Talk:Sun

Template:WP1.0

rename article to Sol

Please move this article to Sol, the sun's official name. Sun can also refer to a different sun or the philosophically scientific explanation of suns.--24.171.1.195 (talk) 01:22, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The Sun is the Sun's official name. It's only called Sol in science fiction novels. Serendi^podous 01:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

while the article should be called the sun, it is simply not true that its only called sol in sceince fiction novels. Outerstyx (talk) 15:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Please stop making false -- and even ridiculous -- claims. There is no office responsible for the name of our star, so there cannot be an official name, but if you check an English dictionary you will find that it goes by "the sun" or "the Sun". -- 98.108.219.226 (talk) 00:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the IAU is responsible for such matters; they are the ones who have clearly stated that the formal (i.e. official) name for the Sun in English is, well, the Sun. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It should still be referenced somewhere on the page that it's also commonly known as "Sol" whether its' informal or not. just pretending the alternate name doesn't exist is contrary to wikipedia's policy of being an encyclopedia. Not to mention it will confuse a lot of people who come to wikipedia and cant find the article. - 15.195.201.88 (talk) 23:54, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Not commonly known as "Sol" in the U.S. While I have seen the phrase "Old Sol" two or three times in my life, I have never heard it spoken and I don’t know how "Sol" is pronounced (Saul or Soul). I don’t know anybody who would understand a sentence such as, "isn’t Sol bright today" or "we’ll eat when Sol sets." (Or is it "the Sol"?) —Stephen (talk) 14:22, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I dont think the article should be moved to Sol, I think the current redirect of Sol to this page is most parsimonious. However, I do agree that there should be mention somewhere of the name of the star being Sol, as "the Sun" is its title. Every other star with a name is "officially" called by its classical name (be it Greek, Roman, or Arabic), which for the Sun is "Sol"; we don't officially call Sirius "Dog Star", nor Polaris "North Star", though we refer to them as such colloquially. We use Sol when referring to the Sun in adjective form, such as the Solar System - not the Sun system. And, correspondingly, we also refer to any large body orbiting a planet as a "moon" of that planet, making the word "Moon" titular and not nominal, since its name is Luna, just as "Sun" is for Sol.Westerncenter (talk) 00:37, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

"Sun" and "Moon" are the proper names in English, per the IAU (not "Sol" and "Luna"). --Ckatz^chat_spy 07:35, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

You've claimed that twice now, though I can find nothing from the IAU or the Internet at large to support that claim, which you havent cited your source for. Rather, Cornell University (http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=155) asserts that there is no official scientific name for the Sun as a star, at least as of 2001, and NASA (http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/faq/index.cfm?Category=Sun#q5) specifically claims that the IAU has never officially sanctioned a name for our primary star. While "the Sun" and "the Moon" are the encouraged names when discussing the object in English, in other languages the name for the star is etymologically unrelated. And "official" names are generally non-Anglocentric, which usually means Latin names are used, e.g. as with the international symbols for elements.Westerncenter (talk) 21:35, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Historically, as English speakers, "Sun" (in fact, once personified as a pan-Germanic goddess) is indeed the name of our star, and "Moon" (personified as a god in Norse paganism, likely the same among the pagan English) is the name of our natural satellite. These names are about as traditional as names get. Replacing our English names for the objects with Romance names is completely pointless. Might I remind you that this is English Wikipedia. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Sol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B3l_(sun) is also the Norse name for the SunWesterncenter (talk) 21:05, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, which has zero bearing on my comments. If this were Old Norse Wikipedia, then we'd be talking. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:30, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

It should be referenced somewhere on the page. NASAs JPL uses the name Sol. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00022 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.214.20.58 (talk) 14:02, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

As per Wikipedia:Common name it should be the sun and nothing else. That said we should mentioned that Sol is used in rare occasions. Moxy (talk) 14:07, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Magnetic field strength

There is no direct mention of the size and strength of the Sun's magnetic field; it should be listed in amps and teslas, as well as compared to that of Earth and Jupiter. Plus, the statement that the interplanetary magnetic field is stronger than the Sun's magnetic field needs to be explained. Serendi^podous 16:26, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Chemical composition

