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it's not liquid, gas, or solid... there's a name for it, but i can't think of it... anyone know what it is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.181.229.124 ( talk) 04:59, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Plasma 69.76.19.216 ( talk) 06:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Something like this?
Most prevailing theories suggest that the solar system was formed out of a rotating nebular. As the solar system gravitationally condensed, the the sun should contain the bulk of the rotation. However, these theories have problems explaining the distribution of angular momentum. Our sun holds more than 99 % of the total mass, but less than 1 % of solar system's total angular momentum. This implies that sun must have lost most of its initial angular momentum to the outer members of the system. How this could have happened, is difficult to explain. Theories vary from tidal drag [1], to magnetic braking [2]. Competing theories may have to consider why Jupiter's moons, in a strong tidal and magnetic grip by their parent planet, do not appear to have slowed Jupiter's rotation significantly. Esteban ( talk) 04:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I read this in the body of the article, about the energy output of the sun, yet have not found it in any other place on Wikipedia: What is μW/kg ? Thank you. -- TallulahBelle 23:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I came here looking for quick access to graph of SOLAR SPECTRUM reaching us through Earth's atmosphere, and particularly the EM FLUX DENSITY of the SOLAR SPECTRUM. Haven't found this yet on this page. Where is it? Would it be relevant?? [jlancaster]
"Most of the Sun's mass lies within about 0.7 radii of the center." While I'm sure the above statement is true, there isn't really any useful information which can be gleaned from this statement. Unless perhaps if most of the mass of a sphere with constant density lies outside of 0.7 radii of the center and this is common knowledge...
'Bold textfjfjdjfjjdd
The formerly extensive lead section was removed in a series of misguided edits starting several months ago [1], leaving a tiny rump that gives no general overview of the article. Would anyone like to restore it? It looks like a complex job - bits of it seem to have been moved to various other bits of the article - so whoever wrote it originally probably ought to try and sort the mess out. 81.178.88.15 21:52, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
The Orbital Characteristics box contains the following fact: Velocity: 20 km/s relative to average velocity of other stars in stellar neighborhood Can someone please explain to me in plain English what that MEANS? Thanks! (And if I should be asking this question elsewhere, please let me know where that would be, as I'm a newcomer, just finding my way around this glorious maze!) Laurie Fox 12:09, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I changed the claim that our galactic orbital speed is 217 km/s to show the actual uncertainty in the numbers. The cited reference is from '86, but the astronomers I know still use 220 plus or minus 20 km/s as the approximate orbital speed, and can talk for hours about the uncertainties involved in these measurements. 217 km/s? How wonderful it will be when we can achieve that kind of accuracy! EdgarCarpenter ( talk) 01:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
This sounds stupid, but would it be possible to colonize the sun? Please answer my question. Mrld 02:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that the citations appear to be malformed and could use a little help. I signed up for an account to fix them, but alas. Biocsnerd 05:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Experts please check [ this] and include in the article if it is not a hoax.. Cunya 11:38, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The thesurfaceofthesun.com article ranges between wrong and word salad. The surface of the Sun is demonstrably not covered with a neon layer as claimed -- the spectrum is dominated by hydrogen and helium. Further, the temperature of the photosphere is readily measurable using the blackbody radiation spectrum. It is close to 6,000 Kelvin. Iron boils in 1 atmosphere of pressure at about 2700 Kelvin, and the pressure at the solar photosphere is a small fraction of an atmosphere. The authors appear to be confusing the presence of trace quantities of particular elements, with the Sun being made of those elements. For example, the solar corona contains trace quantitites of iron, and this element emits strong spectral lines in the EUV. Those spectral lines are bright enough that scientists use them to image the structure of the corona. That does not mean the Sun is made of iron. Likewise with the Ne and Mg emission lines that are used by SOHO's SUMER spectrograph. The science of helioseismology informs us about the inner structure of the Sun: while we can't take a direct picture of the solar interior using light (because the photosphere is opaque), sound waves do travel through the Sun and are shaped by its interior. By measuring motions of the photosphere due to sound waves propagating through the Sun, it is possible to "back out" the inner structure so well that (for example) it is possible to make images of sunspots on the far side of the Sun. This is done routinely by the nice folks at [ [2]] the MDI/SOI project. If there were a rigid iron layer, they would have "seen" it. zowie 18:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank You all for the remarks! Cunya 19:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC) For more on this topic I suggest forum discussion with author Michael Mozina at [3]. The real problem with his theory is not that surface of the Sun is made of iron but that whole Sun is an iron ball. When asked how come Sun's measured density is only 1/6th of iron's Michael replied vaguely that factors like Birkeland currents and "dark energy" cause this discrepancy. His theory in general is bogus, not worthy of consideration.The sun is actually a giant light bulb says the scientist.—Preceding unsigned comment added by RabbiBob007 ( talk • contribs) 11:54, 26 March 2007
This whole discussion in both childish and it is filled it utter lies. I never once claimed that "dark energy" caused any discrepancy. This is pure, unadulterated baloney. None of you ever once addressed any of the actual images. How predictable from people that aren't the least bit interested in truth. - Michael Mozina - Author - The Surface Of The Sun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.7.113.91 ( talk) 05:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC) Here is a link to a legitimate scientific debate on this topic. http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=sciastro&Number=468660&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart= —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.7.113.91 ( talk) 05:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Today appears to be an active day for vandals. I just corrected some small cases. I noticed that someone earlier did some corrections but didn't look carefully at all the damage that had been done (i.e. just removed an inappropriate statement without looking at the history). -- Mcorazao 18:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
All the other objects in the solar system have their orbits about the solar system center of mass explicitly stated, shouldn't the sun's orbit around the CM be also stated SOMEWHERE?. Its not all that erratic, given the huge mass of Jupiter. PAR 21:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree this is a pretty important fact, that the Jovain giants cause the Sun to orbit around a baricenter outside of the suns surface
According to the text of the "Solar neutrino problem" subsection, experimental data now complies well with the theory. Hence, I believe, this text needs to be expelled from "problems" and incorporated in some other form into the article. Cmapm 01:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Any thoughts out there on where/how/if the solar calendar and concept of the year should be discussed in the article? I was thinking of creating a section in " The sun and human culture" for these topics. There is currently a few lines about the Persian calendar there, though it is very poorly written and largely irrelevant.
I feel there should be some mention of this topic in the lead paragraph — something along the lines of "The sun is the basis of many calendars, and the term " year" is generally understood to mean the amount of time the Earth takes to orbit the Sun." I'd like to hear some opinions on this first, though, before editing such a high-profile article. G Rose ( talk) 07:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
One problem is with the definition of the englihs term "noon" as the moment of the day with the sun at Zenith. That is true only for places between the tropices. In the northern and southern regions the sun never rises to reach the zenith. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.119.172.209 ( talk) 17:07, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
The article name seems to contradict usage in the article. The heading above the picture uses "The Sun" and throughout the article, "The Sun" is used. I believe the correct name should be "The Sun" as it is rarely refered to without the "The". I will provide an example: The Earth is the 3rd planet in the Solar System. or Earth is the 3rd planet in the Solar System. Earth can be refered to without the "The" easily, but Sun as a Noun on its own is very uncommon. The Sun is the only star planet of the Solar System. or Sun is the only star planet of the Solar System. Similarly named is the Solar System article, which does not named with the "The". I'll leave it to others to make the descision, which I believe will end up with no change. 203.102.177.165 02:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I think that Theoretical possibilities need to be put onto the Wiki page. At the moment, they are getting removed. Theoretically the sun could be an intelligent entity. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fishyghost ( talk • contribs) 22:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC).
