Created the page but realize that the name of the page probably should be changed to the full name. From "MicroFUN" to
Microlensing Follow- Up Network". If this is the case, than the Spanish page will also need to be updated. Thanks, Marasama (talk) 02:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Folks, I have responded to a request at WP:FEED to review the above article (which I moved from Peas (Astronomy)). I have cleaned up the lead a little and removed the original infobox (which related to the Galaxy Zoo website, not the subject), and moved up the image from further down the article. But that's where my capabilities with the subject matter end. Would anyone form this Project care to help out with review of the article and help clean it up further? Thanks in advance. – ukexpat (talk) 16:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
The main problem I have with writing this article is that it has all happened online, as it is an online project. The discovery was the result of a forum and lots and lots of goodwill. How the Pea galaxies were discovered, how they got their name, mostly everything apart from the paper and the press release, happened online. However this use of material from the forum is frowned upon by Wiki.
Does anyone have any suggestions about how to proceed? Should I abandon the history altogether? Have none of it referenced to anything? The history is central and gives it all context. 'A new way of doing Science', yet I can't use a lot of it.
It's a problem that I've seen happen with a number of articles, especially in popular culture topics. If you can establish that the person posting the information in a blog is highly reputable (such as if they have their own, well-cited wikipedia article), then that may be satisfactory. But otherwise I'd avoid most public, anonymous forums. See also WP:SOURCES.—RJH (talk) 17:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
This article is confused. It claims things "make solar mass" - make solar mass out of what and into what? It makes it out of empty space and into dark matter? It says it takes x solar mass to make y solar mass several times. If I said it takes 10 kg to make 3 kg, no one would understand what I meant, or if I said it takes 30$ to make 5$, or that it makes 30kg per year... context is missing. Most of the time it seems to mean gas to stars, other times it means star formation rate, but it is never specified, so it's not good. 76.66.197.17 (talk) 20:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I was just reading Sloan Great Wall, which is about a structure that is 1 billion light years away. Which got me thinking about the present tense we use when we're talking about astronomical objects that we can only observe as they were in the distant past because of the time it takes for us to get information about them. Using present tense seems to presume present information, which we can't have. Is there a stylistic convention in this subject that it's simply less confusing to use present tense regarding present observations, even when that observation is of the distant past? Or is there a stated assumption in astronomy that distant objects are likely to continue today as they were in our observations made today, given the extreme length of time it takes for stars and larger objects to change (i.e., a million years isn't long in the life of a star)? Cheers, postdlf (talk) 21:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
The universe is relative, since there is no present outside of your inertial frame of reference. :) The present for you is a few split seconds into the future for astronauts returned from space, if you call the present the same amount of seconds since the big bang. Using that standard, the present-for-you, could be near a black hole could be years or billions of years into the future...
Aside from that philosophical debate, another philosophical debate could contend that anything outside of our lightcone cannot affect us, so if we say that the "present" is whatever is affecting us right now, then it is the present...
moving away from that... I have no problem with present tense being used, since if you see it as it is, it is that way right now, as present is whatever you're experiencing at the moment.
As this nebulium is more a discovery by an astronomer and was a topic in nebula for decades a person with a little bit more knowledge on astronomy should have a look. The article will be on the Mainpage in two hours. Thanks!--Stone (talk) 15:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Part of the templete uses the "&bull" and "•", recommend using the "•".
List_of_extrasolar_planets#See_also is now large due to so many missions and observatories participating. If accepted, I will move these into the template and create two sections, "Ground based observatories", and "Space based observatories", unless someone has a better suggestions. Missions will be removed.
Actually I think the template should be split in two... the general planet classes, system types should be moved to {{planet}} which isn't being used at the moment (it's a redirect, all instances can be corrected to point to {{infobox planet}}) ; {{exoplanet}} would contain the search missions , observatories, etc, and archetypal planets (as opposed to planet classes). 76.66.192.206 (talk) 05:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Before adding Sudarsky's classification scheme I think we should see some evidence that his schema is actually used. None of the papers I'm familiar with that cite his work make any mention of the classification scheme. — Aldaron • T/C15:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Reliability (or not) of astronomical data in article texts
It seems to me there's a somewhat widespread problem over reliability of facts and data affecting a number of astronomy article texts.