The article shows it for: 1H (74.9%), 2He (23.8%), 6C (0.3%0, 10Ne (0.2%), and 26Fe (0.2%), and goes on to say that internally, the 2He constituency rises to 60%. Does that mean that there can't be any significant amount of Deuterium (1H2 or 1D2) within the sun?WFPM (talk) 20:51, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Primordial levels of deuterium are low, and deuterium is destroyed quickly in the core of the Sun by being fused into helium, so there is very little deuterium in the Sun. This is not mentioned in the article, which doesn't discuss the isotopic composition of the Sun. Spacepotato (talk) 20:57, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Besides the 6C12, is the Sun supposed to have (fusion) created the 10Ne and 26Fe? Or merely accumulated it? And the Nucleosynthesis article shows the existence of 3Li and 5B as fusion created by Nucleosynthesis.WFPM (talk) 05:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC) Also see Solar surface fusion re surface 1D2 production in the Sun.WFPM (talk) 05:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

New Category idea: Yellow Stars

Shouldn't the Sun be categorized with other similar yellow stars in a category with that name? --Zaurus (talk) 10:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Units (again)

I've undone Ckatz' recent change to remove non-metric units from the article. This is similar to the reverts back in January which resulted in this discussion. Changing units to match some arbitrary preference seems disruptive. Please discuss your reasoning first rather than just imposing that preference on the article. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 15:08, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Please avoid using the loaded term "disruptive" in a situation where it clearly does not apply. Such actions are counter-productive, especially since your example is entirely unrelated to this matter and presented out of context. (The spelling change discussed in January was settled on the basis of established practice, which is exactly what the minor changes made first by Saros and supported by me were intended to do - restore an established standard.) The use of SI units is certainly not an individual decision; there has been a convention for quite some time to do so in the core articles on the Sun and the planets. The initial discussion began on the talk page for Saturn, and has held up for a long time now. That is why the recent changes made by Saros and myself only required removing three conversions out of the many dozens of units presented in the article. I'm going to sift through the history of Sun to try and find when the non-SI units were added and will also try to get links to the various discussions that have supported this convention. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:06, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

• Discussion at Talk:Saturn
• Discussion at Talk:Sun
• More on the use of SI only
• Wikipedia:MOSNUM#Which units to use ("In scientific articles, use the units employed in the current scientific literature on that topic. This will usually be SI...")
• (continuing to look for others)

The addition of F occurred as a single edit in the spring, and had been only K and C for a long time before that. The use of miles for the diameter in the lead section did not arise from a desire to use a conversion, but instead because of a request to list the diameter in the lead. It was inadvertently listed in miles ("added sun's diameter, per talk page suggestion"), and then converted to the standardized kilometres; unfortunately, the miles were never removed. Again, the use of non-metric units was a case of isolated changes and errors that were never corrected, not a discussion to purposefully add said conversions. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

En:wikipedia is not only american. All over the world people reads (and writes) it. For me, and I think for most Wikipedia readers which are not anglo-american, the use of the converted units in science matters looks a bit strange, especially when one is speaking of quantities, like the diameter of Sun, which have no immediate comparison with every-day quantities (nobody is going to circumnavigate sun with his car). So, reading (especially in the leading section) how many miles a star is wide sounds a bit "vulgar", and adds no information to the numbers given by the correct SI unit.--GianniG46 (talk) 18:24, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

@ckatz: I am not aware of anything in the MOS which prohibits the use of non-SI units in our articles. I am aware that imposing a personal preference without a valid reason for changing an article is considered disruptive. Your edit summary, "Honestly, please do not revert without discussion; this has held up over several years and is accepted for the Sun and the planetary articles", misleadingly suggests you are correcting recent changes away from some broad consensus and that is not the case. Please undo your revert or I will have to report you for edit warring. If there is such a broad agreement, please let me know and I will be glad to restore your changes.

@GianniG46: That sort of sophomoric snobbery does not impress most people and is not a valid argument. The vast majority of readers here are more comfortable with miles than with kilometers as a large distance measurement. Including a conversion for those readers does no one any harm. Celestra (talk) 20:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

