Talk:55 Pandora - Wikiwand

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A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on September 10, 2025.

E-class?

Recent analysis has identified Pandora as the second-largest of the E-type asteroids, after 44 Nysa.

I searched for verification of this citation-less claim, but found none. Papers since 2000 that mention the asteroid still list it as M class, as does the JPL SBDB. For this reason I removed it from the article. Praemonitus (talk) 20:17, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Hah! Now this (added 3 September 2008) explains the otherwise inexplicable "see also" section that I've removed today... Renerpho (talk) 00:28, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

@Praemonitus: There are no studies that identify 55 Pandora as E-type. However, at the time when this was added (in 2008), the article gave an erroneously high albedo of 0.301 (compare this removal today); and our article about E-type asteroids, which was edited by the same user User:A.k.a. on the same day in 2008, said that E-type asteroids have a high albedo (0.3 or better), which distinguishes them from the more common M-type asteroids. I think the change from M- to E-type for Pandora may have come about by WP:SYNTHESIS of those two statements. See also M-type asteroid#Definition: ... distinguishable only by optical albedo: P-type albedo < 0.1; M-type albedo in 0.1 ... 0.3; E-type albedo > 0.3. No studies from the time identified Pandora as an E-type asteroid, despite its seemingly high albedo.

Now, here's the fun part: E-type asteroid is listing Pandora as one of the three largest E-type asteroid since this edit from 20 September 2012 (only three (44 Nysa, 55 Pandora, 64 Angelina) having diameters above 50 kilometres). This was apparently made to make this edit from 20 July 2007 (only three having diameters above 50 kilometres) more concrete. 64 Angelina still states that 55 Pandora is the second largest E-type asteroid, and has done so since this edit from 21 February 2007. The same statement was added to the lede of 44 Nysa by the same IP on the same day, where it also survives to the present day. User:A.k.a. added it to the see also section of the Nysa article in 2008, where it also still stands.

All of the edits from 2007 were made by IP editors, none of them come with a citation, and the claim seems to be blatantly false. There are only two such asteroids, Nysa and Angelina, with the third largest 214 Aschera not even coming close. I don't understand where this came from, and how it could survive for 18½ years. It is bordering on a type 3 or type 4 hoax, and may well be worth adding to that list when this has been cleaned up. Renerpho (talk) 01:21, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

I have now removed this from the articles where I found it (44 Nysa, 64 Angelina, E-type asteroid). Renerpho (talk) 02:13, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

... and added it as a type 4 (False or unreferenced and dubious statement that may or may not be a hoax as it could arguably have been added as a mistake or in good faith) to Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia#False statements in articles, as the 4th oldest. Renerpho (talk) 02:54, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

I have removed it from Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia#False statements in articles again, after finding a reference in the German Wikipedia article to from April 1994, which states that The new estimate of the geometrical albedo indicates unambiguously that Pandora is an M-type asteroid, and its high albedo measured by IRAS satellite and its classification as E-asteroid are mistaken.

Sorry for the fuzz... it turns out there actually was a study that classified it as E-type. It's just so old (, October 1986) and in such an obscure format that it's not easy to find -- unlike its refutation, which I could have found sooner. Renerpho (talk) 03:14, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your in-depth investigation. Praemonitus (talk) 04:27, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

@Piotrus: Regarding your re-addition of this to the hoax list, this is the relevant discussion -- if you can call it that, since it was just me who made the calls to add it (prematurely), and to remove it again 20 minutes later. Renerpho (talk) 14:43, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

Dispute between Blandina Dudley and Gould?

Quote from the article: The name was apparently chosen by Blandina Dudley, widow of the founder of the Dudley Observatory, who had been involved in an acrimonious dispute with the director of the observatory, astronomer B. A. Gould.^{[dubious – discuss]} Gould felt that the name had an "apt significance".^[1]

The alleged conflict between Blandina Dudley and B. A. Gould never happened. The citation (Schmadel's dictionary) refers to a conflict between the trustees of the observatory and its director, Gould, concerning the difference between "professional" vs. "popular" science;^[2]^[3] but Blandina Dudley and Gould were essentially on the same side in that conflict, so what is this sentence supposed to mean? I am tagging Catslash, who asked a question about this in their latest edit summary; and Thunkii and Nrco0e, who I hope might be able to help me clear this up.

My assumption is that, when User:Arsia Mons (inactive since 2018) added this on 5 December 2010, they misunderstood the vague statement by Schmadel, and assumed that the parties of the conflict were Blandina Dudley vs. Gould; and that nobody since noticed the discrepancy. For this reason, I am marking the statement as dubious. Also, after reading the paper by Olson (see below), I think this incident is worth covering in either the Dudley Observatory or the Benjamin Apthorp Gould articles, but I probably won't have time to do that alone in the next few weeks, so help with that would be appreciated. Renerpho (talk) 00:14, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with Blandina Dudley. I haven't seen any mentions of this person when I was briefly reading about the Gould drama a while back. I'm a bit too busy to look into this at the moment. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 00:31, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

References

[1]
Schmadel, Lutz D. (2003). Dictionary of Minor Planet Names. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 20. ISBN 978-3-540-00238-3.
[2]
Schmadel writes: A famous controversy of the last century was that which raged between B. A. Gould and the trustees of the Dudley Observatory at Albany, from which place he issued the Astronomical Journal. The published charges and countercharges can be found today in astronomical libraries. He was eventually ejected by ”hired ruffians”. Mrs. Dudley has proposed the name Pandora, ”the apt significance of which will be obvious to all” (Gould).
[3]
Olson, Richard G. (2 June 2006). "The gould controversy at Dudley observatory: Public and professional values in conflict". Annals of Science. 27 (3): 265–276. doi:10.1080/00033797100203787.

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