This guideline documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. |
This page in a nutshell: This guideline describes the article titles that should be used for astronomical objects, from small Solar System bodies to galaxy groups and clusters. |
This guideline reflects established consensus about the naming conventions for articles on astronomical objects. It is a subject-specific supplement to the general article titles policy, developed by Wikiproject Astronomy. General guidance is provided on how to determine the appropriate title, followed by specific practice for certain types of object.
A separate guideline discusses the notability of astronomical objects i.e. whether they should have an article at all. This page discusses the title used for the article, if it has passed the notability threshold.
Wikipedia's article titling policy states that generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy. Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists. Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject.
Common names should be used for article titles, provided they are unambiguous. When more than one name is in common usage, preference should be given to the name used in the more reliable sources. For astronomical objects, papers in scientific journals or publications of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) are regarded as more reliable than press releases or articles in the popular media.
Nicknames (e.g. Bellerophon, Osiris, FarOut) should not be used as article titles, unless they have become the common name in the scientific literature. Simply mention these names in the article instead.
The SIMBAD website and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) are both professional astronomy resources that can be used to check for accepted alternate designations for individual objects, including traditional names. However, neither website necessarily lists the designations in the order of most common use; the criteria below must still be applied. SIMBAD contains broad information on objects both inside and outside the Milky Way, whereas NED focuses on extragalactic objects i.e. those outside the Milky Way. It is therefore recommended to check SIMBAD for checking objects inside the Milky Way and to check both SIMBAD and NED for objects outside the Milky Way. Neither website contains any information on objects within the Solar System.
If an object shares a name with something more notable, the article title should indicate the type of object in parentheses (round brackets) e.g. Mercury (planet), Ceres (dwarf planet).
If a word such as "Group", "Cluster" or "Star" forms part of the object's proper name, this should be capitalised in the article title e.g. Barnard's Star, Andromeda Galaxy, Bullet Cluster. A word which is merely a descriptor should be in lowercase e.g. Mira variable, icy moon.
Diacritical marks and other orthographic elements may be intentionally omitted from a name by the IAU, in which case Wikipedia should follow: cf. Schröter (lunar crater) and Schroeter (Martian crater), or Namaka (moon) and Nāmaka. Otherwise diacritics should be retained in titles, for example in Bečvář (crater) and 4090 Říšehvězd. For composite names, such as 79360 Sila–Nunam, en-dashes rather than hyphens should be used per MOS:ENDASH. Straight apostrophes should be used for punctuation, as at Barnard's Star, 2351 O'Higgins and 2387 Xi'an, per MOS:APOSTROPHE. However, if the name contains an apostrophe-like letter, such as the ʻokina in Hiʻiaka (moon) or the soft sign in Yangelʹ, it should be rendered as such; the same goes for other letters in the orthography of the source language that might be ASCII-ified in publication, as with the click letters in 229762 Gǃkúnǁʼhòmdímà.
When there is no established common name, all articles about minor planets (with the exception of recognized dwarf planets, addressed below) should be titled as follows:
Proper names should follow the guidelines on common names above. For minor planets, the common name used in scientific literature is usually the one published in the MPC's Minor Planet Circulars.
Many comets have several different names. Articles about comets should be named in the following preference.
For moons of planets or dwarf planets:
For moons of minor planets, follow the general titling policy.
All objects agreed to be dwarf planets by demonstrable scientific consensus (specified below) should be titled under the following guidelines:
An object's dwarf planet status is considered to have demonstrable scientific consensus should it suffice for inclusion in Wikipedia:Featured topics/Dwarf planets following a discussion of its inclusion. To be included, scientific consensus must be demonstrated by multiple reliable academic sources explicitly labelling or arguing for its dwarf planet status, and there must be minimal or no academic opposition against its dwarf planet status.
Articles on extrasolar planets should be named according to the parent star's article title[1][2] then the planetary designation e.g. the article on the star is at 51 Pegasi so its orbiting exoplanet is at 51 Pegasi b. Planetary designations should be lowercase letters, except for the planets of PSR B1257+12 and planets announced prior to 1995, which have uppercase letters. Only if the planet is intentionally catalogued differently than its parent star (e.g. the star GSC 02652-01324 and its planet TrES-1) should the planet article be named differently.
The issue of whether to add a space between the parent star's name and the planetary designation determined by scientific literature references. In most cases, planets named with Bayer, Flamsteed, and or Variable star designation have a space, but usage with other designations varies e.g. WASP-12b but HD 209458 b. Use Google Scholar to determine which spacing is in more common use.
Since 2015, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has assigned official proper names to some exoplanets via a formal process. The choice of whether to use these in the article title should follow the common names section above.
Articles on stars should be titled with the following preferences:
Articles on galaxies should be titled according to the following criteria (in order of preferences):
Note that traditional galaxy names are proper nouns. Therefore, all the words in the galaxy name should begin with capital letters. For example, "Andromeda Galaxy" is acceptable, but "Andromeda galaxy" is not.
Articles of groups and clusters of galaxies should be titled according to the following criteria (in order of preference):
Note that group and cluster names are proper nouns. Therefore, all the words in the galaxy name should begin with capital letters. For example, "Virgo Cluster" is acceptable, but "Virgo cluster" is not.