BTW: I read those two brief discussions. One doesn't reach a conclusion and the other is a hand full of like-minded editors agreeing to remove units they don't like. Surely this has been discussed by larger groups. I'll go see what I can find as well. Celestra (talk) 20:45, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry to see you haven't reverted yourself yet. I find that WP:MOSNUM still talks of the arbitration committee deciding it is inappropriate for an editor to change from one approved style to another without significant reason. I see that scientific article should give preference to metric units, but no prohibition of conversion. I see an example under conversion of "the Moon is 380,000 kilometres (240,000 mi) from Earth" which suggests that articles on astronomy are not an exception to conversion. I find a number of discussions at WP:Measurements debate which don't reach a single conclusion but seem to favor conversion over exclusion. Please undo your changes, they are "inappropriate". Celestra (talk) 21:41, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I would again ask that you avoid making unfair accusations. (I would also point out that it is an act of bad faith to make a statement such as your "I'm sorry to see you haven't reverted yourself yet" when I clearly had not been on-line in the interval between your two posts.) I have made an honest effort to demonstrate both the conventions in play with regard to astronomy articles (note the use of SI in the Sun and planet articles), and the evidence proving that the three (three of dozens or hundreds) conversion we are disputing were introduced not through a broad consensus for non-metric units, but instead through an accidental process common to Wikipedia's editing process. It is not merely my "personal preference", but instead a convention that was implemented quite some time ago - one that has been repeatedly defended and maintained by a long list of editors monitoring the astronomy articles. If need be, I'll even go through the edit histories for the articles in question to prove this reality. Furthermore, this is by no means a case of a "change from one approved style to another without significant reason". That applies to whole-sale conversion, not the process of bringing three non-conforming edits into line with the rest of the article. Again, the simple fact that there were only three conversion present - and not in any logical pattern for that matter - should be proof enough. --Ckatz^chat_spy 22:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any unfair accusations; I don't see any accusations at all, just observations and characterizations. (Your own words from one of the discussions you reference: "I'd support removing them... it's a personal bias, I'll admit, given that I use the metric system, but I also agree with the guideline and the idea of reducing the extra detail in the infobox.") I made a simple statement of fact ("I'm sorry to see you haven't reverted yourself yet") and you accuse me of bad faith on the assumption that I should somehow know you haven't been online? In your position, I would have simply stated the fact: "I haven't been online." Regardless, you are now, or have recently been, online and yet that situation continues. Please revert yourself while we discuss this reasonably.

I've already read the first two discussions and characterized them. Do you disagree with either characterization? The quote you selected from MOSNUM is part of what I already brought up to show that there is little in the way of support for your position there. Your fourth discussion is again those same like-minded editors agreeing with one another, this time about an infobox. Do you have examples of broad discussions between people who disagree about the subject?

The convert template in the lede is the one you put there yourself during the January unpleasantness over the spelling on kilometer(vs kilometre). Coming back after almost ten months and "correcting" that merits more discussion than your edit summary invites. Celestra (talk) 00:28, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Why would you make such a provocative statement - one that implies a definitive action (or lack thereof) - without first checking the other editor's contributions to see if they were actually around? Furthermore, why would you use such overly dramatic language to characterize a simple series of reverts in January? (I may be biased, but I would hardly characterize my two reverts - yes, only two, with the summaries "rv" and "repair" - as examples of "unpleasantness". It may be lacking in discussion, for which I'm apologetic, but given that the initial edits by a low-edit editor appeared to contradict the existing article, they are easily understandable. You'll note - and should include here - that after you drew attention to the WP:RETAIN discussion on the talk page, I immediately ceased reverting what had before appeared to be an error on the part of a new editor.)

However, you have completely ignored my assessments posted above, not the least being the detailed analysis of the manner in which the conversions came to be in the article, the lack of any consensus to use conversions here, and the fact that the article is devoid of said conversions with the exception of those three random placements. The article history clearly demonstrates a long-term acceptance of an SI-only presentation, and said standard has been maintained by many, many editors other than myself. --Ckatz^chat_spy 02:25, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Celestra, Ckatz is right. Many editors—some American like me—have been keeping the astronomy articles SI-only. The article does have the far more helpful comparison to the Earth's size. Saros136 (talk) 04:36, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Saros, but I didn't doubt that several editors removed conversions from these articles and have been keeping them out. What I'm looking for is the intelligent conversation between editors on both sides of the issue. If you read through the WP:Measurements debate, you'll see a multi-sided set of discussions which seem to conclude otherwise. I can see that this discussion is going nowhere, though, so I'll take it up over at MOSNUM.

Ckatz: I see nothing provocative in stating my disappointment that you hadn't reverted yourself. You have still not reverted yourself and I am still disappointed. Likewise, I think "unpleasantness" is a good description of a set of reverts over the spelling of a word. You did stop reverting after I researched the issue and pointed out that RETAIN supported the other editor. Thanks? I'm not sure what you mean by your assessments or why the number of changes seems important to you. You don't appear to have a broad consensus for having removed conversions. Rather than continue this conversation with you, I think it would be more useful to get that broad discussion started somewhere. Celestra (talk) 05:41, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Whether you'd continue this conversation here or not, it should be pointed out the Sun is already compared to the Earth, Solar System, and other stars. This is the meaningful standard. Most people do not have any 800,000 mi references in mind. Saros136 (talk) 08:00, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