Here are some samples/examples of kinds of problem-situation that I've noticed:
Editor just seems to be making it all up:
(e.g. 1 'time standard' article used to say that sidereal time measurement was no good or impractical because of the proper-motions of the stars!)
(e.g. 2 'kepler's laws' article had a whole story of how the solar system barycenter was deep inside the sun and so close to the sun's center that specialized measurements were needed to detect the difference, and that made Kepler's 1st law 'accurate' for the solar system -- in spite of a wikilink actually there to another article with an image showing how the ssb regularly wanders outside the body of the sun up to about a whole solar-diameter from the center.....)
(e.g. 3 again in 'kepler's laws' there's what looks like a spurious as well as unsourced story about how to measure eccentricity of the earth's orbit.)
Editor substitutes wrong numerics in place of previously-correct data:
(e.g. in 'earth orbit', discussion was of sidereal year, originally with correct data -- since then substituted by wrong-in-context tropical year length, with other bad data).
The 'wrong-numerics' category of edit seems to have a spectrum ranging at one end from misunderstanding leading to substituting-in wrong data, to another end of the range where it's a kind of vandalism, e.g. birth dates of historical figures changed to 1999 etc.
There are either no citations or none that actually support the materials in question. I guess it's inevitably hard to detect corrupting changes that introduce errors of this kind, because they sometimes look superficially like good-faith edits. But some of the stories look like products of pure imagination or invention, replete with false circumstantial detail.
Can these really all represent good-faith edits, it's rather a puzzle to me. It's probably unreasonable to expect bots ever to be able to cope, does anyone know any way of preventive handling for any of this kind of stuff? Terry0051 (talk) 22:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Well it's not just a problem with astronomy article, but yes there are definitely astronomy-related pages where the citations could be better, as well as additions that are pure opinion, complete rubbish, or some combination. As there are thousands of astronomy articles, it's hard to police them all. If you find something a bit dubious and unsourced, the usual approach is to add a {{Fact}} tag. That will highlight the fact that it needs a citation to back it up. For absolute rubbish, I think that WP:BEBOLD applies. :-) If a whole page is unsourced and filled with dubious information, I'd insert a {{unreferenced}} tag at the top. That will at least alert readers to the fact that the information they are seeing may be unreliable. Another approach is to bring up the issue on the article's talk page. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 18:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Biocentrism in cosmology
Biocentrism in cosmology has been nominated for renaming
Yeah, Lake Afton is not standard, Keck actually has a telescope infobox, leaving Lulin Observatory as the only one that is using the observatory infobox. James McBride (talk) 08:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Just so that you are aware (and so that I may therapeutically can complain), I'm removing the spamlinks from each and every star article to http://www.alcyone.de/ for the reason that the links don't provide any essential information of use for WP, and that the very poor information provided is vastly inferior to other sources, such as SIMBAD. Compare for example:
Alcyone.de lists "HR 410, HD 8673, SAO 54695, BD +33 228", while SIMBAD lists facts about the star. I think that Alcyone.de has been using WP as a means to marketize their software Alcyone Ephemeris, while providing nothing of value by their spamlinks. This is not the way to go around using Wikipedia! If the company/software reaches a certain size and so reach a position of notability, not just a couple of hundred licenses sold per year, articles may be created for the company/software. Wikipedia is not an advertizement ground for companies, it's an encyclopedia produced by unpaid volunteers. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 09:55, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Well I'm guilty of using Alcyone in the past, and I really don't think I have anything to apologize for. Many of those were added before I became more aware of SIMBAD. The information used in Alcyone was derived from valid astronomical star catalogues, including the Bright Star Catalogue and the Washington Double Star Catalogue. But if you want to replace those with more direct citations, then great. However, those additions were never intended as spam, and you shouldn't go around blaming the publisher for the additions.—RJH (talk) 15:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Eh, um. I'm not accusing anyone. I followed history for one of the star stubs and the user who created the star obviously used a pattern from another star, since that user created a lot of astronomy stubs, not always using alcyone.de for the external links. It might have functioned as a crossref once upon a time, and many users might have added the links in good faith ... and now I have to cleanup! Currently there are exactly 337 links to alcyone.de, down from about 510-520 or some such yesterday. Just note that alcyone.de don't provide us with any relevant info that cannot also be found in SIMBAD. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 18:52, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
