Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sun

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[edit] Sun

Our star's article contains a wealth of info, is well illustrated and structured, and is an interesting read. Not really much of a self-nomination, I've really only done a lot of minor edits to this article. Much of the content has come from solar physicist Zowie. Worldtraveller 12:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Some brilliant prose, well laid out, scientifically accurate (as far as I know), some nice pictures. Also nice to have an expert on board to ensure high technical standards. Batmanand | Talk 14:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Have you considered switching the references to the new meta:Cite.php format? Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support A brilliant article. -- Siva1979^{Talk to me} 14:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support - the community has really come together here to produce a comprehensive, well balanced and cited article. zowie 17:11, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... Just noticed something of a hole in the article that should be fixed before it goes to FA status -- there isn't really much mention of the sunspot cycle or its effects on space weather. That is a pretty large omission, I'm sorry I didn't notice it earlier. Worldtraveller, are you able to add something about this? If not I'll "eventually" get around to it, but I'm out of time for today. zowie 17:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Definitely agree we need that - I can add a paragraph or two, will do so shortly. Worldtraveller 01:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Have added a section on this. Worldtraveller 14:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

• Support Per nom, and per this articles articulate brilliance. Its nice to see an article that is so well put together, with so many people collaborating together on it, and with expert attention.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 18:11, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
• Conditional support. The Solar space missions section needs expanding by adding mainly Ulysses probe, Solar Maximum Mission, Helios 1 and Yohkoh. :) Brandmeister 18:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the suggestion, done that now. Worldtraveller 17:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Nice to see an article written and maintained by an expert in the field. Fieari 19:13, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
• Comments - it is very nice, as far as it goes, but should we have (or have links to) discussion of the heliocentric model of the solar system; the discovery of helium from solar spectra; the sun as a timepiece (e.g. sundial) and navigational instrument (e.g. sextant); the symbolism of the sun (mythology, seasons, etc)? -- ALoan (Talk) 22:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I added a mention of helium; I think sundials and sextants could be mentioned in the human understanding section, maybe, amd I'll see what I can add there. Worldtraveller 01:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Great. I think there is a ton more that could be said, although some of this may well be better in another article: the Sun contains over 99% of the mass of the Solar System; it is so large and optically thick that photons from the core take over 10,000 years to get out, what do we mean by an "average" star (it is in the top decile by mass, but only double the median stellar mass); the Moon just happens to be the same angular size at the moment from the surface of the Earth, otherwise we would see occultations or transits rather than eclipses; the distance to the heliopause; comets; prominences; atmospheric phemomena related to the Sun (rainbows, sun dogs, sun pillars, red sunrises and sunsets and blue sky in the daytime); things named after the Sun (e.g. sunfish, sunflower); changing distance to the Sun does not cause seasons, but the Earth's angular tilt (which changes the time the Sun spends in the sky) does[1]; equinoxes and solstices; ancient observations (e.g. Stonehenge); the Sun more generally outside western science and history. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Having said that, I probably out to add (again) that I think it is generally an excellent article. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
      • It does mention the energy transport time, but I will try and incorporate your other suggestions. Getting a bit worried about the size of the article though. Worldtraveller 17:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
        • Thanks - you are all doing a great job. We are aiming for "comprehensive", of course. If the article gets too long, we can always spin a section out into, say Structure of the Sun, or Human understanding of the Sun. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom. This is surely the happiest day of my life. !mAtt™ 23:07, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support, good article. --Terence Ong 09:05, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support, fine article. Agreed with Brandmeister, Solar space missions section should be expanded.--Jyril 09:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. The influence of the Sun's rotating magnetic field on the plasma in the interplanetary medium creates the largest structure in the Solar System, the heliospheric current sheet. By what standard is the HCS considered a "structure"? Andrew Levine 15:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't too happy with that sentence, so I've reworded it a bit. It was added by someone who's oddly obsessed with plasma and likes to inflate its importance in all sorts of astronomical articles. Worldtraveller 16:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

 :-) I'll add something about it in the talk pages too -- but it's NOT the largest structure in the solar system -- that would be the heliopause, the shock front that separates the solar wind from the interstellar medium. I took the liberty of removing the "largest" clause. zowie 22:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

• Support - Well done; maybe decrease the size of the references section to 90%? I always think that looks good. ^KILO-_LIMA 19:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Although I changed the lead a bit to improve its flow. Any additional improvements would benefit the article. Cedars 00:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose - A good article sure, but not yet FA, IMO. We have a goal of being Encyclopaedia Britannica quality or better, so we should look at their article on the subject: They have multiparagraph sections on internal structure, atmosphere, solar activity, and history of observation. The ==Structure== section in our version is great, but the ==Atmosphere== section is embarrassingly short on detail and there really isn't a section on solar activity. Also, there is no comprehensive section on the history of observation; such a section would start with what is in the ==Human understanding of the Sun== section and end with the text in the ==Solar space missions== section, but that leaves nothing in the middle. --mav 02:31, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the suggestions, I'll get to work on addressing them now. There's a section on solar activity but I can probably expand it a bit. Worldtraveller 17:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
    • OK, we now have expanded info on the atmosphere from Zowie and more about the history of observations that I've put together. I've tried to be as concise as possible with the history as the article is now 45K in length, so welcome thoughts on whether it's OK or if more info would be good. Worldtraveller 01:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
      • Great job! Now the lead is a bit short for an article this length, but I'll still add my full support. BTW, there is less than 38 KB of readable prose now (don't count list-like sections and formatting). --mav 15:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
        • I just fixed the lead. Now this article is better than EB. --mav
          • Great, that looks much better! Worldtraveller 18:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
• Object. A few details should IMO be changed: the "sun and eye damage" section is too long compared with the other sections which makes the article somewhat unbalanced, it might be better to mention the matter in two sentences and move the section to an article of its own; I think sungrazers should be mentioned somewhere; the "sunspots" section might perhaps better be titled "solar activity", and the effects of solar activity on and near earth (e.g. polar lights, Van Allen belts, geomagnetic storms) should be explained a little more (but not overly much, as we already have space weather and several related articles). It's a very fine article and otherwise of FA quality. Kosebamse 17:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • • I don't think that sungrazers should be mentioned here as they are not really a solar phenomenon -- they are comets and should be mentioned there. I have shrunk the sun and eye damage section, but I don' think it should be shrunk much more or broken out -- the three components are literally the three most common questions asked about looking at the Sun. (The section replaces a BIG RED BOX!!! that had been placed on the top of the page in the distant past.) zowie 23:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