With regards to star articles, I think that the temperatures should use Kelvin only, not Celsius or Farenheit. Distances to stars should be expressed in light-years and parsecs only, no metres or miles, those numbers just get uselessly large. As for galaxy articles, distances to far away galaxies should not get converted tohttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Sun&action=edit&section=7 megaparsecs or lightyears, from redshift, it should stay the dimensionless z quantity. Again, those numbers just get too large, and increasingly inaccurate in conversion; as for converting to miles or metres, they just end up useless. There is little advantage to adding how many quadrillions of miles something is from the Earth, and having that many digits in the article or infobox would get most readers lost in the digits. 76.66.196.13 (talk) 06:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you on the stars. But for far away galaxies, larger prefixes keep the numbers down. Saros136 (talk) 07:13, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

With the old cgs system, it was fairly simple. You just had to remember that a year was 10e7.5 sec and that c was 10e10.5 cm/sec so that a light year was 10e18 cm and a parsec was 10e18.5 cm and, of course a megaparsec was 10e24.5 cm et cetera. Also a fermi was 10e-15 cm et cetera. The IS system is what started to get it all fouled up by moving from the erg to the joule. But we'll have to deal with that, but if you can remember most of the conversions to the cgs units you can get by, except with the purists.WFPM (talk) 14:09, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

The base 10 is implicit in the e notation. So a year is 10^7.5 or 1E7.5 s. More important here is the point that in SI the numbers are just as easy to deal with. It's simply 10^7.5,10^8.5, 10¹⁶, and 10^16.5 for your numbers. Simple. Saros136 (talk) 16:26, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

And the cm exponential is simpler for area and volume computations because you only have to multiply the digital information and you can add the exponential info. And just for you, I'll try the 10^7.5 that I notice on my typewriter (for the first time) Okay!! But for atomic physics the cgs system is simpler. Like a fermi is 10^-13 cm, which is bad enough without it being increased to 10^-15 meters. And then we have the nonchalant use of the nanometer, which I have to think about seriously to get translated to the Angstrom (10e^-8 cm) So there!! I guess the French aren't interested much in small numbers.WFPM (talk) 19:37, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Pioneer 9 operated for a particularly long time, transmitting data until 1987.

The above statement is made in this article and has a citation. However, I can't immediately find in the cited page where it states that the probe was operational until 1987. This seems to contradict the Pioneer 6, 7, 8, and 9 article, which states that Pioneer 9 failed in 1983. Therefore the information appears to be wrong either on one article or the other (I don't yet know which one). Regards, Green Lane (talk) 13:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Further to this, I found this Nasa link: [1] which could explain the confusion. It appears that contact was maintained until May 1983 and then lost. Contact was again attempted in 1987, but failed and at that point, the mission was declared inactive. Green Lane (talk) 13:55, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I amended the article accordingly and added a supporting reference. Green Lane (talk) 18:08, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Surface temperature

In this spectral class label, G2 indicates its surface temperature of approximately 5778 K (5500 °C)

I can see how that figure came about but it looks silly. The parentheses imply a conversion to Celcius from the approximated figure in Kelvin, when the reverse is obviously true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.62.5.158 (talk) 12:13, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Why is it obvious the reverse is true? Saros136 (talk) 02:39, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, and the conversion is wrong also (should be 5773 K). I've fixed that and reversed the numbers. SBHarris 01:18, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The figure for the temperature was taken from the NASA fact sheet [2], which gives a value of 5778 K. The Celsius figure is a conversion of this. Spacepotato (talk) 03:02, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, groan! But we were fooled by the fact that the Celsius temp then must be 5505, not a rounded 5500. If you input 4 digit numbers then you need to return 4 digit numbers. SBHarris 03:38, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Do you think that the figure of 5505 is more accurate than 5500? I just finished reading Weinberg's "the first 3 minutes" and he boggled my mind with his temperatures, and all the time I'm thinking, "There's no such thing as a temperature, there's just a mix of velocities!!" And "the temperature is a function of the velocity squared, so why don't we talk about that?WFPM (talk) 03:53, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

If a figure is in a science publication is given to 4 significant digits, there's usually a reason. The Sun's temperature, like everything else far away, is given by fitting the curve of its black body radiation, which is of a very particular form, to a temperature equation. This can be done quite precisely. SBHarris 19:12, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

So thermodynamics is wrong? Sure there is a temperature. In the atmosphere for instance, the temperature is a the average kinetic energy of the particles. Here, though, we are using the effective temperature. Saros136 (talk) 06:31, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

