Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects
| Orbital characteristics | |
|---|---|
| Mean orbital radius | km (AU) |
| Pericentron | km (AU) |
| Apocentron | km (AU) |
| Revolution period | time |
| Inclination | ° |
| Number of satellites | number |
| Is a satellite of | planet |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Equatorial diameter | km |
| Surface area | km2 |
| Mass | kg |
| Mean density | g/cm3 |
| Surface gravity | m/s2 (Gs) |
| Rotation period | time |
| Axial tilt | ° |
| Mean surface temp. | °C |
| Atmospheric pressure | kPa (atm.) |
| Atmospheric composition | |
| most common constituent | % |
| next-most-common constituent | % |
| etcetera | % |
| Lithospheric composition | |
| most common constituent | % |
| next-most-common constituent | % |
| etcetera | % |
This page is where work is being done to come up with a generic table template to be used for organizing a list of facts about various astronomical bodies such as planets, natural satellites, and maybe also smaller bodies such as asteroids and comets (though I suspect that both asteroids and comets will be better served by having their own template design).
Most of these entries should be measured in SI units. Some of them, however, should have more "human-accessable" units, either in addition to or instead of SI units. I've indicated some cases with a second unit name in brackets. In the case of times (orbital periods, rotation), I think it best to translate the time into years, days, hours, etc.; whatever is most appropriate for the duration being described.
Oh, and compared to table templates for things like the elements, I think that this template should be considered somewhat more flexible. Moons with no atmosphere whatsoever could skip the atmospheric composition section entirely, for example (though atmospheric density would still be listed). Moons also wouldn't have their orbital radii listed in AU, since AUs are such large units. For planets, use "perihelion" and "aphelion" instead of "pericentron" and "apocentron."
In the case of "number of moons" and "is a moon of", only one of these rows will be used by any given object. There aren't any moons with moons, though perhaps "co-orbital with" might be a useful row to add in a few cases.
A possible set of colors for use in the 2-column headers of this table:
| rocky terrestrial planet | Transition metal color from the periodic table; rocky planets have lots of metals compared to the icy ones. Also, red is a "warmer" color than green, which fits the distribution of rocky and icy planets in the solar system. |
|---|---|
| icy terrestrial planet | green contrasts nicely with the pink of rocky planets. Also, on the periodic table, it's the color of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and other common components of outer-solar-system ice. |
| gas giant planet | blue skies, and noble gasses on the periodic table (including helium, which is only found in large quantities on gas giants. It escapes from smaller planets). Also, two out of four gas giants prefer the cool soothing color of blue. |