Talk:Sun

Unsafe conclusion in Motion and location

Under the subtitle "Motion in the Solar System"

There is an unsupported conclusion with an orphan reference. To wit: "[…] The orbits of the inner planets, including of the Earth, are similarly displaced by the same gravitational forces, so the movement of the Sun has little effect on the relative positions of the Earth and the Sun or on solar irradiance on the Earth as a function of time.[140] […]"

Checking footnote 140 reveals:

Retraction of: Scientific Reports 10.1038/s41598-019-45584-3, published online 24 June 2019 The Editors have retracted this Article. After publication, concerns were raised regarding the interpretation of how the Earth-Sun distance changes over time and that some of the assumptions on which analyses presented in the Article are based are incorrect.The analyses presented in the section entitled “Effects of SIM on a temperature in the terrestrial hemispheres” are based on the assumption that the orbits of the Earth and the Sun about the Solar System barycenter are uncorrelated, so that the Earth-Sun distance changes by an amount comparable to the Sun-barycenter distance. Post-publication peer review has shown that this assumption is inaccurate because the motions of the Earth and the Sun are primarily due to Jupiter and the other giant planets, which accelerate the Earth and the Sun in nearly the same direction, and thereby generate highly-correlated motions in the Earth and Sun. Current ephemeris calculations [1,2] show that the Earth-Sun distance varies over a timescale of a few centuries by substantially less than the amount reported in this article. As a result the Editors no longer have confidence in the conclusions presented. S. I. Zharkov agrees with the retraction. V. V. Zharkova, E. Popova, and S. J. Shepherd disagree with the retraction.

[1] Folkner, W. M., Williams, J. G., Boggs, D. H., Park, R.S. & Kuchynka, P. The Planetary and Lunar Ephemerides DE430 and DE431. "The Interplanetary Network Progress Report", Volume 42–196, February 15, 2014.

[2] JPL Horizons on-line solar system data. https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?horizons

Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7055216/

History of spectroscopy of stars

I miss info about history how these things were discovered and/or developed. I tried to find more, and found info about close to current affairs, but most articles about EM spectrum, spectroscopy etc. lack a section about history, and where I saw it, it was more superficial than not.

Some might say that that is not notable, but if we need, and want, next generations of passionate researchers, they need, preferably as children, to be able to see how we got to the current level of knowledge, not only how to find useful data in WP. Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 15:03, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Marjan Tomki SI, then let's ignore all rules and make it happen! CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:13, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

The problem is sources...

Several (at least 4) decades ago I encountered several books, in my native Slovenian language that influenced me massively on areas of chemistry and biology (and with some others to science in general).

A generation later a niece of mine read the same 4 books from my bookshelf, and it went on through teachers training for biology and chemistry, and university study and graduation in biology, through masters and PhD in moleculary genetics, to what she is working on now. And she was through her studies, and is now an excellent source for current state of science in that area for mne (but not published and peer reviewed I can cite, so not valid as WP verifiable).

I can still recall (and retell) most of the contents of most of those books (and from time to time do that in suitable chunks to interested audience of junior generations, in which case I check the up-to-date validity of the facts the story is about if I can, or we do that check together).

As far as I recall we found those facts still valid, even if in some cases a bit incomplete. But that checking and taking conclusions would be probably taken as original research by WP (unless we would search, and took notes about that, for literal citations for them - which children and also most adults would find boring, and that would kill their interest instead of enticing it. (Being rigorous about sources is a pretty much later step - usually when they ask where I know something from I can introduce both checking and looking for sources, and requiring them being as rigorous with it as they require it from me, and same rules for everybody usually get easily accepted by most).

On biology those books were a series of Paul de Cruifs that can still be found, and cited; on chemistry it was a book (supposedly translated in Slovenian from Russian) Stories about Elements (Povesti o Elementih, in Slovenian) of Nechayew (Nečajev in Slovenian, probably Нечаев in Russian). Problem is that I couldn't find any mention of the author or his book in any language but that edition in Slovenian. My copy from those years back was read by a lot of people and didn't return (yet). I found another copy for my niece (the one mentioned above) for her son in Germany (to have something to read to both keep him used to her native language and get interested in chemistry), so currently don't have a Slovenian copy at hand.

So at the moment I can't add citations to the source for the stories I needed when young, if I retell them. Do we dare to ignore that WP rule? Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 09:16, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Correction request for equatorial rotation

1. There are inconsistent values for the sidereal equatorial rotation, in the text and the table at top right, and they also differ from those listed in Solar rotation page.
   1. [General characteristics] section says the sidereal equatorial rotation is "aprox 25.6 days"
   2. the overview table says 25.05 days
   3. the Solar rotation page says 24.47 days --- I believe this is the correct value.
2. The rotation should also be given in degrees/hour -- which i calculated as ≈0.613 °/h (0.6129955) or 0.613 arc sec/sec

(Azknn) 70.52.211.122 (talk) 17:45, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

There are multiple typos on this page.

There are multiple typos within this page, even if it is a featured page. I will list all of them.

- Under heading 'Composition' there is text on the 3rd - 4th line of the 4th paragraph that reads as follows: 'The proportions of heavier elements is unchanged.' This is incorrect, it should be: 'The proportions of heavier elements ARE unchanged.'

- Under heading 'Solar activity', which is, in turn, under 'Magnetic activity', the 3rd - 4th line of the 1st paragraph states: 'Both coronal-mass ejections and high-speed streams of solar wind carry plasma and interplanetary magnetic field outward into the Solar System.' It should be 'Both coronal-mass ejections and high-speed streams of solar wind carry plasma and THE interplanetary magnetic field outward into the Solar System.'

