Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

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[edit] Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

The collision of SL9 with Jupiter in 1994 was one of the most significant events ever seen in the solar system. I've spent the last couple of days expanding the article a lot and hopefully making it worthy of consideration for featured status.

As an aside, I will be proud if this nomination succeeds because it will be the 10th article I've worked up to feature-worthy (10 could be expressed as 0.2M here, because an M's worth is 50). Worldtraveller 10:27, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Object - threatens my comfortable lead of FAs. :) Just kidding - Support, great work. --mav 13:13, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the support! What does your lead currently stand at? Need to know what target I'm aiming for :) Worldtraveller 14:56, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • There are 13 FAs that I am the primary author of and two others that I greatly helped toward FA status. --mav 15:23, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • Nice, I have only 8 myself :> --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:05, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
          • So the three of us put together still have less than Emsworth. I'd like to know what he's sprinkling on his cornflakes in the morning. Worldtraveller 22:21, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Great stuff. Just one sentence that needs some restructuring: "Brian Marsden of the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams noted that the comet lay only about 4 arcminutes from Jupiter, and that its apparent motion indicated that it could be close to the giant planet". Unless that is just entirely redundant, is that trying to say something else? And one more, the inner solar system is not clear of debris, Jupiter just clears a lot of it out. I tried to edit that but Aloan's edit put it back. - Taxman 14:20, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
    • Worldtraveller will correct me if am wrong, but two objects being close together on the plane of the sky (i.e. a few arcseconds apart) does not necessarily mean that they are close together in three dimensions: the apparent closeness could be a projection effect. To tell whether objects actually are physically close together, you have to look for clues that they are interacting (generally their gravitational influence on each other, which produces kinematic effects, noticeable as proper motion and red shift or blue shift). The problem is that you have to try to create a three dimensional picture from measurements of only two dimensions, right ascension and declination, plus two velocities, proper motion and red/blue shift.
Indeed, apparent closeness doesn't necessarily imply physical closeness - I've reworded that section to try and make the point clearer.Worldtraveller 14:56, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
On the "debris" point, Jupiter keeps the inner solar system largely clear of debris, not totally clear. I'll amend it again. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:36, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I didn't know that bit about apparent closeness (makes sense now though), but now both bits are quite clear, thanks. - Taxman 16:46, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, of course - Worldtraveller and I have been discussing it on our talk pages, and I have done some light copyediting. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:36, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. I was going to whole-heartedly support this until I read the Jupiter's "role as a vaccum cleaner". With formulations like "Studies have shown..." and "Some astronomers have speculated [...]", and the fact that, unlike other parts of the article, this section is not directly backed by one of the references via a footnote, this section is a somewhat disappointing end for an otherwise article. Reading any average article, I probably wouldn't even have noticed this, but this one is so excellent that even this small detail bothered me :D. Support. Good work. Phils 15:14, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Very true, that section was a bit vague. I had written it from what I recalled of the situation because I was having difficulty tracking down the relevant sources, but I've found them and cited them now. Worldtraveller 22:21, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: it would be really nice if some more images could be added, either directly to the article (though there's not really room for that) or on a Commons page. Fredrik | talk 21:00, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Looks good. Reads good. What's more to ask? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:05, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
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