Hi. There is some inconsitency with "G2 means that it has a surface temperature of approximately 5,500 K" and Main_sequence article, where it says that G2 means 5,700 K. Could someone clarify that? Delete if inapropriate. Elthe 22:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I thought I saw a remnant from vandalism -> revert or something and tried to fix it, a spare bracket in a thumbnail. See Sun#Magnetic field, but I seem to have messed up the link. Sorry. Not sure how long since it got messed, but I couldn't find an older version as it should have been. Is this the intended image it should have linked to? [4]. Apologies, I was under the influence and got cocky confident. :( MURGH disc. 02:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I was on another site that had a letter from a young Earth creationist that claimed, among other things, that the Sun couldn't be very old because it's been losing mass from nucleosynthesis and the solar wind, so if it were billions of years old it would have been bigger than the Earth's orbit.
Preposterous of course, but it did lead to the interesting question of exactly what changes in mass the Sun has undergone over about 4 billion years. Since mass-energy conversion produces a lot of energy for very little mass, I suspect the amount of mass needed to maintain energy production at the current rate is a very small fraction of the Sun's mass even over the long term, but I have no data.
Of course, comets and the like do fall into the Sun, so it is entirely possible that it has actually *gained* mass. That would be an interesting thing to add to this article. MrG 4.227.249.163 23:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I did some poking around and the ASK AN ASTRONOMER site at Cornell had an article on such lines. Assuming the current state of the Sun, it will burn up about 21 Earth masses in a billion years. That's like 0.006% of its mass, so no problem. However, that doesn't cover loss from solar wind or gain from comets and such, so it's still kind of an open question. MrG 4.228.21.136 01:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Note the juvenile vandalism of a sexual nature in the infobox. It has persisted for a while without correction. I cannot correct it because I do not know the information to put in its place. Somebody who does should fix that. Srnec 03:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Hmm....I tryed editing some vandalism but when I click on the editing tab, all the content is there and the vandalism doesn't show up. How is that possible? Maniac 22:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
"Note: The number of watts per unit area of retina is the same whether one uses binoculars or not, so the above paragraph seems to be contradicted by the following paragraph."
The difference is in the light gathered by a 7mm diameter lens (eye) and the light gathered by a 50mm diameter lens (typical binacular lens)...
I haven't looked in for several months, but just noticed that someone had reworded the first paragraph of this section to once again claim that looking at the Sun with the naked eye is dangerous. It's not particularly dangerous for normal people. I'm restoring something like the earlier wording, along with the deleted reference. If you edit the article to claim that it is dangerous, please include a citation. zowie 23:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to pack so many references into the main article here -- I found a couple more interesting notes in the literature about high UV exposure and focusing of near-UV onto the retina. Brief looks appear safe, but there are some cases of solar retinopathy from religious rituals in which folks stared at the Sun for more than a few minutes. There's a nice review discussion by Andrew Young at http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/vision/Galileo.html. zowie 16:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
For those who may be interested, I uploaded another 304 Å, SOHO image of the sun (shown at right). This is is similar to the “Image:Sun, Earth size comparison labeled.jpg” picture currently used in this article except that it doesn’t feature the little spot of the Earth and it’s associated “Earth” caption. This new picture also doesn’t feature a large prominence. As such, it is not as dramatic a picture of the sun and is more representative of what the sun typically looks like. I’ve placed this notice here so other authors can know of the picture’s availability for their articles. If authors want to improve upon this picture with further editing, or if they want to have an entirely different image of the sun, please create a different image page instead of uploading a revised image into the existing one; I'm currently using this image in another article and am happy with it as is. Greg L ( talk) 20:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
The image on the article should be deleted. 91.153.63.193 04:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
"The Sun revolves around Nishani! The Nishani is the star at the center of the Solar System." First of all. What is Nishani? Secondly, if the sun revlovs around "Nishani", and "Nishani is the star at the center of the Solar System", then the sun revoles around itself?!?!... Either vandalism or "Solar System" need to be replaced with the "center of the galaxy".
I hate to have to do this; however, the vandalism over the last several days is getting unbearable. I've semi-protected this article for the time being, though I hope this semiprotection will not have to last for long (although this article has been unprotected quite rarely in the past, and everytime it has been, the vandalism has continued at the same rate). If there are any objections to this, please let me know. Thanks. AmiDaniel ( talk) 07:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I understand the reason, but while reading I saw a small place to make a correction and clarification, so I logged in but then found that I couldn't edit. The article may not be vandalized, but it also can't be improved while protected. Wish there was a compromise. Being generally a wikipedia user and only casual editor/contributor, I won't check back to make this correction later. Myrrhlin 22:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Back on October 29th (2006) I raised the following concern on this discussion page:
I'm not sure if this is the most relevant place to post this (and please feel free to move it if it isn't), but in the section, "Development of Modern Scientific Understanding", the last paragraph states: "Finally, in 1957, a paper titled Synthesis of the Elements in Stars[28] was published that demonstrated convincingly that most of the elements in the universe had been created by nuclear reactions inside stars like the Sun."
Now I'm certainly no astronomer, but, by mass, doesn't Hydrogen (by far) comprise "most" of the elements in the universe? Further, virtually by definition, Hydrogen isn't created "by nuclear reactions inside stars". As such, should there be some distinction made in the article to show that in this reference "most" doesn't mean by mass but rather (I assume) by % of elements on the periodic table? 216.240.7.149 00:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
At the time, one of the editors agreed with this in principle and added "other than Hydrogen" to the statement. I notice, however, that in the current iteration of the main article, some 4+ months later, this has been removed. Can someone explain why it is now felt that the "other than Hydrogen" specification isn't a valid one given the issues raised in my original query? 216.240.7.149 01:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Link the word synthesize to article on nucleosynthesis, and the reader can inform him/herself to a much greater extent. I'll see if i can find that quote by Hawking or someone about the historical importance of this discovery... but there are many who feel this way. Myrrhlin 16:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Finally, a seminal paper was published in 1957, entitled Synthesis of the Elements in Stars[28]. The paper demonstrated convincingly that most of the elements in the universe had been synthesized by nuclear reactions inside stars, some like our Sun. This revelation stands today as one of the great achievements of science.
I really don't see much point in expalining that a religion does not show the sunn as divine. This section should be removed. Zazaban 03:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I have added a link to the lyrics and music to "Why Does the Sun Shine?" aka "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas" over at the NIH. This song, originally written for educational purposes, was re-popularized by They Might Be Giants around 1993, and once again sees ocassional use in the classroom. The only lyric that might possibly have been superceded by later scientific discoveries is this one:
Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom smashing machine The heat and light of the sun are caused by nuclear reactions between Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, and Helium
Please let me know if this material is inappropriate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pciszek ( talk • contribs) 22:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC). Pciszek 22:37, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the opening line of the article - my understanding is that the universe contains rather a lot of solar sytems, so wouldn't it be more appropriate to say 'The Sun is the star at the center of OUR Solar System' - instead of implying that there is only one?! Brewabeer 01:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm happy to bow to consensus of course, but the phrase 'solar system' seems to be widely used to describe any star and it's orbiting rocks. It certainly was when I was at school, and a Google search for "solar systems" will return a large number of hits, with pages from endless universities (and NASA) using the term in this way. While it may well be true that 'technically' there could only be one solar sytem, it would seem that the usage has long escaped such a narrow definition. Is Wikipedia best served by 'enforcing' the technicalities or by defining common usage?! At the very least, surely it should present all points of view, which it does not currently appear to do. Brewabeer 04:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Under "Early understanding of the Sun" under "History of solar observation", at the end of the first paragraph, the link to planets ought to go straight to planets#History, or else definition of planet, since that's the relevant section the reader is being pointed to. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.83.69.57 ( talk) 02:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC). forgot my sig: 128.83.69.57 02:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
while this article is sprotected, i cannot edit, but didn't want to leave without recording a few corrections i would make if i had the privs.