I must apologize a little. Most of the links were pretty meaningless, but a few of the alcyone.de links actually provides some information that is more than just a trivial crossref. Those links always seem to regard HR stars, i.e. bright and otherwise notable stars. In a few cases I may have removed useful references by not scrutinizing sources well enough. Throw me a note if you feel that I've made a mistake. The cleanup continues. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 19:31, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
It looks fine to me. However, this 1962 source suggests at least a common motion. I'm not sure if there is a subsequent source that clarifies their relation. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 18:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Is there more to add besides the handful of sentences in the CMB article? Perhaps recombination of helium and lithium? (Personally, I'm curious to know what the explanation is for the use of the word "recombination" to describe a first-time event. =) Thanks.—RJH (talk) 22:25, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The level of content that needs to be added is probably not that great. I think it would be nice to include a bit more thorough an explanation of why it happens when it does, and present a couple of relevant equations. For instance, a quick discussion of the Saha equation and photon to baryon ratio are sufficient to give an estimate of the recombination redshift. Adding this to either of the aforementioned article does not really seem appropriate to me though. The other thing that kind of irks me is that the recombination link in the CMB article links to the timeline of the Big Bang, while the timeline links right back to the CMB article. I guess I could have just been bold and started this article, but the fact that it did not exist already made me question to some degree the need, even as I now make the case for why it should exist. James McBride (talk) 23:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to make a list with the milestones (in distance) reached per year, but I'm missing data.
Could you please somebody give me a hand or tell me where could I find such information?
--Micru (talk) 21:29, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Here is a more complete list, with references, that I've been working on, to turn into an article Talk:List of astronomical objects/workpage - I've been trying to fill in the stars section; from the discovery of the distance to the galaxies to today, I think is complete. I think some of the refs I used are written in Latin and medieval French, and very old style English, so they might be hard to read. 70.29.210.242 (talk) 05:42, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
The front page seems to require manual editing. Or rather, the page that the front page links to with a list of DYKs needs manual editing. There are quite a few DYKs in astronomy that are not on the list. I am rather surprised that a bot does not exist which will update the page, but so far as I know, there is not. James McBride (talk) 21:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
I copied the physics template for the bot to my sandbox a few days ago, and the bot just updated it, so I copied it over to the recognized content page. It is nice to have it up to date now, though I was surprised to see that most solar system bodies are not included, as they seem to only be listed under the Solar System WP. James McBride (talk) 00:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
S Ori 70 - hmm... the article notes a Sigma Orionis open cluster, but links to a Sigma Orionis (Sigma Ori) star system, which is not an open cluster. Not to be confused with the S Orionis (S Ori) star. Sigma Orionis Cluster does not exist as an article... Should this article be renamed to S Orionis 70 to expand the abbreviation?
SIMBAD does not come up with this star on basic search, but a coordinate search results in [1] "Mayrit 520267" as the brown dwarf [2]
That's the same issue I have when creating stars and exoplanets around them. What to follow? Is it Durchmusterung, Hipparcos or Draper? Normally I go with notability via press releases and/or scientific summaries from observatories such as KECK, Magellan, etc. --TitanOne (talk) 23:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Element articles
Whenever an element article comes up for PR or FAC, I think it is a good opportunity to put in suggestions about adding astronomy information. Currently Caesium is up for a FAC here. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 17:45, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Does the "Heat Death" Make Life Possible? —Michael R. Donohoe
by
Michael R. Donohoe
Creationists get into trouble when they say that such complex order as life in a universe governed by disorder must be deliberate, an act of God. One thing that is pointed out to them is that entropy represents the statistical tendency toward disorder, not a rigid law somehow violated by every occurrence of order.
I've noticed something that is not what Creationists claim, yet it doesn't seem to be acknowledged by science that I have been able to find. It could seem outlandish, yet with a little examination it appears irrefutable to me that evolution and life are in fact dependent on processes and conditions which by definition qualify as disorder. This even includes the ultimate state of cosmic disorder called the heat death in which it is assumed that all viable energy within the universe will have been expended.
