Talk:Earth

Frequently asked questions

Q.	Why doesn't this article give equal weight to young Earth creationism or similar cultural points of view?
A.	This article focuses on the scientific consensus about the Earth. Per our policy on fringe theories and pseudoscience, fringe theories about the Earth need not be given equal weight. Such views normally have their own well-developed articles where there is more weight given to presenting the specific philosophies.
Q.	Why is the Blue Marble image used in the infobox?
A.	There are multiple reasons. The image is iconic, famous and is one of the few true photographic images of Earth. It has also been a featured image since November 2004. Other images may present more detail of the land masses, but they are generally composite or processed images. For some previous discussions see (1 2 3 4 5 6 7).
Q.	Why does the article not have mostly harmless as its short description or otherwise summarize the article's content using it?
A.	This has been discussed several times including (1 2 3 4 5). The consensus is that it fails WP:42.

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Humorous references to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are inappropriate content for this article.

Complaints about the lack of young Earth creationism or similar points of view are inappropriate content for this talk page. For an overview of Wikipedia's position on creationism or young Earth-related topics, please see the FAQ at Talk:Evolution.

Earth is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

Earth is part of the Solar System series, a featured topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on April 22, 2010.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 19, 2004	Refreshing brilliant prose	Kept
January 26, 2004	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
July 15, 2005	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
December 20, 2005	Good article nominee	Listed
July 25, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
September 2, 2006	Articles for deletion	Speedily kept
November 8, 2006	Featured topic candidate	Promoted
March 9, 2007	Peer review	Reviewed
April 21, 2007	Featured article candidate	Promoted
August 27, 2008	Featured topic candidate	Not promoted
April 1, 2009	Articles for deletion	Kept
April 1, 2009	Articles for deletion	Speedily kept
March 31, 2010	Articles for deletion	Kept
April 1, 2011	Articles for deletion	Kept
April 1, 2012	Articles for deletion	Kept
Current status: Featured article

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Human

Corrected the term "humans" to "human beings." Human is an adjective, not a noun TheKurgan (talk) 01:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And I've undone that (you signed your change there also), please read Human. Vsmith (talk) 01:32, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TheKurgan (talk) 20:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)I did read Human. 450 years of being incorrect doesn't make it right, even if it is "acceptable...:)" I'll leave it, though, and pick my battles elsewhere.[reply]

Regarding the spoken version

The spoken version of this article is NOT computer generated. That is my voice. Marmenta (talk) 04:04, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, it was my mistake :( -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 10:18, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Circumnavigation

What's the record for the fastest circumnavigation of Earth by plane? And how long is such distance? MarcowyGnom (talk) 20:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a slight edit to List of circumnavigations. Serendi ^podous 21:06, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

reference plane?

What is the reference plane for Earth's orbital elements given in the article? --Jonah.ru (talk) 11:36, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The first section has a mistake.

"The Earth's axis of rotation is tilted 23.4°" This is incorrect. The actual tilt of Earth's axis of rotation is 23.5 degrees. http://science.jrank.org/pages/1304/Celestial-Sphere-Apparent-Motions-Sun-Moon-Planets-Stars.html -"Earth's axis is tilted approximately 23.5 degrees" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytime_(astronomy) -"Earth's...axis of rotation is inclined by about 23.5 degrees from the perpendicular (as compared to its orbital plane)" http://www.esse.ou.edu/fund_concepts/Fundamental_Concepts1/Solar_System/Earths_Rotation.htm -"Earth's rotation axis is currently tilted at ~23.5° with respect to the ecliptic axis," http://www.enotes.com/polar-axis-tilt-reference/polar-axis-tilt -"Earth's axis is tilted approximately 23.5 degrees to the plane of the ecliptic" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justin R. Lurie (talk • contribs) 01:47, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Internal Structure of the Earth

This section states as facts some very contested hypothesis. As recently as 2000, the very core of the earth was still "anybody's guess" according the group of geophysicists I had interviewed at that time. Since our primary method of looking at the earth's core is by measuring earthquakes, we really ought to tone down the definitive language of this section. Also, reference 74, linked from the words "inner core" has nothing to do with the inner core, but the crust thickness variations of the different continents.