Myrrhlin 15:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
A couple of days ago, I split off the section
The Sun in human culture, to its own article with the same name. I did this primarily to do something about the length of the article, and also because this cultural-religious section falls a bit out of tone with the rest, which is purely scientific. Very recently, my edit was undone by
G Rose. As a direct result, both the section and the new article (which is linked in See also) are now existent and indentical. Any ideas how to porceed? My proposal is to delete only summarize the subject in the
Sun article.
Nick Mks
07:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I just threw the commented section out of the article, not because I'm unilaterally ending the discussion, but because the contents of the new article have been changed, so if we should ever decide to move it back, we'd have to use the new version. As far as the discussion (which has gone a bit very dead) is concerned, would anybody be so kind as to drop me a note when it flares up again, I won't be constantly watching this for the rest of my days... Nick Mks 16:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
What is the volume? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 222.153.25.128 ( talk) 10:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC).
Hi, apparently the sun is a yellow dwarf, but I can't find anything in this article that clearly says so. If this is true, can someone add it to the first sentence? martin 11:40, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
This article lists, in the sidebar, the "mean diameter" of the sun, but the articles on the planets quote the "equatorial radius". Is this an oversight, or is there a good reason for this? - Philip Matthews 23 April 2007.
In which constellation is the Sun in? Does it have one? Sorry if the answer is obvious. Josh215 22:44, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
This article is also available in the Frisian language: fy:Sinne —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.117.225.78 ( talk) 20:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC).
Wearing UV protective sunglasses can help protect the eye, but sunglasses without good UV protection may cause one's pupil to dilate so that more of the lens is exposed to the UV, and more UV goes into the interior of the eye.
No, I'm not suggesting we change the name of the article or anything, but if I recall correctly, isn't the official name for the sun "Sol"? If this is accurate, shouldn't it be mentioned in the article somewhere? - Kraw Night 09:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
For the sake of Wikipedia and controversial articles...
Gold Seal Campaign:
What do you think of this? The administrators of Wikipedia establish a Gold Seal campaign for certain articles. This “Gold Seal” will indicate for a given article it’s factuality and lack of vandalism. Basically it will show..
1-This page is properly cited.
2-This page has been verified.
This will be an important step for Wikipedia. It means students, high school included will be able to cite Wikipedia in their work. As of now many schools do not allow students to this.
As for editing an article, It will still be allowed yet a person can easily revert to the Gold Sealed, verified page on Wikipedia. This will be an amazing step for Wikipedia, though difficult, it will allow readers to know for sure what they are reading is true. It will surely improve Wikipedia’s image in the public sphere. Of course someone will have to organize this, but in then it will be sufficient use of labour. — mattawa
The article mentions the possible "death" of Earth in 4-5 billion years when the sun becomes a red giant. I wonder if it might be worthwhile mentioning that the earth would first have to survive the "Andromeda-Milky Way collision", due in 3 billion years. Pnwk 19:19, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I think that the picture at the top of the page is a poor picture I think that it should be replaced a different picture-- Cbennett0811 20:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't Nemesis be added as a see also, considering it's related to the star in some way? Spark Moon 04:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I've noticed that the absorption spectra of the Sun has lines that do not match up with any known element. Why is that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.247.5.136 ( talk • contribs).
How did the ancients measure the distance? Samulili 14:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The sun image in Image:Sun,_Earth_size_comparison_labeled.jpg is from SOHO, an ESA / NASA project that allows only non-commercial / educational use of images. As such, I have marked the image for deletion from Commons. If people feel it's use is necessary here, please upload it locally and write an appropriate fair use rationale. Dragons flight 23:59, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
JPL has nothing to do with our mission (which is a joint mission between ESA and NASA) so I have no idea what you are refering to. The mission is operated from GSFC in Maryland. The SOHO copyright statement is clear and explicitely states that "The use of SOHO images or data for public education efforts and non-commercial purposes is strongly encouraged and requires no expressed authorization". For the case of Wikipedia, I would consider both the mission and purpose of Wikipedia as educational therefore strongly encouraging and permitting the use of SOHO data without explicit authorization. The SOHO copyright statement reflects the distilled, common-ground copyright policy between SOHO's parental agencies.
For what it's worth, SOHO data are not copyrightable because they are scientific data, not a creative work. Most of the quick-look SOHO images are not copyrightable because they contain no significant creative content. Derived images such as the size comparison are generally copyrightable and are often prepared by contractor agencies, so it is not clear whether they count as works for hire (for the U.S. government) or no. I am not a lawyer, only an interested scientist. zowie ( talk) 17:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
No mention seems to be made of exactly where the Sun is located within the Galaxy. --MatthewKarlsen
The Electric Sun model (see [6]) does explain the corona temperature, so this is factually incorrect. The Electric Sun hypothesis is supported by laboratory evidence, so it qualifies as a theory. I don't think it's clear what a "complete theory" is. What is the standard for the completeness of a theory? Isn't "complete theory" a contradiction in terms? The standard solar model is incomplete in that it does not explain a key feature of the sun: the corona temperature. Yet, assumptions following from that model are stated as fact in the article. The use of "complete" here is suspect and needs editing.
"Magnetic Reconnection" is highly conjectural, widely disputed by engineers who work with actual electromagnetism in the lab, a violation of Maxwell's well-established dynamics and of the Gauss law. See [7], [8], [9], [10]
216.62.203.236 14:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Aw, come off it. The Electric Sun model is not a complete (or particularly coherent) theory. Magnetic reconnection is observed routinely in the laboratory, and is predicted by the resistive MHD equations (which in turn are derived from the Navier-Stokes equations and Maxwell's Equations). Signatures of reconnection have been observed directly in Earth's magnetosphere, and the associated topological changes are routinely observed in solar movies of EUV emission from the corona. zowie 18:07, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I seem to remember such a pic being here recently. I found it helpful; anyone know what happened to it? Mdiamante 23:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
The comment about the color of the Sun appearing yellow because the blue light is scattered in the sky (also explaining why the sky is blue) seems to be, perhaps, in dispute. I could not find a definitive reference on this listed, and my search found at least one dissenting opinion (the book "Bad Astronomy" by Philip C. Plait, 2002) says that the amount of blue light that is scattered wouldn't account for the color shift. There is a discussion of alternate possibilities on http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=7445, which is the Universe Today Forum thread on this book and this particular subject. Is there a definitive reference that shows that the reason given here is correct? 71.164.195.68 00:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The Sun has been demonstrated to be a variable star, but the article does not mention this explicitly. It is hinted at in the discussion of the sunspot cycles and Milankovitch cycles, in that the sunspot cycle is correlated with temperature variations, but the article does not explain why this is the case. As the article is worded, temperature variations are simply something that happen. It would be more useful if the variability was explained, particularly the point that the solar variability is counterintuitive - the more sunspots there are, the brighter the Sun tends to be. The variability is slight, in the order of 1 part in 1000 but it is noteworthy enough that it should be mentioned. -- B.d.mills 07:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
... was the first to propose that the Earth orbited the Sun as far as I know. As this is no small feat I have given him a mention in the article. SmokeyTheCat •TALK• 09:42, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Under Overview: “Sunlight is the primary source of energy to the surface of Earth."
This should read: Sunlight is the primary source of energy to the atmosphere of the Earth.