I want to mention that more than once I've been taken for a Creationist, and more than once people have assumed that I am one of these people who apparently do not believe that earth has limited resources, or who think that things like overpopulation, ozone depletion, pollution, and global warming are not real threats. Such assumptions are as far off-base as they could possibly be. On a science message board a man in England became livid at what I suggested. Somehow I guessed that he was a teacher. To be exact it turned out that he was a high school science teacher. Eventually he did an abrupt about face and declared that I was correct, yet he was no less hostile than he had been before. A number of people with a deeper understanding of science, such as a science writer I conversed with online and a friend who teaches astronomy, were surprised by my observation, but they did see my point.
In the unauthorized collection of essays, *The Theory of Everything*, Stephen Hawking illustrates how the statistical tendency toward disorder demonstrates the arrow of time with a water glass falling off a table to shatter on the floor. He shows how this demonstrates time's directional arrow, time being a one way street, in that the glass will not reform up on the table like a film run in reverse.
It's established in the scientific picture that stars produce the stuff that earth and life are made of. Stars are essentially immense hydrogen reactors. Hydrogen burning in a star can become oxygen as well as helium, and helium can be burned into carbon. The progression of star fuel, hydrogen, into these other substances, is the aging of the star. As the star is comprised of less and less hydrogen fuel and more of these substances, it is progressing toward what occurs when a red giant star goes nova and explodes, dispersing the stuff that life is formed from. Apply the arrow of time. Anything in a star that is no longer hydrogen fuel, such modified hydrogen as oxygen, helium, and carbon, will not revert into hydrogen fuel any more than a shattered water glass will reform up on the table. The stars that go nova also will not revert into the stars they had been. While earth could conceivably be swept into a new star form during a future nova, the stuff of which earth is made will not un-burn or un-explode, and happens to provide the basis for carbon-based life forms such as ourselves.
Mixing is disorder. In the book, *Chaos*, James Gleick gives the example of a swimming pool with ink on one side and water on the other divided by a barrier. Remove the barrier and the pure water and ink will mix together into a disordered mess. In *The Theory of Everything*, Hawking gives the example of two types of molecules in a box, again, separated by a barrier. Simply remove the barrier and the two types of molecules in separate ordered states will mix together into one disordered mess. They will also not separate and reorder themselves. What if hydrogen and oxygen mix together? That's how we get water, which, like carbon, is very handy for such life forms as ourselves.
My thinking is that ordered energy forms of the star and of the hydrogen and oxygen are lost, but that these ordered states must be lost, and become disordered, before new more complex forms of order can arise.
I became curious about topsoil. Fertile topsoil is formed through similar processes to soil erosion. In the latter case that this is disorder is apparent. What about when manure, ashes, and plants and animals decompose and mix into fertile life-sustaining soil? For dust art thou, and unto dust shalt thou return. The individual plants and animals will not reform but will sustain future generations of flora and fauna, which can then revert into soil.
Apoptosis is also known as programmed cell death. Our body replaces in the area of a million cells a second. If it does not do this as it should the result can be cancer. When, on the other hand, cells die more rapidly than they should it causes strokes and such diseases as Alzheimer's. The cells that die don't come back into existence like a shattered glass reforming on a table. Like the brake pads on a car, the cells must be replaced with new cells. Life barters with entropy, in the cycle of soil and plants and animals, and in the life, reproduction, and death of cells in our bodies.
Evolution itself demonstrates time's arrow. Cells live and die within complex organisms that live and die within species that carry on, adapt, and evolve into new species, or become extinct. In the case of human beings, individuals rise and fall within cultures that carry on, evolve, or die out. So I don't expect to awake tomorrow as one of my Celtic ancestors or as an Australopithecus or a pro simian or a lung fish, or maybe even as part of a long dead star, any more than Hawking's shattered glass will reform on the table from which it fell.
Heat loss is considered by definition to be entropy. Apply this to the fact that the death of stars is a loss of viable energy in the universe and a drop in temperature on a cosmic scale. The death of stars is a progression toward the hypothetical heat death of the universe. When standing before a mirror, consider the former temperature of the air around you as well as the walls and floor and ceiling and of the mirror, and, of course, of you, yourself. A great deal of heat loss, entropy, and disorder factor into that moment. The fact that all forms are finite, from shattered water glasses to exploding stars, makes evolution and life possible. Would you rather reside at room temperature, or on the surface of a star? If the heat death scenario is accurate, one result of this eventuality can be seen in your reflection. Organic processes also happen to be the heat death in progress.
