Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PSR B1257+12 D

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to PSR B1257+12. Whether anything should be merged from the history is unclear from this discussion and can be subsequently decided through the editorial process. Sandstein 09:58, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PSR B1257+12 D

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

I have been unable to identify any reliable sources for the existence of this planet. AstroMark (talk) 05:02, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

~~Tentative Keep~~ Redirect to PSR B1257+12: The article about PSR B1257+12 states that the name is "sometimes abbreviated as PSR 1257+12." Using this abbreviated name as a search term, I found an entry for Planet PSR 1257 12 d in the Extrasolar Encyclopedia. That encyclopedia also linked to a news story dated to October 2002 which reads, "The detection of a fourth planet orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12 has been withdrawn." [1] However, I also came across a BBC News story dated to February 2005 which states, "The new world, which is about one fifth the size of Pluto, is the fourth planet to be discovered orbiting around a pulsar called PSR B1257+12." [2] (See also [3].) So it would seem that there's a rather complex history behind claims about a fourth planet orbiting PSR B1257+12. I'm not particularly familiar with the latest exoplanetary research, so it's possible that the claim of discovery has again been withdrawn. Otherwise, it does appear the planet exists and is discussed in reliable sources. --Mike Agricola (talk) 16:26, 1 March 2013 (UTC) EDIT: See comments below; discovery has again been withdrawn; I'm not aware of any presently standing claim that existence of PSR B1257+12 D has been verified. --Mike Agricola (talk) 18:36, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The Extrasolar Encyclopaedia uses a different naming convention to Wikipedia when it comes to pulsar planets (starting at b rather than A). The page you linked to actually refers to PSR B1257+12 C. Nonetheless, the references in the comments are useful. I would strongly caution against using news articles and websites as reliable sources for a scientific article. I've now tracked down what I believe to be the important references.

Joshi and Rasio 1997 [4]

We find that the simplest interpretation of the frequency derivatives implies the presence of a fourth planet with a mass of ~100 MEarth in a circular orbit of radius ~40 AU.

Wolszczan 1997 [5]

A very intriguing possibility is that the observed P is due to a dynamical influence of a distant long-period fourth planet in the pulsar system.

Wolszczan 2012 (sorry, no open access version of this one) [6]

Further attempts to pursue this idea have led us to believe that there may be a sub-Pluto mass body in a 2.4 AU, 4.6 yr orbit around the pulsar (Wolszczan & Konacki, unpublished). Unfortunately, as shown in Fig. 5, the TOA variability observed over the last ten years is not periodic and can be fully explained in terms of slow changes in the pulsar’s dispersion measure.

In summary, there was some slight evidence for a fourth planet, but the evidence has since been shown to be explained by other means. As I see it there are three options here.

Delete the page and remove all references to the object since those that detected it are now unconvinced by their own data.
Keep the article, but significantly rewrite it to make it clear that this is not a confirmed planet.
Delete the page but include some of the information about the tentative detection and subsequent retraction in PSR B1257+12.

AstroMark (talk) 06:41, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: In light of Wolszczan 2012, it does appear that Wolszczan's 2005 claim [7] for the discovery of PSR B1257+12 D has been retracted. My preference in this situation would be to delete the page, include some info. about the tentative detection and subsequent retraction in PSR B1257+12, and redirect PSR B1257+12 D to PSR B1257+12. The latter article already discusses the first tentative claim + retraction, and it will only take an additional sentence or two to bring it up to date with discussion of the second (which I've already added). The retracted claim is notable enough to mention in PSR B1257+12 (e.g. a general media organization, the BBC, reported on it). But I don't see the need to maintain an article with content about a planet whose existence is dubious; a revised PSR B1257+12 D would simply be a stub that largely repeats what is already available in PSR B1257+12. However, converting the article about this planet into a redirect may be helpful to anyone searching for information on claims about PSR B1257+12 D.

Regarding the use of news articles as reliable sources for a scientific article, I'll just note that in this instance, Wolszczan 2012 reports that the 2005 claim by Wolszczan & Konacki was unpublished - but it was reported in media sources such as the BBC that are generally regarded as WP:RS. Had a paper been published at the time, I would have used it instead of the BBC article, but in its absence, the BBC provides a reliable source that the claim was made back in February 2005. As an analogy, Chebarkul meteorite largely uses media reports for its sources because insufficient scholarly sources are available to provide adequate coverage (too soon for peer-reviewed papers to appear) - and I consider that quite acceptable given this circumstance. Moreover, WP:SCIRS#Popular_press states that "one possibility is to cite a higher-quality source along with a more-accessible popular source." It seems to me that this is an appropriate strategy in light of WP's standards on sourcing, so I cited the BBC article together with Wolszczan 2012. Anyways, please do review my edits of PSR B1257+12 and revise as needed. Also note that I didn't remove the entry for 12D from the "The PSR B1257+12 system" table as I wasn't certain if others would want some form of it kept for "historical purposes", but I would prefer to just delete it. --Mike Agricola (talk) 18:36, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: That all sounds good. I don't see any point in keeping the table entry. I feel it will confuse people into thinking that the fourth planet is confirmed (as it did when I saw it). I'm not entirely clear on how the AfD process works now. Do we wait for the 7 days to pass or can we just change the page into a redirect now? AstroMark (talk) 04:54, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Usually an AfD is kept open at least seven days (unless circumstances warrant a "speedy" keep or delete). That gives others an opportunity to weigh in. Once a consensus has been formed, someone who has not been previously involved with the discussion (usually a WP administrator) closes the AfD and implements the consensus. So we've still got a few more days to go - and since we're the only two participants thus far, it's a good idea to leave things open for a bit to allow other interested editors to have their say. With regards to your removal of the table entry, I also made an edit to replace "D" with "C" in the following sentence: "The planets of PSR B1257+12 are designated from A to D (ordered by increasing distance)." --Mike Agricola (talk) 13:26, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:12, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – There's a mention on an Exoplanet.eu article about this being a possible comet. Maybe it should be merged into PSR B1257+12? Praemonitus (talk) 03:38, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 14:03, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect Fascinating history! Given the contentious nature of the discovery, the subsection in the main article on the pulsar seems appropriate weighting. The existence of its own article is dubious at this time not due to any particular guideline, but due to the fact it can't be definitively classified at this time. WP:HAMMERTIME is the closest thing essay I can think of, and it says that future speculation on a musical release should be deleted if no definitive information about the release is available. It seems this is a bit of an analogous situation in that we don't know what this object will be. Sailsbystars (talk) 14:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to the star system article. Though the claim has been retracted, does not mean that the announcement itself is not worthy of mention. The retracted claim existed for many years, so is a valid search term, so should in any case redirect to the star system article. Just because something doesn't exist doesn't mean it should be mentioned, such as Vulcan (planet), the infra-Mercury planet found to not exist. Or Planet X, the trans-Neptune/Pluto planet also found to not exist. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 07:12, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.