Talk:HD 179821

A fact from HD 179821 appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 3 January 2013 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that HD 179821, a bright star in the Aquila constellation, is a supernova candidate?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2013/January. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/HD 179821.

Wikipedia

A few problems here

It is estimated the star has been losing ~4 × 10^-4 M⊙ yr-1 for about 1800 years and in last ~10⁴ the star has lost ~10% of its initial mass

In "last ~10⁴" what? Months? Years? And why ~10⁴, not 1000?

HD 179821 has a cold detached dust shell which is very approximately circular in shape and has an inner diameter of ~3".3, corresponding to 3.0 × 10¹⁷ cm

"~3".3"? What does this mean? And why is the next figure given in centimetres, not metres or kilometres?

While most authors consider HD 179821, others think is actually a protoplanetary nebula

The first phrase of this makes no sense as written. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.232.252.133 (talk) 12:17, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"since its discovery"

The phrase "since its discovery" always provokes the question "When was that?" --Wetman (talk) 17:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]