While it seems to strike many as counter intuitive, I don't believe that I am the only person to make this connection, yet I can't find any acknowledgment of it. You might think it would make an interesting aside when addressing disorder and the proposed heat death. Why does no one make any mention of this?
I have two thoughts about why that might be. One is that in reductionism there is a tendency to view things as isolated occurrences; nature as the sum of it's parts. Stars, while undergoing the entropic process of aging, happen to produce the stuff that life is made of. While succumbing to entropy in the form of a nova, they happen to disperse that life stuff. In addition to this, if one is to view all of these events as disconnected happenstance, complexity and life can occur in a finite universe. Perhaps to make this connection would threaten an underlying bias in reductionism against any view of order as other than a purely random occurrence. I would not say that this observation is proof that a higher power is at work in nature, but I think it qualifies as an argument for the fine tuning of our universe and it does lend itself to the possibility that nature is more than purely random. Is what is classified as a statistical tendency toward disorder also a statistical tendency toward complexity that makes evolution possible, or maybe even inevitable? Is that why I never find any mention of this aspect of entropy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.171.160.136 (talk) 03:40, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
It looks like a rambling quasi-religious manifesto, and appears off topic for this page. I support removal of this anonymous post.—RJH (talk) 16:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
I have nominated the newly-created {{Infobox crater}} for deletion. (I first asked the creator to withdraw it.) Please see and participate in the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#Template:Infobox crater. Summary: editors including some from WPAstronomy have already worked to alleviate confusion over unqualified use of the term "crater". The mass category renaming CFD for Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 August 22#Category:Craters renamed 77 categories like "Craters of..." to "Impact craters of..." after volcanic crater articles were moved to subcategories of Category:Volcanoes. Let's not re-introduce that confusion. The template docs make no differentiation between terrestrial craters and those on other celestial bodies. Ikluft (talk) 22:49, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
I have nominated Moon for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. --Cryptic C62 · Talk19:42, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
It's unfortunate but I find that FA pages still need regular upkeep and improvements to satisfy the current criteria, or else they tend to get removed from the list.—RJH (talk) 18:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Book clean up
As with articles, WildBot also goes through books and creates problem reports on their talk page (with details on the cause and effects of these problems, and what to do to fix them). There are currently 1 astronomy-related book that needs cleanup.
Someone keeps adding "... that stars cannot be seen, directly from our eyes, in space!" to the Portal. There's a notice on the talk page requesting an explanation before having it on the portal, but it just gets readded. I would say that the entire "Did You Know" should be deleted, as I find the remarks there highly questionable. 76.66.198.79 (talk) 05:16, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
There is a move to delete all asteroid discovering astronomers from Wikipedia
I see there are quite a few Asteroid Discoverers listed on Wikipedia. Some are making an attempt to erase these, and stick them all on a list article List of miscellaneous minor planet discoverers. Should news of their discovery be enough to prove them notable enough to have their own article, or should their articles be erased, history and all, and a redirect placed there instead? Could there be a guideline added by those who known and care about Astronomy on what makes an Astronomer notable? If you don't add one, then this'll just keep coming up in AFD time and again, and whether any of the articles are saved or lost will depend on whatever random group of people show up to comment. DreamFocus05:19, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I only spotted four that have been sent to the AFD so far, but the reasoning of the nominator is quite clear, there more to follow. I've seen them nominate articles previously months ago about astronomers as well. Certain people are known to delete not just a few things, but to go through everything related, and do wide spread deletion nominations. That happens far more often than not. I wonder how many articles for those listed on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Asteroid_discoverers have been replaced by redirects already. Any way to check that? That'd show how many were deleted already, by who, and at what time. DreamFocus06:06, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't know that consolidation is necessarily a bad thing, when there is nothing else to write about the topics than the asteroid discoveries. It's better than just deleting the information. See WP:MERGE for example.—RJH (talk) 15:21, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
There maybe no or few articles on this new Unreferenced BLPs page. To increase the overall number of articles in your project with another bot, you can sign up for User:Xenobot_Mk_V#Instructions.
How do I add something to the list of Astronomy articles up for deletion?
