Talk:Wolf 359

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[edit] SF

Is also home to an inhabited planetary system in an SF story I have read about, but never come across... -- K D F

That's always helpful. -- user:zanimum
If Wolf 359 actually had habitable planets, they's have to be so close to the star that it would fill half the sky. It would be hard to come up with a star much weaker than this one.
Life as we know it simply couldn't exist there. To have the same temperatures as Earth, a planet around Wolf 359 would have to orbit no more than about 400,000 miles away from the star. It would be tidally locked and battered by the star's flares and the radiation from them. The planet's "year" would be about eight hours long. If you stuck Wolf 359 where Jupiter is, it's so weak that it wouldn't affect us any more than Jupiter does. user:Jsc1973
Simulations suggest that a tidally locked planet might be hospitable if it has large oceans. Flares are much more serious problem. Photosynthesis would be also problematic, since the light is much redder than sunlight.--JyriL talk 12:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I know nothing about that, but I do know that it's the site of a major space battle in Star Trek. 71.203.209.0 (talk) 05:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
This is probably best covered at Stars_and_planetary_systems_in_fiction#Wolf_359.—RJH (talk) 18:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Celestia renderings

A Celestia rendering, no matter how pretty a picture it makes, is scientifically unacceptable: we have no data to indicate what the star looks like that close up. The star chart is less pretty, but is valid. This problem has appeared on a number of articles: Ceres (dwarf planet), 2003 UB313, and others. Pretty pictures aren't acceptable when they go beyond reasonable conclusions from existing data. Michaelbusch 21:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Agree. A celestia rendering provides no educational or encyclopedic value; it's just a big generic star. A star chart actually provides information though (namely: the star's position in the sky). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Disagree strongly. This program is very accurate. - PatricknoddyTALK (reply here)|HISTORY 21:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
As an outsider, I would just like to say that, whichever is better, don't edit war over it as you are both on three reverts at the moment and it certainly isn't something to get blocked over. Will (aka Wimt) 21:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
At what? The star texture is a generic texture applied to all stars, the star is so large on the picture that is obscures the background stars, and there is nothing indicating that those background stars are accurate (the 3D spacial position of the stars may be off). Your word isn't enough. It doesn't even indicate which direction it's pointing at, or what those background stars may be. It provides no encyclopedic, educational, or scientific value. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:48, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I am at 3 edits and will stay there. That said, I find Patrick's statements nonsensical: Celestia is not accurate when providing data that doesn't exist. We don't have an image of Wolf 359, therefore Celestia's rendering of it is unacceptable. If we had an image of Wolf 359, then Celestia's rendering would be unnecessary. It gets the star-map approximately right, but that is simply because we know where the stars are. Michaelbusch 21:50, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Agree. A Celestia picture of Wolf 359 is (except for background stars) indistinguishable from a Celestia picture of Gliese 581, Luyten's Star, or any other red dwarf; it's a synthetic image based on the program's texture maps which are entirely hypothetical for such objects. Now, sometimes artist's impressions (even via a program) are okay if they illustrate some notable detail (E.g. the artist's impression on the Gliese 581 page is a terrible rendition of a red dwarf (that red is maybe 1000 K, the 3500 K of a "red" dwarf is on the high end of the temperature range for incandescent light bulbs), but shows its three known planets.) AJWM 05:23, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Proxima Leonis"

I removed the name "Proxima Leonis" as it appears to have no historical basis or usage among astronomers. It looks like something a lay person made up one day. If anybody can demonstrate a valid citation to demonstrate otherwise, please say so. — RJH (talk) 15:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Once again I removed "Proxima Leonis". I can find no reliable source that will validate this name, so it is best to avoid neologisms—RJH (talk) 18:33, 1 January 2008 (UTC)