- Under heading 'Celestial neighbourhood', which, in turn, is under 'Motion and location', there are examples of which both British English and American English are used in the same context. These are:

• The title: 'Celestial NEIGHBOURHOOD' as an example of British English
• On the 1st - 2nd line of the 2nd paragraph, the sentence ' The Local Bubble is a small superbubble compared to the NEIGHBOURING wider Radcliffe Wave and Split linear structures (formerly Gould Belt), each of which are some thousands of light-years in length.' is an example of British English
• In the same paragraph, in lines 4 - 5, we get 'The density of all matter in the local NEIGHBORHOOD is 0.097±0.013 M☉·pc−3.' This is an example of American English.

- Under heading 'Solar space missions', which is, in turn, under 'Observational history' states, in the 1st line of the 4th paragraph: 'In 1980, the Solar Maximum Mission probes WAS launched by NASA.' This should be changed to 'In 1980, the Solar Maximum Mission probes WERE launched by NASA.', as probes is a plural, and requires a plural verb (in this case, 'were') for the sentence to make sense grammatically.

- Under the same heading, 'Solar space missions', when talking about the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission in paragraph 9, in lines 1 - 3, the following sentence is stated: 'Two identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that CAUSE them to (respectively) pull further ahead of and fall gradually behind Earth.' This should be 'Two identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that CAUSED them to (respectively) pull further ahead of and fall gradually behind Earth.', as the beginning of the sentence clearly stated that this had already happened with the use of the word 'launched' in past tense, all verbs in the sentence should also be in past tense, therefore, 'CAUSE' should become 'CAUSED'.

- Under heading 'Religious aspects', in the last line of the 3rd paragraph, the text reads: 'In the form of the sun disc Aten, the Sun had a brief resurgence during the Amarna Period when it again became the preeminent, if not only, divinity for the Pharaoh Akhenaton.' 'Akhenaton' is a straight up typo, and should be replaced with 'Akhenaten' as even it's Wikipedia page spells it like this.

I hope you understand this request. Apples13241 (talk) 06:56, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

In progress: An editor is implementing the requested edit. Tollens (talk) 07:37, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

 Done! The only change I didn't make is the last suggested - Akhenaten lists 'Akhenaton' as an acceptable alternative spelling so I've left it the way it is. Some of the changes had to be made over at Solar System (since some of the issues you referenced were transcluded from that page), which was not unified in its English variation and hadn't been at any point since its creation back in 2001 - there was a fair amount of work figuring out the correct variation for that article and unifying it appropriately. (Luckily for this article, that turned out to be American English, so it all matches nicely!) Tollens (talk) 08:14, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi. I understand about the Akhenaten/Akhenaton thing, it makes sense. But I'm glad everything's fixed now. Thanks! Apples13241 (talk) 09:29, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Dwarf Star

The article suggests that the Sun is incorrectly called a dwarf star. This is not the case, the Sun IS a dwarf star. NASA refers to it as a "yellow dwarf star" (https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/sun/in-depth/) , Space.com calls it a "G dwarf star" (https://www.space.com/17001-how-big-is-the-sun-size-of-the-sun.html) . You're not going to find more authoratative sources, so the article is incorrect to suggest that the Sun is not a dwarf star.94.175.102.211 (talk) 12:53, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on this, but please see the article G-type main-sequence star which covers yellow dwarf stars as often inadequate terminology. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:49, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the Sun is a dwarf star. I think the uncertainty implied in the article with "As such, it is informally, and not completely accurately, referred to as a yellow dwarf (its light is actually white)" is about its colour, not about whether it is a dwarf. The article is trying to say that the Sun is often called a yellow star, even though it is white. That you misread this as meaning the Sun may not be a dwarf star shows an ambiguity in the text. TowardsTheLight (talk) 15:10, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I tried to simplify and remove ambiguity, feel free to revert if it's not better than before. Artem.G (talk) 16:54, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. That's much better. TowardsTheLight (talk) 18:16, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 May 2023

In the first paragraph, the phrase "The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radiation" should be changed to "The Sun radiates this energy mainly as visible light, ultraviolet, and infrared radiation". Notably,the change being changing the word "light" to "visible light".

This is because visible light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, not just "light". Please see here for further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum

Thank you TrappistMonkWasTaken (talk) 11:08, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

 Not done, the definition of light is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that humans can see. You cannot provide Wikipedia as a source per WP:NOTSOURCE. Please make sure to use reliable sources, like https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/en/energy-saving-lamps/l-3/1-light-electromagnetic-spectrum.htm. This source (and many others) do define light as being visible to the human eye. Cocobb8 (talk) 14:35, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Longitude on the Sun

Is the Sun a featureless sphere, that is, without any mountains or valleys that persist as long as mountains and valleys on Earth persist? Are there sunspots that regularly recur at a given location, analogous to a Yellowstone or a Hawaiʻi? If there are no features on the surface of the sun, what does that mean for calculation longitude, since there is no stable reference point? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 11:13, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Where do you see longitude mentioned?? Evgeny (talk) 15:55, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Sun a form of life?

NASA apparently has already acknowledged the fact: https://twitter.com/NASASun This is not a joke. You might find other information here (sun pictures): https://twitter.com/StefanKalis Polymorphismus (talk) 09:29, 6 June 2023 (UTC)