But Temperature is just another name for velocity mix, and not nearly as well defined. And when somebody (Weinberg) starts talking about "a few thousand million degrees Kelvin" I think i"m being snowed, and when we're arguing about the difference between 5505 and 5500 degrees Kelvin I don't think there's any difference worth the discussion. That's where Maxwell got started by trying to sort it all out and rationalize it.WFPM (talk) 14:51, 11 November 2010 (UTC) And I'm in favor of Kelvin temperature notations due to its relationship to gas pressure values, and I just wish that someone would store a quantity of OO9F18 at 0 degrees Kelvin for a while to see if it would still spontaneously convert to EE8O18.WFPM (talk) 15:19, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I love The First Three Minutes. Weinberg makes extensive use of temperature, and as the others here point out, it is not a name for velocity mix (and I'm not sure what exactly that means.) In fact, the temperature used for surface temperature of stars or of the universe is not tied to the velocities of particles. I agree, though, that a difference of five degrees Celsius is worth worrying about. Although one argument in favor of using the 5505 instead of 5500 is that the latter might be thought to be rounded off to the nearest hundred degrees. Although even that would in fact be enough precision in this context. Saros136 (talk) 22:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I meant that the five degree difference is not worth worrying about. Saros136 (talk) 00:28, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Sure, but if you're going to print the 4 sig digit number from the NASA fact sheet, you're obligated to give the 4-digit conversion, which is just kelvin minus 273 degrees. If you want to round the Kelvin figure to 1 or 2 sig figures, then it's fair to round the conversion. But the same rule must apply to both. Otherwise we're headed to the same place we've just been above, where some new reader will think the Kelvin is the conversion OR the 5500 C figure has been rounded (which, in this case, it had been). 5505 C at least shows it hasn't been. SBHarris 00:22, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

You're right. Saros136 (talk) 01:05, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Temperature is not another name for velocity mix. It has to be a velocity mix of a particular statistical distribution. Look at the article on temperature. SBHarris 19:15, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The 5778 K figure is an effective temperature, which is the temperature of the black body which would emit the same amount of radiation, overall, as the Sun. You could say that it's not a temperature at all, but a measure of luminosity: T_eff=(L/4πσR²)^1/4. The actual temperature of the photosphere will decrease as you move outwards from the center of the Sun (from 6400 K to 4400 K, according to this reference.) Spacepotato (talk) 21:50, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

What I had heard was 6000 Kelvin, and I didn't have anything against that. Now you have 5778 Kelvin and an argument about a 5 degree celsius discrepancy. And I understand the need for a Hopefully Kelvin Temperature estimate With it eventually increasing as you move away from the sun. And it is related to the square of the involved velocity, and so the the difference in the involved velocity between 5500 and 5505 and is accordingly the difference between the square root of same or only a fraction of a tenth of a percent on my calculator. But maybe I just don't know enough details, as is usual.WFPM (talk) 00:30, 12 November 2010 (UTC) But I don't have a desire to learn every last detail about the sun. I'm just trying to find out if it isn't possible for some deuterons to be around at the improbable times when 2 alpha particles get together momentarily so that they could also fuse with them to form OO5B10. And then we would have a process of fusion accumulation of the elements in accordance with the periodic table sequence, and particularly with the indications of the Janet periodic table that the 3rd alpha particle should be created at the end of the series rather than in the middle.WFPM (talk) 13:45, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

The creation and existence of deuterons in the sun is discussed in the Proton-proton chain reaction, and in his book "A star called the sun" George Gamow credits Charles Critchfield as calculation that for the sun and less massive stars, the H-H fusion process is the dominating one in the interior of the sun. This would indicate the simultaneous occurrence of alpha particles and deuterons in the sun.WFPM (talk) 16:12, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Ownership claimed by woman in Spain

Go figure: http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Spanish-woman-claims-ownership-of-sun-20101126 Rauterkus (talk) 03:13, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

If this is serious then she is quite powerful and could in theory force humanity to pay for use of her property. Can't be good. """ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matthurricane (talk • contribs) 04:36, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

A friend wants to sue her for a recent sunburn. The liability for those with skin cancer is too great to hold onto the asset too. Rauterkus (talk) 22:31, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

So does this get mentioned in the article or not? 69.132.79.61 (talk) 22:09, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

snap out of it, folks

The Sun is YELLOW GREEN Naturally, this is only the majority of the color, and it all blends WHITE You can read all about it. Lawstubes (talk) 19:24, 29 November 2010 (UTC)