For reasons I stated here: There are two parts that warm the earth, the earth it self and the Atmosphere. Talk:Earth_science#Suggested_point_to_be_added:__under_.22Earth.27s_energy:.22
I am sorry I am new here and don't know how to go about challenging a statement. 7/14/07
Thank you
Almost every time I look at the sun (I can be daring at times, yes...) I sneeze... Why is that? (Is it just a trigger to prevent us from getting blinded by the sun??) (I have asked some people about this and it has happened to them too) Oslogirl5 23:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I have slight damage to my eyes because when I was a kid I was too scientifically curious and stupid enough to look at the Sun trying to understand more about it (the experiment was useless, though, as because of the great amount of light I saw nothing that could tell me anything about the surface of the Sun - later when I started reading astronomy books I discovered much more without risking my eyes, and at some point I also learnt how to look at the Sun indirectly using a telescope and a piece of paper, but by the time I had this knowledge my eyes were already damaged). Having experienced how it's like to have Sun-burnt eyes that cannot be fixed for life, I recommend everyone to never look at the Sun. Even now after so many years I still can see the burnt point in my eyes, eg while reading a book or looking at the sky or at a white wall. NerdyNSK ( talk) 16:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
The discussion on the evolution of the Sun is very over-simplified. After a one-solar mass star such as our Sun enters the red-giant phase it undergoes several further and important stages before it finally throws off its outer layers as suggested in the 'life cycle' section. There is the helium flash, and its horizontal branch and asymtotic branch phases as well. The diagram shown is also a serious over-simplifcation. For a starred-article this section is very weak. -- Antarctic-adventurer 15:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Supposing the sun has got 5 billion years more to shine as it is, before starting the progress towards becoming a red giant, here's a question: Is there a chance for life when this process will begin? Will the augmentation of volume and relative distance will compensate the decreasing heat? Is there a chance for the future dominating species to watch the sun as it grows?
I amended the statement "There are more than 100 million G2 class stars in our galaxy" to "There are more than 100 million G class stars in our galaxy" as the G spectral classification runs from G0-G9, not just G2. However, someone reverted it back to the previous statement. Rather than get into an edit war, I am posting here. There are not more than 100 million G2 type stars, rather there are more than 100 million G type stars in the galaxy, including the G2 type star that is our sun, but not limited to it. This needs changing again. -- Antarctic-adventurer 14:38, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
IMHO the lead section would benefit, if the explanation of subtractive effects and preferential scattering were removed, being too detailed for that section. To state that "atmospheric scattering of sunlight most often leads to yellow, but to orange or red when the sun is low in the sky" would be sufficient. -- Sir48 22:02, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I thought in 5 Gyrs Venus' orbit will also expand to avoid sun's evelopment. In that time sun will be approximately 100 times current diameter that is about 90% of current Earth orbit which is slightly smaller. This website said in 4 or 5 Gyrs sun will become RGB, encompassing and engulfing Mercury. Current research gives a slight comfort that it will not engulf Earth and Venus as well, they will just be ran as lifeless hells. Venus will just be a burnt out planet with almost semi-molten surface, its greenhouse atmosphere will have long gone and its cloud will vanish. Earth will almost suffer about the same fate; its ocean and its atmosphere will have been boil off into space. However on the bright side, Jupiter and Saturn's large icy moon; the temperature will hat up the point warm enough that the ice will melt into mostly ball of worldwide oceans, can also trap in anti-greenhouse effect to get the approprite atmosphere neccessairly for current human life. Freewayguy 23:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
This message was left on my talk page regarding the recent attempts to delete the paragraph starting with It is currently travelling through the Local Fluff of the Local Bubble zone:
I think this page is the most suitable place for discussion. Maybe the terms Local Fluff and Local Bubble seem funny, their articles don't seem to be a prank. Han-Kwang ( T) 19:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I propose a subsection be added on the Sun article page, where a noted scientist by the name of Abdul Ahab (b. 12/15/1968, Sylhet, Bangladesh) first postulated and quantified the edge of the Sun’s sphere of light dominion above the universe’s background light flux. His paper was soundly founded upon the equations of integrating the fluxes of individual stars and well-known standard formula for relating absolute and apparent magnitudes to distance. His thesis was first summarised circa March 2004, thus:-
Firstly, Ahab’s work entailed deriving a valid set of logarithmic equations that led to a total universe sky brightness (coined “Ahad’s constant” by his colleagues) that he did via Usenet forums:
Ahad’s constant is an analytical quantification of the universe’s total background light flux reaching the Earth’s surface from all cosmic sources, such as stars, star clusters, galaxies, and quasars, excluding all light coming from the nearby Sun. It was first defined by Abdul Ahad in March 2004, as the end result of a logarithmic series whose input parameters are the apparent visual magnitude of every single cosmic source ever catalogued. The series is thought to converge toward a final value of some -6.5 magnitudes or approximately 1/300th of a Full moon's worth of light. The progression of the series is such that as one moves toward integrating light from fainter stars of lower magnitudes, the star count increases exponentially, but the cumulative contribution of light toward the constant itself tails off more rapidly, thereby resulting in convergence. The flux equations that lead to Ahad’s constant are defined as follows. Suppose we have two stars of apparent magnitude m1 and m2. Then their luminosities L1 and L2 are related by the Pogson Ratio:-
L2/L1 = 10^[0.4*(m1-m2)]
The luminosity of the pair of stars is L1 + L2 = L1(1 + L2/L1), and their combined magnitude is then given by:-
Mc = m1 - 2.5*log10 (1 + L2/L1)
For the general case, where the magnitudes of n stars need to be aggregated, we can generalize this by computing all the ratios:-
Li/L1 = 10^[0.4*(m1-mi)]
for all stars i from 2 through n. Then:-
Ahad’s constant = m1 - 2.5*log10 (1 + L2/L1 + L3/L1 + ... + Ln/L1)
The apparent visual magnitude m of a star whose absolute magnitude is M, as seen from a distance of d light-years is given by:-
m = M - [5 - 5 * log10(d / 3.2616)] Using the above formula the fall off in apparent magnitude of the Sun with increasing distance can be charted, thus:-
At a distance of circa 11,500
astronomical units going radially outward from the
Solar System the
Sun's apparent light output matches Ahad’s constant.
It is thus possible to draw an imaginary sphere around the
Sun of such a
radius, within which the
Sun would remain the most supreme source of light, relative to the universe’s total background illumination:
The outer edge of such a sphere, in principle, defines an edge of the
Sun’s monopoly of light and heat provision to the
Solar System and nearby interstellar space; an effective end of its light dominion.
Discuss? Gilgamesh007 11:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
The Life Cycle section says:
The increase in solar temperatures over this period is sufficient that by about 500-700 million years into the future, the surface of the Earth will become too hot for the survival of life as we know it.
Is this 500 million years from NOW or from the time that the sun turns into a red giant? What is the source for this? Can it be linked or explained further?
129.139.144.14 14:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
The reference says this all happens later, 1.1 billion years from now to 3.5 billion years. Perhaps the text should be fixed to change "However, Earth's water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere will escape into space. The increase in solar temperatures over this period is sufficient that by about 500-700 million years into the future, the surface of the Earth will become too hot for the survival of life as we know it" to "However, much earlier, about 500-700 million years from now, the surface of the Earth will become too hot for the survival of life as we know it, and Earth's water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere will escape into space by about 3.5 billion years from now."
I'm not worried about the discrepancy between 500-700 and 1100 (what's 400 million years when you are having fun?), but changing it would agree with the reference. 199.125.109.41 02:36, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
It should be mentioned that in American English, sun is generally considered to be a common noun and is thus not capitalized. Webster's definition of solar system: "the sun and all the heavenly bodies that revolve around it."