Other Wikiprojects have a page where it explains how and is rather easy to do. How do I add Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Hiroshi_Araki and others to the watch list of those interested in this sort of thing? I notice there are quite a number of categories for astronomy related things. Hopefully they are all combined as sublist into one general category, making it easier to watch and find things. DreamFocus05:24, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
The list is supposed to be automatically maintained by the Article Alerts Bot, it scans AfDs for any article that has the WPAstronomy banner and updates the listing page... 76.66.192.73 (talk) 05:55, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm starting to suspect that the Hiroshi Araki article (or at least the links) may be a conflation of multiple individuals, so I added a note to the talk page.—RJH (talk) 19:53, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
As detailed in last week's Signpost, WikiProject Wikipedia books is undertaking a cleanup all Wikipedia books. Particularly, the {{saved book}} template has been updated to allow editors to specify the default covers of the books. Title, subtitle, cover-image, and cover-color can all be specified, and an HTML preview of the cover will be generated and shown on the book's page (an example of such a cover is found on the right). Ideally, all books in Category:Book-Class Astronomy articles should have covers.
This message was delivered by User:EarwigBot, at 01:37, 2 April 2010 (UTC), on behalf of Headbomb. Headbomb probably isn't watching this page, so if you want him to reply here, just leave him a message on his talk page. EarwigBot(owner • talk)01:37, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
Hello everybody, hello !
Here is a copy of a message I just left on White dwarf talk page.
"This is to inform you that this article, translated into french last summer, is presently underway being discussed for promotion up to the "Article de Qualité level.
So, thanks you to évérybody, and a special thank you to the contributors who wrote this article.
If you speak enough french, your advice (+ vote) would be most welcome.
Hop ! Kikuyu3 (talk) 08:19, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
PS : if you do not maintain a sufficient level in written french, please let me know on my personal page, I will translate and give suite accordingly."
Hop ! Kikuyu3 (talk) 08:32, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Sounds like a reasonable idea. Terms like that, which only have meaning in relation to each other, are best explained together. TimothyRias (talk) 08:25, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Some more articles that probably need not exist, all pulled from the astronomical terminology section after I went through and created redirects where appropriate.
There are currently five figures in the "Orbital characteristics" part of Earth's infobox that are uncited. This shouldn't be the case on a Featured Article. If anyone could provide citations, that would very helpful. --Cybercobra(talk)23:35, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
I just gave this book an overhaul (previously it was just a list of galaxies, now it's a book on galaxies in general). If someone could double-check that I didn't forget something, that would be nice. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books}04:48, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
Hi, I'm involved in disambiguating articles and came across Kiyosato and noticed most of the links have to due with asteroids discovered at a location designated as Kiyosato. After doing some research, it appears the the Kiyosato in question is the district in what used to be Takane, Yamanashi, but I thought I'd see if anyone here could confirm that fact for me before I started to do anything.
If you have info, just drop me a line on my talk page.
The white background image seems nice and crisp to me. Maybe you are using a different font size than I and that is causing the transparent background image to rescale to match? That can make it look ugly.—RJH (talk) 19:51, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm afraid that I'm the one responsible for all this, I didn't realize there was a single project handling these stubs. I believe that images with transparency should be used whenever possible for the reasons I gave at Template talk:Astronomy-stub#New image, transparency allows an image to blend seamlessly with a page regardless of background color. I don't see a problem with the transparent Mars image, it looks crisp for me. Also see Template talk:Observatory-stub#New thumbnail for my recommendation of a monochromatic image for {{Observatory-stub}} --Gyrobo (talk) 23:36, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
I didn't know that that image was being used by WP:SPACE.
You didn't link to this discussion or mention that the projects were separate and that the image was already in use in your edit summaries or on the talk page for that template -- all you said was that the change hadn't been discussed.
You're posting anonymously, and most of the vandalism that I've seen has been done by anonymous IPs. It's kind of an easy mistake to make.
Not all observatories are refractors, and your image is much too large at 40px; It just doesn't play nice with other stub templates. See all the whitespace it creates:
I reduced the pixel count, as I hadn't noticed it wasn't playing nice with other stub templates, when it was first implemented, by using alot of whitespace. It should be more reasonably sized now. 70.29.210.155 (talk) 23:37, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Recently I saw the Rings of Neptune on the front page, so I though I'd make a book about Neptune (see Book:Neptune, download the PDF). It seems to me that each planet deserves its own books, and several other solar system bodies (individual moons, asteroid belt, etc...). I've built list of plausible books that we could make, but feel free to add topics or comment on them.
