[Data-modeling] Astronomy: Celestial Objects andNaturalSatellites

[Danny Hillis]

Going back to Gordon's original question, the proposal below would  
imply that we replace the Moon(s) property with an Orbiting bodies  
property of type Celestial Body.
-Danny

On May 3, 2008, at 10:43 AM, Danny Hillis wrote:

> 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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