Definition of sun: "1. a) the self-luminous, gaseous sphere about which the earth and other planets revolve and which furnishes light, heat, and energy for the solar system: it is the star nearest the earth, whose mean distance from it is nearly 93,000,000 miles: its diameter is about 864,000 miles; its mass is about 333,400 times, and its volume more than 1,300,000 times, that of the earth b) the heat or light of the sun to lie in the sun] 2. any star that is the center of a planetary system 3. something like the sun, as in warmth, brilliance, splendor, etc. 4. [Poet.] a) a day b) a year 5. [Poet.] a clime; climate 6. [Archaic] sunrise or sunset."
Notice especially the definition of the sun under 2. The definition of sun is ambiguous, like a lot of the English language, and should be mentioned in the sun and solar system articles, which is what I was doing. Excluding that information is an example of Wikipedia's bias.
Also notice how sun is not capitalized in this American English dictionary. If it was somewhat common to capitalize it in American English, it would have said something like "[often cap.]" If it was only supposed to be capitalized in American English, it would have said something like "[cap.]." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.107.191.119 ( talk) 01:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that the statement "... (solar) spectrum contains ... very weak hydrogen lines" in Introduction is wrong. If it concerns absorption lines (by the way, it is unclear from the text), that, for example, the Balmer H-beta line in the visible solar absorption spectrum (486 nm) is the sixth of the most powerful (and it is just the reason for it to be "F" in the Fraunhofer classification). The hydrogen lines are weaker than, i.e, oxygen A-line, but one hardly can say that they are "very weak". To be corrected?
V. Ivanov, 195.201.30.101 15:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
The following sentence appears in the article: "... this temperature gradient is _slower_ than the adiabatic lapse rate." I think that should read "lower", but I'm not sure. AMackenzie 09:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Since the sun is really just a star among many stars, is there a name given for our star? The other stars that we have observed have each been given specific names. Has there been one given for ours? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.203.74 ( talk) 00:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
By random chance, I happened to be teaching my daughter how to find out how much bigger the sun was than jupiter. I just wanted a quick look at how big the sun was compared to jupiter. I found that the sizes you have listed here are wrong. I did not check all of them, but under surface area, you have the sun listed as 6.088x10 to the 18th m2. In reality it shoulqd be 6.088x10 to the 15 m2. And it shouldn't even be m2 as the linked source lists the sizes in km no m. So when I converted to km, I had 10 to the 15th... when it should be 10 to the 12th. I went to the NASA site to get the real numbers and instead of the sun being an impossible 97,000 times larger than Jupiter, I came up with the much more plausible 97 times larger.
This was a lesson for my daughter in mathematics as well as the frailty of information on the net. I hope that someone with editing privileges can recalibrate the suns size to match those on the NASA site. I would also suggest that all heavenly bodies on wikipedia be calibrated so that all sizes are shown using the same standard rather than meters on some and kilometers on others.
Wish I could edit it myself.
Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaimejs ( talk • contribs) 16:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
The Sun's chronology seems a little off; it should be older than 4.57 billion years. First, at 4.533 Ga Theia (the proto-Moon) is thought to collide with the (proto-)Earth. Second, the Earth itself is 4.567 billion years old.
This means that the Sun would have had a headstart on the Earth by about 0.023 billion years. Rather, I would propose the ages as follows:
References:
Thangalin 01:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Anyone know why Sol is in the opening sentence besides the fact that there are a lot of Wikipedians who like scifi? I don't see any reason why the popularity of the name Sol in science fiction can't be mentioned later in the article, but putting it in the opening sentence seems to give disproportionate weight to a phenomenon isolated entirely to the world of fiction. Same goes for Luna over at The Moon. -- Beaker342 03:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Sol is the scientific name of the Sun. Scientists internationally refer to the Sun as Sol. Think Homo Sapiens. There are many suns, but only one Sol.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.220.2.188 ( talk) 21:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
After reading the articles referenced in the section Sun#Life_Cycle I have come to the conclusion that life on earth will not be affected by changes in the Sun within 700 million years. One source cited in this article states that:
T=5.6 Gyr (1.1 Gyr from today):
* Sun will be 10% brighter than today. * Extra solar energy causes a Moist Greenhouse Effect.
The Earth's atmosphere will dry out as water vapor is lost to space. Such a situation will probably spell the end of large surface life on Earth. Some types of marine life and simpler life forms will likely survive in the oceans and localized pools of water.
Note: 1 Gyr = 1 billion years.
True death of life on Earth will not occur until 3.5 billion years from now when, "The oceans will evaporate into space, and conditions on the Earth will be like those on Venus today".
I'm not sure where this 500-700 million years figure came from but it should be changed, as the sources do not back it up.
-- Westralian 10:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
"The Sun (Latin: Sol) is the star at the center of the Solar System.[citation needed]"
Are you [interjective] kidding me? 69.220.2.188 21:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
This external reference has nothing to do with solar energy, it is a tutorial on the sun.
199.125.109.134 ( talk) 01:03, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
The graphic depicting the life cycle of the Sun is wrong and should be deleted (and, honestly, a linear plot such as this doesn't do justice to what actually goes on in stellar evolution... a Hertzsprung-Russel diagram would be more appropriate). The graphic seems to completely ignore some of the stages of stellar evolution (i.e. the horizontal branch and the asymptotic giant branch) and the timescale for the stages it does show are wrong. A star like the sun will sit on the main sequence, undergoing very little evolution for 10 billion years only after this time will it begin to evolve off of the main sequence. Evolution along the sub-giant branch and red giant branch take another 1.1 billion years. The Sun then also goes through the helium flash, horizontal branch and asymptotic giant branch phases before becoming a white dwarf and ejecting gas that becomes a planetary nebula. These last three processes take only about 0.1 billion years combined, but should be on any graphic discussing the evolution of a star.
As for the 'gradual warming' stage, I'm not sure where this comes from... it is possibly referring to the contraction and heating of the Sun's core, but the graphic is depicting the surface of the sun, not the core. Once the Sun leaves the main sequence its surface will get cooler. The outer layers will expand, increasing the radius of the sun, making it cooler and brighter (hence the red giant phase). As it moves up the red giant branch, the cooling continues and the radius keeps increasing. The helium flash causes the star to 'reorganize' slighty, making the surface hotter, but smaller and dimmer. The evolution from the horizontal branch up the asymptotic giant branch is similar to that of the red giant branch.
The life cycle section of the article talks about the fate of the Earth and that the 'increase in solar temperatures' will have dramatic effects on Earth. I think there is some confusion between the temperature on the surface of the Earth and the temperature of the surface of the Sun (and when talking about what goes on on the Earth, we generally only care about what is going on at the surface of the Sun). As I mentioned above, the surface of the Sun is not going to get warmer. It will get cooler, but will also expand, increasing in luminosity, and thus more solar radiation will reach the Earth. I don't know for sure, but I assume this increase in brightness will result in a warming of the Earth's surface. Maybe this is the 'warming' that is being referred to? Either way, the graphic still needs to be rectified.