It's a minor nit, but it looks like the Progress table on this wikiproject article hasn't been updated in two years. Do we still need that table?—RJH (talk) 17:30, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Hi there. The above article (about an Australian astronomer) is at WP:FAC for review if members would consider perusing it (I am the nominating editor). Any time editors can give is appreciated. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:39, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
We have a stub polar bulge linked to several scalene moons such as Mimas. Do we have refs that any of them rotate on their longest axis, or is this confusion with the word prolate, which defines the geometric pole as being the long axis? (These moons aren't exactly prolate or oblate, of course.) I doubt that a moon with a "polar bulge" would be stable in that orientation over geological timescales, and expect that all of these moons have their long axis orientated toward the planet, with their shortest axis at the pole. Photos of Mimas are suggestive of that. Anyone know for sure? Should polar bulge be deleted? — kwami (talk) 23:24, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
I can't believe it is right, so I deleted pending any confirmation here. I merged the table to the natural satellite article. I expect Luna is also scalene, but am waiting for discussion at Talk:Moon. — kwami (talk) 07:06, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
I do seem to remember adding to this article quite a while back. However, I believe all I did was add links directing from other articles to this one.
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I doubt that a moon with a "polar bulge" would be stable in that orientation over geological timescales, and expect that all of these moons have their long axis orientated toward the planet, with their shortest axis at the pole.
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This does make sense since a "polar bulge" would be less stable than an equatorial bulge due to axial precession. Also, I've looked up "polar bulge" and only managed to find website with copies of this Wikipedia page, no external sources, so I will agree with its deletion. Hope this helps. Set SailFor TheSeven Seas199° 37' 30" NET13:18, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes, thanks. I think it must be confusion with the geometric convention of defining the long axis as the "pole" for a merely geometric object that has no inherent orientation. — kwami (talk) 19:13, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't have much of an opinion on that, since portals have never struck me as particularly useful/interesting, but I thought I should say here that I removed the star portal link from the galaxy template. It does not belong there, and it is not as though templates need a portal to link to. James McBride (talk) 05:58, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I more or less agree. The portals just seem like one more non-article page that needs to be regularly maintained and updated. But the people who put them together seem to enjoy it, so why not?—RJH (talk) 18:31, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
There's an edit war going on at Universe over the inclusion of a theory that the universe is shaped like a dodecahedron. I know, small stuff, but Universe is a kind of important article; if someone could stop by and express an opinion, maybe it could be resolved. --ChetvornoTALK04:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Can anyone tell me how to retrieve the anomalistic period for the planets from the HORIZONS Web Interface? The "Object Data Page" table lists the sidereal period, but I can't find the others. Thanks. SharkD Talk 03:34, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
I've nominated Black hole for GA. All citation needing statements have been referenced now. The article is not perfect, but feedback from a GA review might reveal some specific aspects to work on for FA. TimothyRias (talk) 09:34, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
Unassessed astronomy articles
Well I just went through a process of assessing 1,600 unassessed astronomy articles, which took many weeks to finish. Now it looks like another 1,300+ minor planet articles have just been tagged as unassessed virtually overnight by User:Ser Amantio di Nicolao. I can almost guarantee that these will be low priority stubs of no particular significance. Can they be auto-tagged that way?—RJH (talk) 20:45, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
The editor isn't a member of WPAstronomy, but he has kindly agree to update the templates so they won't show up as unassessed.—RJH (talk) 21:36, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm trying to determine the direction that a planet's rotational axis points toward WRT the J2000 reference plane. What values do I need to look up when accessing the JPL HORIZONS ephemeris database? I'm trying to create either a POV-Ray script or an SVG animation that is capable of showing planets in their proper orientations, but am missing the necessary data. Thanks! SharkD Talk 17:53, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
The Dark matter (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article has been substantially revised by Bbbl67 (talk·contribs), who as near as I can tell (from this editing pass) is trying to emphasize non-mainstream views of dark matter (or at least paint the nature of dark matter as a controversial issue; actual emphasis is a somewhat subjective call on my part). For context, this is the same guy who's been adding links to the Dark fluid (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article (which as far as I can tell is one group's pet project, based on that article's references).