Let's clean up! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.96.154 (talk) 13:44, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have sources for any of this? You should, if you interviewed them. We'll need that before any changes can be made. 74.132.249.206 (talk) 22:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discrepancy in the Infobox

Now I'm sorry if this has already been addressed, or perhaps my math is simply off. But I believe that the earth's volume in the infobox is not at all correct. It's listed as 1.80321 x 10¹² but I think it should be 1.80321 x 10¹⁸. I'll put all of my math down below just so you can check my work.
It's listed as 1.08321 x 10¹² cubic kilometers which would make the density (mass/volume) 5.97 x 10²⁴ kg/ 1.08321 x 10¹² cubic km.Which is 5511396682083.8 kg/cubic km. Since no one measures in kg/cubic km you start by changing the volume from cubic km to cubic m by multiplying by 1 x 10³ or 1000. and that gives you 5.97 x 10²⁴ kg/ 1.08321 x 10¹⁵ which is 5511396682.0838 kg/cubic meter, if you convert that to g/ccm (cubic centimeter) it's 5511396.6820. That's 10^-6 g/ccm off from what the earth's density should be. Which is quite a lot. So if you multiply 1.08321 x 10¹² by 1 x 10⁶ you'll get 1.08321 x 10¹⁸. Which if you then redo all of the math comes out to a much more reasonable 5511.3967 kg/cubic meter, or 5.5114 g/ccm which is slightly off from the mean density listed in the infobox due to rounding error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Henwood91 (talk • contribs) 08:40, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

cubic kilometer = 10⁹ cubic meters Jonah.ru (talk) 08:20, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why are we even using kilometers in the infoboxes when we have perfectly good SI unit prefixes? Convert it to cubic gigameters. Zlynx (talk) 23:21, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

moon

the moon section of the earth article includes this text---

Some theorists think that without this stabilization against the torques applied by the Sun and planets to the Earth's equatorial bulge, the rotational axis might be chaotically unstable, exhibiting chaotic changes over millions of years, as appears to be the case for Mars.[149]

is this really accurate---at least as far as the reference to Mars is concerned? I can't find any reference to it in the Mars article, for example.

H870rce (talk) 12:20, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Imperial

Should we not add imperial units (i.e. miles – say, in brackets?) to the 'physical parameters" section of the infobox? I am not proposing we do this for every celestial body, but since there are roundabout 300 million Americans in existence, most of whom live on the Earth (!), many of whom doubtles read the English Wikipedia, it might be useful for them to be able to easily see the dimensions of the planet they live on without having to specifically go away in order to convert the data. whatthinksyou? :-) BigSteve (talk) 16:27, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that we could definitely do that, at least in parenthesis. For people who even know what an imperial unit is. I think that is a great idea. We will see what other people think. Karicats7 (talk) 23:56, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statute (survey) miles, international miles, nautical miles, or two-thousand-yard "sea miles?" The infobox is bulky enough as it is; if other units are to be added, it should only be for a very few selected parameters. I'm not too enthusiastic about the idea. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 00:24, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a scientific article. My understanding is that metric units are mostly used in science teaching even in the USA. Let's stick to metric. HiLo48 (talk) 01:27, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Considering we're talking about Earthly distances, and a significant portion of English speakers normally use (5280-foot) miles for such distances, I think a reasonable argument can be made for making an exception. --Cybercobra (talk) 04:44, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This has been discussed numerous times here and on other astronomy pages, and the consensus is to use SI. I'll see if I can dig up the relevant discussions. --Ckatz^chat_spy 05:37, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't the point here that Earth is arguably worth special-casing? I don't see anyone arguing here for inclusion of Imperial on other astronomy articles. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:43, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Any planet with a few hundred million inhabitants demonstrably using Imperial units should also have them available in the article for ease of comprehension by the residents of that planet. - Dravecky (talk) 10:47, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]