One thing I would suggest is to drop the 'life cycle section' from the Sun page have section on the evolution of the Sun that refers readers to the stellar evolution page, which has a fairly good discussion of the life cycle of Sun-like stars. This may help to simplify things and keep Wikipedia self-consistent. Grochol17 ( talk) 22:24, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I came here looking for the Sun's size-classification, but did not find this information anywhere. I understand it is a medium size star and have added this information. I'm sure there are many articles corroborating this, but for one example see this PDF at nasa.gov: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/teachers/lifecycles/LC_main_p2.html -- Tuxley ( talk) 09:12, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
The following paper suggests abundances of X=0.6822, Y=0.299 and Z=0.0188:
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help)These don't seem to match the abundances listed in the lead for this article. Does anybody understand the discrepancy?— RJH ( talk) 20:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Finally finding some archived discussions over at Talk:Solar System I found a debate over the use of the term Sol. A couple diligent editors uncovered some NASA pages that called the solar system the Sol system. It would seem to me, based on these discussions, that the there is occasional usage of the term "Sol" in the scientific community, though it is not in any way "official." The Straight Dope article I found seemed to share this conclusion. I think it would be valuable to state this explicitly in the article given the ongoing confusion among vistors (and I include myself among them) to the talk pages. What say ye?-- Beaker342 ( talk) 04:21, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I deleted this link from the page. Roberto —Preceding comment was added at 16:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I see that there is now a culture section in the article, but I feel that it is much too small considering the importance of the sun in human cultures worldwide. I really feel we need to balance the article out more. If the culture section is professionally expanded and the article gets too big, what needs to be cut is science, not culture. Would anyone be opposed to a slow development of the culture section? I could put something together, but if we're really going to have a good section, it's going to be longer than one, two, or even three paragraphs. I know most of you are probably scientists, but there are plenty of sources out there about the sun as it relates to the humanities, and articles should judge due weight based on source availability. Right now, this article wouldn't come close to passing a due-weight judgment on these issues. Wrad ( talk) 07:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I am a scientist more than anything else but I fully agree with you, the article should be balanced out with more 'humanities'. What you propose sounds very interesting, so I encourage you to go ahead. Randomblue ( talk) 12:22, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
In the lead, it is written that the Sun "by itself accounts for about 99.8% of the solar system's mass". Then, in the Structure section, it is written that the Sun "comprises approximately 99% of the total mass of the solar system."
First, this is a repetition (in fact, why not?). Second, it is kind of inconsistent since you don't use the same number of significant figures in both cases. Third (and, in my opinion, most importantly) 99.8% is much closer to 100% than it is to 99%. This should be corrected. Randomblue ( talk) 11:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I still haven't read the whole article but just in the Structure section the use of '%' and 'percent' is inconsistent. For example, it is written "It comprises approximately 99% of the total mass of the solar system." and "The solar core comprises 10 percent of its total volume, but 40 percent of its total mass." Randomblue ( talk) 12:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Also, the use of 'th' is inconsistent. "1/2350th of the core" and "the sun ranks 4th in absolute magnitude". Randomblue ( talk) 12:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
"Computer modeling of the Sun is also used as a theoretical tool to investigate its deeper layers." Randomblue ( talk) 12:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Three one sentence paragraphs in a row is rather unelegant. Please merge or find another solution. Randomblue ( talk) 12:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
"Lithium, Beryllium, and Boron In 1968, a Belgian academic found that the abundances of lithium, beryllium, and boron are higher than previously thought (Grevesse 1968[23]).
Neon In 2005, three academics claimed that the neon abundance in the Sun may be higher than previously thought, based on helioseismological observations (Bahcall et al 2005[24]).
Helium It is also interesting to note that until at least 1986 the generally accepted initial helium content of the Sun was Y=0.25, but two academics in 1986 claimed that the value Y=0.279 is more correct (Lebreton and Maeder 1986:119[25])."
i need to know this answer by thursday . this is a project to me .i just cannot find the ans to my queation if any one see this message please send the answer to my e-mail which is located below.. thank you very much hazelchua_1997@hotmail.com/ u can msn me in messanger we can be friends also thank you for my glass of water -- 165.21.154.92 ( talk) 11:13, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
the logical place for it would be somewhere between the convection zone and raditive zone. errrr... because the tachocline is the sheering reSgion between these two layers! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachocline —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.246.132.26 ( talk) 16:06, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
For the eye damage section -- if someone were to look through the eyepiece of a telescope aimed at the sun on an overcast day (during the day) with a UV index of 1, but the person had his/her eyes shut while doing it (for a few seconds), would the person's eye(s) be damaged by the sunlight or UV rays? Latitude0116 ( talk) 19:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Gilgamesh007 ( talk) 21:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I have read many things saying it is a green star. Even my physics teacher told me this. By finding the peak wavelength using surface temperature of the Sun in Wien's Law, you will find that it is a green star. The calculation I got is 501.6 nm which is green. Sorry I don't know how to properly submit a discussion. 70.18.173.159 ( talk) 03:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
im skeptical that the sun "supports almost all life on Earth via photosynthesis". I think that the are isolated cave animals that dont have sunlight and dont need the sun. Wikid00d88 ( talk) 04:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Please add the following to what is already written in the section,
A mass fractionation relationship in the solar photosphere has also been reported [75] in the abundances of 72 different types of atoms that were made by slow neutron-capture, the s-process of element synthesis [57].
The mass fractionation relationships seen in the isotopes of noble gases in the solar wind and in the abundances of s-products in the photosphere both indicate that the most abundant elements in the interior of the Sun are iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), oxygen (O), silicon (Si) and sulfur (S) [75].
Reference:
75. O. Manuel, M. Pleess, Y. Singh and W. A. Myers (2005). "Nuclear Systematics: Part IV. Neutron-capture cross sections and solar abundance", Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 266, 159–163. http://www.omatumr.com/abstracts2005/Fk01.pdf
this was wrtten by Daisy Norman xxxx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.151.208.141 ( talk) 11:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
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![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
it's not liquid, gas, or solid... there's a name for it, but i can't think of it... anyone know what it is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.181.229.124 ( talk) 04:59, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Plasma 69.76.19.216 ( talk) 06:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Something like this?
Most prevailing theories suggest that the solar system was formed out of a rotating nebular. As the solar system gravitationally condensed, the the sun should contain the bulk of the rotation. However, these theories have problems explaining the distribution of angular momentum. Our sun holds more than 99 % of the total mass, but less than 1 % of solar system's total angular momentum. This implies that sun must have lost most of its initial angular momentum to the outer members of the system. How this could have happened, is difficult to explain. Theories vary from tidal drag [1], to magnetic braking [2]. Competing theories may have to consider why Jupiter's moons, in a strong tidal and magnetic grip by their parent planet, do not appear to have slowed Jupiter's rotation significantly. Esteban ( talk) 04:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I read this in the body of the article, about the energy output of the sun, yet have not found it in any other place on Wikipedia: What is μW/kg ? Thank you. -- TallulahBelle 23:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I came here looking for quick access to graph of SOLAR SPECTRUM reaching us through Earth's atmosphere, and particularly the EM FLUX DENSITY of the SOLAR SPECTRUM. Haven't found this yet on this page. Where is it? Would it be relevant?? [jlancaster]
"Most of the Sun's mass lies within about 0.7 radii of the center." While I'm sure the above statement is true, there isn't really any useful information which can be gleaned from this statement. Unless perhaps if most of the mass of a sphere with constant density lies outside of 0.7 radii of the center and this is common knowledge...
