[Data-modeling] Astronomy: Celestial Objects and NaturalSatellites

[Danny Hillis]

My concern is in adding too many types . Since all Celestial Objects  
have  orbits, why don't we just put the orbit properties on those,  
including "Orbit type"  and a property for "Orbits around" which  
reciprocates as "Orbiting bodies". Artificial Satellite (which we  
could just call Satellite) could include both celestial body and  
Spacecraft. his would work for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and   
satellites orbiting satellites, like Ranger-9. The Satellite schema  
would have the other properties that currently on Earth Orbiting  
Satellite, plus the few extra properties that are useful for  
geosynchronous satellites, for example "Longitude (if synchronous)".  
If get's to be too many, we could factor out Observation Satellite as  
separate type.
-Danny


On May 2, 2008, at 8:39 PM, Ed Laurent wrote:

> What about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 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" properties should probably be split into  
> "Geostationary", "Sun-synchronous" and other orbiting types 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 vs. Hubble vs. 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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