A couple of other editors have stepped in, and there's a bit of talk page activity. Would other people from WT:AST and WT:PHYS be willing to take a look at the current state of the dark matter article? More eyes would probably help at this point. --Christopher Thomas (talk)
I'm not sure how the topic can't be considered at least somewhat controversial at this time. My preference would be for the Problems & Criticisms section to be moved ahead of the Alternative explanations section and then be given a better introduction. I think that would give the article a better flow and balance.—RJH (talk) 16:53, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
My understanding is that while the composition of dark matter is widely debated, its existence isn't very controversial. The recent edits seem to be attempting to give a different impression. Regarding changes to the article, by all means suggest them on the article's talk page. I'm steering clear, so as to avoid being sucked into what would likely be a time-consuming and frustrating dispute (I'm mostly on sabbatical for the time being). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 20:08, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I think you need to be a little careful about saying what "exists" here. The galaxy rotation problem is not controversial, nor the gravitational lensing effect. However, there are MOND hypotheses that do not require additional matter to explain the effect. This contradicts the first sentence in the article.—RJH (talk) 18:40, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
There's a reason I said "isn't very controversial", vs. "isn't controversial". I agree that MOND and similar modifications of gravity or of mechanics are possible explanations, but my understanding is that none of these are widely accepted as being more likely than non-interacting matter. They're still discussed in the article; my objection was to statements that I'd interpreted (at the time) as saying that the "non-interacting particle" hypothesis was no longer widely accepted as the most likely (it's not just galaxy rotation curves providing evidence for it; structure formation in the early universe is sensitive to the amount and "temperature" of dark matter, and the element distribution produced by the big bang nucleosynthesis is quite sensitive to the amount of dark matter while being relatively insensitive to most other variables, and these all point to roughly the same amount of non-interacting matter existing).
That said, User:ScienceApologist seems to be keeping track of changes and collaborating with User:Bbbl67 in a civil manner to produce an article that addresses such concerns, so my fears about the article might have been unwarranted. By all means take a look at it and comment at Talk:Dark matter if you want to doublecheck; I'm not in a position to do so at this time (or I'd have made more specific comments in my original posts). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 01:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Okay, well then we're probably just mincing words. I say "somewhat controversial" and you say "isn't very controversial". No matter. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 16:28, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Informed editors requested
This is related somewhat to Global Warming, so I present you the "wikipolitics" disclaimer.
Recently on the biography of Robert Watson (scientist), a minor edit war broke out over Watson's use of Mars to illustrate what the lack of global warming might look like. He said "We only need to look at 3 planets: Mars, Venus and Earth and you can explain why there is such a difference, a frigid Mars planet, no greenhouse gases, Venus is absolutely boiling lots of greenhouse gases and earth is by luck somewhere in the middle." The editors seeking to include this quote also noted that Mars' atmoshpere is 95% CO2, and that Watson's statement is "in conflict with our basic understanding of Mars."
Other editors responded that Mars' CO2 might be high in %age, but the relevence to global warming was not in %, but in Mars' near vaccum atmosphere, and that Watson's statement is not in conflict with our basic understanding of mars. It appears that there is a dispute over this.
The article Galactic quadrant is up for deletion. While it is currently a trekky article, it is evident, according to this Google book search that it is use professionally as well in Astronomy. Since I believe this to be a useful way to categorize astronomical data, the article could use some experts who can give insight into the technical usage of the term. For more details of what I found, see my comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Galactic quadrant. —CodeHydro21:17, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Personally I don't think the use of astronomical galactic quadrants in the GCS should pertain as to whether to retain the Trekkie information, which is the large majority of the article. If necessary, the astronomy information should be split off into "Galactic quadrant (astronomy)", which could be a wikilink to the GCS article.—RJH (talk) 18:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
We have two images of the galaxy, and it seems that the smaller one has been chosen as the lead image in the article- I was wondering if there was any reason for this. Opinions of more knowledgable editors appreciated. J Milburn (talk) 20:22, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I have nominated Fermi paradox for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. GamerPro64 (talk) 20:26, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