• • Thanks - I'll get on to these ones as well! Just worked a mention of sungrazers into the space missions section. Worldtraveller 17:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

  Another point that should be clarified: the article says that although the Sun itself orbits the center of mass of the solar system, which is offset from the Sun's center mostly because of the large mass of Jupiter. The mass of the Sun is so much greater than that of the planets that the center of mass of the solar system is generally within the bounds of the Sun itself. This is unclear or even contradictory (what does "generally" mean here?), as it does not make clear whether the center of mass is within the Sun or not. It might even be inside or outside at different times depending on the relative positions of Jupiter vs. other bodies in the solar system. Kosebamse 16:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

  • I'll try and clarify the text but it does mean the centre of mass moves around, depending on the relative positions of the planets. If they were all on one side of the Sun, the barycentre would be outside the Sun's surface, but if Jupiter was on one side and the others were on the other side, it would be inside. Worldtraveller 17:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Clarified. zowie 17:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
• Reluctant support. It could do with a copy-edit in some places (especially towards the end), but otherwise, it is a fabulous article. By the way, external links should be placed at the bottom of the article as they do not deal with the information provided within the article. I won't change my vote if this is not addressed, but it would be useful to others. Anyway, good effort! —Eternal Equinox | talk 21:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't like reluctant supports! Will do what I can to make it enthusiastic. What copyediting needs doing? Worldtraveller 17:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support: Brilliant Giano | talk 08:34, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Having thunk it over, I believe that the article might benefit from having some more about astronomical observation of the sun. That's a highly specialised field, with specialised techniques (heliostats, coronographs, spectrography, etc.) and should be discussed in a section of its own. Observation by space missions is already well covered, and the somewhat lengthy "eye damge" section could be integrated into a subsection about visual observation. Kosebamse 06:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
• Object. External links in main body should be transformed into proper inline citations. A section on 'Sun in fiction' should be added (to mention for example novel Sundiver), and the 'Sun worship' should be expanded (currently it's not even a stub-section, but a see also in main body - not what MoS recommends).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 02:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Could you elaborate a bit? As far as I was aware the links are already acceptable inline citations. I will do some work on the historical understanding bit, but I'm not sure I agree there should be a sun in fiction section as I think it's rather tangential to a scientific article and what to include in such a section would also be an extremely subjective choice. Worldtraveller 18:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
    • While technically hyperlinks in mainbody are inline citations, this form of referencing is discouraged. External links used as references should be moved to references section, and linked with some form of footnote/citation tool from main body. As for cultural section, I'd gladly support the article if it was Sun in science, but as long as it is about sun, it should be comprehensive and include a cultural section. Compare Sun article to our FA of Venus#Venus_in_human_culture.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
      • Who's doing the discouraging? Can you point me to the relevant discussion or policy page? I don't want to be awkward but personally I much prefer the fewest clicks possible between seeing a citation and getting to the reference, so prefer not to introduce another click by moving all the external links to the bottom.
      • As for sun in fiction, I can't add anything about it because I don't know of any books that feature the Sun prominently enough to be worth mentioning. Personally I really don't like all the 'xx in fiction' sections in many science articles as they are always very arbitrary and don't add much value at all to the articles. I also think the Venus article is not up to current FA standards... In any case, though we don't have a section listing books and films in which the Sun has appeared, we do at least have a discussion of the Sun in human culture.
      • The article does appear to have been promoted now but I'm keen to ensure that all objections are addressed as far as possible so welcome more comments. Worldtraveller 00:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
        • There are several books involving the 3rd (I belive) Lagrange point of the sun and the earth, which is on the opposite side of the sun, and fictionalized often as holding a paralell world to the earth. But how related to the sun itself I dont know. The Only other fiction I can think of is Superman which I'm sure needs little explanation, and Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, in which they send their weapons into the sun in a failed effort towards peace.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 08:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
        • Besides the fact that I personally think that external links in text look 'primitive' - which by itself would be just my personal opinion and no ground for an objection - note the both Wikipedia:Inline Citation and Wikipedia:Citing_sources state that all external links used as reference should also be added to the reference section (the latter one also lists some other disadvantages of this particular inline citation style). Currently, in the Sun article, they disrupt the note numbers - thus note 27 (in text) links to note 18 (in References). This is confusing, and it's very hard to verify if all hyperlinks in text are mentioned in references (unless sb wants to waste time and check every single one). The very fact that this article uses two styles of referencing (hyperlinks in text and footnotes) is enough for me to ask that one system is chosen and used consistently. As for fiction, I don't see how the article can be comprehensive without paying attention to culture - unless, as I suggest it earlier, you rename it 'Sun in science' or sth similar.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:43, 26 February 2006 (UTC)