Talk:Peter Plavchan

Notability clarification for reviewers

I'd like to draw attention to a specific notability point that may not be immediately obvious from a first read of the draft.

Peter Plavchan was competitively selected by NASA as the sole Principal Investigator of the Landolt Space Mission, a roughly $19.5 million NASA space mission chosen through national competition in 2024. Selection as PI of a NASA space mission is a distinction achieved by a very small number of individual scientists at any given time — this is not a team or group award, but an individual competitive selection, and I believe it supports notability under WP:NPROF (substantial impact of the subject's academic work, evidenced by a highly selective, nationally competitive distinction).

This selection, and its significance, is discussed in some depth by two independent, reliable sources with editorial oversight and no connection to the subject or his employer:

• "NASA will put a 'new star' in the sky by the end of the decade in 1st-of-its-kind mission". Live Science. June 14, 2024.
• "You may see one more star up in the night sky soon—only this one will be man-made". Federal News Network. June 26, 2024.

Both of these go beyond a routine announcement to explain the science, the mission's importance, and the subject's role as PI in some detail.

Separately, his 2020 Nature paper on AU Microscopii b has been cited over 300 times, and his broader publication record has been cited over 6,000 times per Google Scholar, indicating significant impact in his subfield of exoplanet science.

I'd appreciate a review with these points in mind. Happy to add further sourcing if there's a specific gap reviewers can identify. ChristopherBennettWikiEditor (talk) 21:01, 21 September 2026 (UTC)