'Bold textfjfjdjfjjdd
The formerly extensive lead section was removed in a series of misguided edits starting several months ago [1], leaving a tiny rump that gives no general overview of the article. Would anyone like to restore it? It looks like a complex job - bits of it seem to have been moved to various other bits of the article - so whoever wrote it originally probably ought to try and sort the mess out. 81.178.88.15 21:52, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
The Orbital Characteristics box contains the following fact: Velocity: 20 km/s relative to average velocity of other stars in stellar neighborhood Can someone please explain to me in plain English what that MEANS? Thanks! (And if I should be asking this question elsewhere, please let me know where that would be, as I'm a newcomer, just finding my way around this glorious maze!) Laurie Fox 12:09, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I changed the claim that our galactic orbital speed is 217 km/s to show the actual uncertainty in the numbers. The cited reference is from '86, but the astronomers I know still use 220 plus or minus 20 km/s as the approximate orbital speed, and can talk for hours about the uncertainties involved in these measurements. 217 km/s? How wonderful it will be when we can achieve that kind of accuracy! EdgarCarpenter ( talk) 01:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
This sounds stupid, but would it be possible to colonize the sun? Please answer my question. Mrld 02:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that the citations appear to be malformed and could use a little help. I signed up for an account to fix them, but alas. Biocsnerd 05:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Experts please check [ this] and include in the article if it is not a hoax.. Cunya 11:38, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The thesurfaceofthesun.com article ranges between wrong and word salad. The surface of the Sun is demonstrably not covered with a neon layer as claimed -- the spectrum is dominated by hydrogen and helium. Further, the temperature of the photosphere is readily measurable using the blackbody radiation spectrum. It is close to 6,000 Kelvin. Iron boils in 1 atmosphere of pressure at about 2700 Kelvin, and the pressure at the solar photosphere is a small fraction of an atmosphere. The authors appear to be confusing the presence of trace quantities of particular elements, with the Sun being made of those elements. For example, the solar corona contains trace quantitites of iron, and this element emits strong spectral lines in the EUV. Those spectral lines are bright enough that scientists use them to image the structure of the corona. That does not mean the Sun is made of iron. Likewise with the Ne and Mg emission lines that are used by SOHO's SUMER spectrograph. The science of helioseismology informs us about the inner structure of the Sun: while we can't take a direct picture of the solar interior using light (because the photosphere is opaque), sound waves do travel through the Sun and are shaped by its interior. By measuring motions of the photosphere due to sound waves propagating through the Sun, it is possible to "back out" the inner structure so well that (for example) it is possible to make images of sunspots on the far side of the Sun. This is done routinely by the nice folks at [ [2]] the MDI/SOI project. If there were a rigid iron layer, they would have "seen" it. zowie 18:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank You all for the remarks! Cunya 19:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC) For more on this topic I suggest forum discussion with author Michael Mozina at [3]. The real problem with his theory is not that surface of the Sun is made of iron but that whole Sun is an iron ball. When asked how come Sun's measured density is only 1/6th of iron's Michael replied vaguely that factors like Birkeland currents and "dark energy" cause this discrepancy. His theory in general is bogus, not worthy of consideration.The sun is actually a giant light bulb says the scientist.—Preceding unsigned comment added by RabbiBob007 ( talk • contribs) 11:54, 26 March 2007
This whole discussion in both childish and it is filled it utter lies. I never once claimed that "dark energy" caused any discrepancy. This is pure, unadulterated baloney. None of you ever once addressed any of the actual images. How predictable from people that aren't the least bit interested in truth. - Michael Mozina - Author - The Surface Of The Sun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.7.113.91 ( talk) 05:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC) Here is a link to a legitimate scientific debate on this topic. http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=sciastro&Number=468660&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart= —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.7.113.91 ( talk) 05:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Today appears to be an active day for vandals. I just corrected some small cases. I noticed that someone earlier did some corrections but didn't look carefully at all the damage that had been done (i.e. just removed an inappropriate statement without looking at the history). -- Mcorazao 18:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
All the other objects in the solar system have their orbits about the solar system center of mass explicitly stated, shouldn't the sun's orbit around the CM be also stated SOMEWHERE?. Its not all that erratic, given the huge mass of Jupiter. PAR 21:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree this is a pretty important fact, that the Jovain giants cause the Sun to orbit around a baricenter outside of the suns surface
According to the text of the "Solar neutrino problem" subsection, experimental data now complies well with the theory. Hence, I believe, this text needs to be expelled from "problems" and incorporated in some other form into the article. Cmapm 01:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Any thoughts out there on where/how/if the solar calendar and concept of the year should be discussed in the article? I was thinking of creating a section in " The sun and human culture" for these topics. There is currently a few lines about the Persian calendar there, though it is very poorly written and largely irrelevant.
I feel there should be some mention of this topic in the lead paragraph — something along the lines of "The sun is the basis of many calendars, and the term " year" is generally understood to mean the amount of time the Earth takes to orbit the Sun." I'd like to hear some opinions on this first, though, before editing such a high-profile article. G Rose ( talk) 07:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
One problem is with the definition of the englihs term "noon" as the moment of the day with the sun at Zenith. That is true only for places between the tropices. In the northern and southern regions the sun never rises to reach the zenith. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.119.172.209 ( talk) 17:07, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
The article name seems to contradict usage in the article. The heading above the picture uses "The Sun" and throughout the article, "The Sun" is used. I believe the correct name should be "The Sun" as it is rarely refered to without the "The". I will provide an example: The Earth is the 3rd planet in the Solar System. or Earth is the 3rd planet in the Solar System. Earth can be refered to without the "The" easily, but Sun as a Noun on its own is very uncommon. The Sun is the only star planet of the Solar System. or Sun is the only star planet of the Solar System. Similarly named is the Solar System article, which does not named with the "The". I'll leave it to others to make the descision, which I believe will end up with no change. 203.102.177.165 02:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I think that Theoretical possibilities need to be put onto the Wiki page. At the moment, they are getting removed. Theoretically the sun could be an intelligent entity. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fishyghost ( talk • contribs) 22:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC).
Hi. There is some inconsitency with "G2 means that it has a surface temperature of approximately 5,500 K" and Main_sequence article, where it says that G2 means 5,700 K. Could someone clarify that? Delete if inapropriate. Elthe 22:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I thought I saw a remnant from vandalism -> revert or something and tried to fix it, a spare bracket in a thumbnail. See Sun#Magnetic field, but I seem to have messed up the link. Sorry. Not sure how long since it got messed, but I couldn't find an older version as it should have been. Is this the intended image it should have linked to? [4]. Apologies, I was under the influence and got cocky confident. :( MURGH disc. 02:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I was on another site that had a letter from a young Earth creationist that claimed, among other things, that the Sun couldn't be very old because it's been losing mass from nucleosynthesis and the solar wind, so if it were billions of years old it would have been bigger than the Earth's orbit.
Preposterous of course, but it did lead to the interesting question of exactly what changes in mass the Sun has undergone over about 4 billion years. Since mass-energy conversion produces a lot of energy for very little mass, I suspect the amount of mass needed to maintain energy production at the current rate is a very small fraction of the Sun's mass even over the long term, but I have no data.
Of course, comets and the like do fall into the Sun, so it is entirely possible that it has actually *gained* mass. That would be an interesting thing to add to this article. MrG 4.227.249.163 23:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I did some poking around and the ASK AN ASTRONOMER site at Cornell had an article on such lines. Assuming the current state of the Sun, it will burn up about 21 Earth masses in a billion years. That's like 0.006% of its mass, so no problem. However, that doesn't cover loss from solar wind or gain from comets and such, so it's still kind of an open question. MrG 4.228.21.136 01:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Note the juvenile vandalism of a sexual nature in the infobox. It has persisted for a while without correction. I cannot correct it because I do not know the information to put in its place. Somebody who does should fix that. Srnec 03:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Hmm....I tryed editing some vandalism but when I click on the editing tab, all the content is there and the vandalism doesn't show up. How is that possible? Maniac 22:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
"Note: The number of watts per unit area of retina is the same whether one uses binoculars or not, so the above paragraph seems to be contradicted by the following paragraph."
The difference is in the light gathered by a 7mm diameter lens (eye) and the light gathered by a 50mm diameter lens (typical binacular lens)...
