domain in new list threads so that I don't hijack this
discussion anymore. However, I'll continue to watch what is being done with
natural satellites and try to incorporate it whenever possible. Feel free to
do the same with artificial satellites and join in if you want. I have a
feeling that there will be some mixing and moving of types and properties
between domains at some point.

-Ed


On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 11:39 PM, Ed Laurent <spatial.db at gmail.com> wrote:

> What about the Mars <http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/>Reconnaissance Orbiterand other artificial satellites that orbit things besides Earth? I was
> thinking of Satellite as a very simple and generic type that could include
> an "Orbiting body" property, reciprocated with "Satellite(s)". Maybe it
> would have a couple other properties too? Many of the "Earth orbiting
> satellite<http://www.freebase.com/tools/schema/user/spatialed/default_domain/earth_orbiting_satellite>"
> properties should probably be split into "Geostationary", "Sun-synchronous"
> and other orbiting types <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orbits> so
> that their orbits can be properly described.  Some of these types might be
> appropriate for any satellite. An "Artificial satellite" type might have a
> few more properties but would certainly be co-typed with "Spacecraft".
> Specialty artificial satellite types could then be co-typed depending on
> whether the satellite was used for observation or other purposes.
>
> Co-typing, naming, and descriptions would be key so that users don't get
> lost in these minutia when they're just trying to add some basic data to
> Io <http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000040e186>vs.
> Hubble <http://www.freebase.com/view/en/hubble_space_telescope> vs. Landsat
> 7 <http://www.freebase.com/view/en/landsat_7> vs. ....
>
> Too complex?
>
> -Ed
>
>
> On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 10:35 PM, Danny Hillis <danny at appliedminds.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I like what you suggest about moving Discoverer,etc.
> >
> > One issue that we should consider is that almost any celestial object
> > is orbiting around something, even is it is the black hole at the
> > center of the galaxy. Maybe the idea of "orbit" is more useful for
> > this than making the type Satellite too generic. We could keep
> > Satellite as meaning as earth-orbiting artificial satellite and give
> > all celestial bodies an orbit and (as you suggest) a set of orbiting
> > bodies.
> > -Danny
> >
> >
> > On May 2, 2008, at 6:10 PM, Gordon Mackenzie wrote:
> >
> > > Metapsyche and I did some work a while back to add more useful
> > > properties for his exoplanet type and I am considering moving most of
> > > those properties to Celestial Object and adding planet as a co-type.
> > > Celestial Object is our workhorse of a generic Astronomical Object
> > > type that is included by Star, Planet, Natural Satellite, Asteroid,
> > > Comet types. I'm unsure what specifically to retain within exoplanet,
> > > pretty much most of the non-celestial object bound properties could be
> > > placed within the Planet type. Exoplanet could be just a boolean true/
> > > false for is this planet an exoplanet for that matter.
> > >
> > > So Celestial Object would have added specifically:
> > >
> > > Discoverer, Discovery Date, Discovery Method, Discovery status,
> > > Discovery Institution/organization
> > >
> > > And then remove/move the data for the related discovery properties in
> > > Planet/Asteroid/Comet  types to the equivalents in Celestial Body.
> > > Planet type might have both jupiter and earth-based radius and mass
> > > properties.
> > >
> > > One question I have is whether Natural Satellites should be
> > > individually added as a property to Planet and Asteroid types or to
> > > add as a single property to just Celestial Object. The latter is
> > > simpler, but the former allows cleaner demarcation of moons of
> > > planetary bodies and asteroidal moons.
> > >
> > > ~ Gordon
> > >
> > > <<< gordon at metaweb.com >>>
> > >
> > >
> > >
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>
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