I haven't looked in for several months, but just noticed that someone had reworded the first paragraph of this section to once again claim that looking at the Sun with the naked eye is dangerous. It's not particularly dangerous for normal people. I'm restoring something like the earlier wording, along with the deleted reference. If you edit the article to claim that it is dangerous, please include a citation. zowie 23:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to pack so many references into the main article here -- I found a couple more interesting notes in the literature about high UV exposure and focusing of near-UV onto the retina. Brief looks appear safe, but there are some cases of solar retinopathy from religious rituals in which folks stared at the Sun for more than a few minutes. There's a nice review discussion by Andrew Young at http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/vision/Galileo.html. zowie 16:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
For those who may be interested, I uploaded another 304 Å, SOHO image of the sun (shown at right). This is is similar to the “Image:Sun, Earth size comparison labeled.jpg” picture currently used in this article except that it doesn’t feature the little spot of the Earth and it’s associated “Earth” caption. This new picture also doesn’t feature a large prominence. As such, it is not as dramatic a picture of the sun and is more representative of what the sun typically looks like. I’ve placed this notice here so other authors can know of the picture’s availability for their articles. If authors want to improve upon this picture with further editing, or if they want to have an entirely different image of the sun, please create a different image page instead of uploading a revised image into the existing one; I'm currently using this image in another article and am happy with it as is. Greg L ( talk) 20:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
The image on the article should be deleted. 91.153.63.193 04:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
"The Sun revolves around Nishani! The Nishani is the star at the center of the Solar System." First of all. What is Nishani? Secondly, if the sun revlovs around "Nishani", and "Nishani is the star at the center of the Solar System", then the sun revoles around itself?!?!... Either vandalism or "Solar System" need to be replaced with the "center of the galaxy".
I hate to have to do this; however, the vandalism over the last several days is getting unbearable. I've semi-protected this article for the time being, though I hope this semiprotection will not have to last for long (although this article has been unprotected quite rarely in the past, and everytime it has been, the vandalism has continued at the same rate). If there are any objections to this, please let me know. Thanks. AmiDaniel ( talk) 07:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I understand the reason, but while reading I saw a small place to make a correction and clarification, so I logged in but then found that I couldn't edit. The article may not be vandalized, but it also can't be improved while protected. Wish there was a compromise. Being generally a wikipedia user and only casual editor/contributor, I won't check back to make this correction later. Myrrhlin 22:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Back on October 29th (2006) I raised the following concern on this discussion page:
I'm not sure if this is the most relevant place to post this (and please feel free to move it if it isn't), but in the section, "Development of Modern Scientific Understanding", the last paragraph states: "Finally, in 1957, a paper titled Synthesis of the Elements in Stars[28] was published that demonstrated convincingly that most of the elements in the universe had been created by nuclear reactions inside stars like the Sun."
Now I'm certainly no astronomer, but, by mass, doesn't Hydrogen (by far) comprise "most" of the elements in the universe? Further, virtually by definition, Hydrogen isn't created "by nuclear reactions inside stars". As such, should there be some distinction made in the article to show that in this reference "most" doesn't mean by mass but rather (I assume) by % of elements on the periodic table? 216.240.7.149 00:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
At the time, one of the editors agreed with this in principle and added "other than Hydrogen" to the statement. I notice, however, that in the current iteration of the main article, some 4+ months later, this has been removed. Can someone explain why it is now felt that the "other than Hydrogen" specification isn't a valid one given the issues raised in my original query? 216.240.7.149 01:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Link the word synthesize to article on nucleosynthesis, and the reader can inform him/herself to a much greater extent. I'll see if i can find that quote by Hawking or someone about the historical importance of this discovery... but there are many who feel this way. Myrrhlin 16:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Finally, a seminal paper was published in 1957, entitled Synthesis of the Elements in Stars[28]. The paper demonstrated convincingly that most of the elements in the universe had been synthesized by nuclear reactions inside stars, some like our Sun. This revelation stands today as one of the great achievements of science.
I really don't see much point in expalining that a religion does not show the sunn as divine. This section should be removed. Zazaban 03:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I have added a link to the lyrics and music to "Why Does the Sun Shine?" aka "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas" over at the NIH. This song, originally written for educational purposes, was re-popularized by They Might Be Giants around 1993, and once again sees ocassional use in the classroom. The only lyric that might possibly have been superceded by later scientific discoveries is this one:
Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom smashing machine The heat and light of the sun are caused by nuclear reactions between Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, and Helium
Please let me know if this material is inappropriate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pciszek ( talk • contribs) 22:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC). Pciszek 22:37, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the opening line of the article - my understanding is that the universe contains rather a lot of solar sytems, so wouldn't it be more appropriate to say 'The Sun is the star at the center of OUR Solar System' - instead of implying that there is only one?! Brewabeer 01:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm happy to bow to consensus of course, but the phrase 'solar system' seems to be widely used to describe any star and it's orbiting rocks. It certainly was when I was at school, and a Google search for "solar systems" will return a large number of hits, with pages from endless universities (and NASA) using the term in this way. While it may well be true that 'technically' there could only be one solar sytem, it would seem that the usage has long escaped such a narrow definition. Is Wikipedia best served by 'enforcing' the technicalities or by defining common usage?! At the very least, surely it should present all points of view, which it does not currently appear to do. Brewabeer 04:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Under "Early understanding of the Sun" under "History of solar observation", at the end of the first paragraph, the link to planets ought to go straight to planets#History, or else definition of planet, since that's the relevant section the reader is being pointed to. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.83.69.57 ( talk) 02:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC). forgot my sig: 128.83.69.57 02:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
while this article is sprotected, i cannot edit, but didn't want to leave without recording a few corrections i would make if i had the privs.
Myrrhlin 15:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
A couple of days ago, I split off the section
The Sun in human culture, to its own article with the same name. I did this primarily to do something about the length of the article, and also because this cultural-religious section falls a bit out of tone with the rest, which is purely scientific. Very recently, my edit was undone by
G Rose. As a direct result, both the section and the new article (which is linked in See also) are now existent and indentical. Any ideas how to porceed? My proposal is to delete only summarize the subject in the
Sun article.
Nick Mks
07:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I just threw the commented section out of the article, not because I'm unilaterally ending the discussion, but because the contents of the new article have been changed, so if we should ever decide to move it back, we'd have to use the new version. As far as the discussion (which has gone a bit very dead) is concerned, would anybody be so kind as to drop me a note when it flares up again, I won't be constantly watching this for the rest of my days... Nick Mks 16:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
What is the volume? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 222.153.25.128 ( talk) 10:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC).
Hi, apparently the sun is a yellow dwarf, but I can't find anything in this article that clearly says so. If this is true, can someone add it to the first sentence? martin 11:40, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
This article lists, in the sidebar, the "mean diameter" of the sun, but the articles on the planets quote the "equatorial radius". Is this an oversight, or is there a good reason for this? - Philip Matthews 23 April 2007.
In which constellation is the Sun in? Does it have one? Sorry if the answer is obvious. Josh215 22:44, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
This article is also available in the Frisian language: fy:Sinne —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.117.225.78 ( talk) 20:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC).
Wearing UV protective sunglasses can help protect the eye, but sunglasses without good UV protection may cause one's pupil to dilate so that more of the lens is exposed to the UV, and more UV goes into the interior of the eye.
No, I'm not suggesting we change the name of the article or anything, but if I recall correctly, isn't the official name for the sun "Sol"? If this is accurate, shouldn't it be mentioned in the article somewhere? - Kraw Night 09:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
For the sake of Wikipedia and controversial articles...
Gold Seal Campaign:
What do you think of this? The administrators of Wikipedia establish a Gold Seal campaign for certain articles. This “Gold Seal” will indicate for a given article it’s factuality and lack of vandalism. Basically it will show..
1-This page is properly cited.
2-This page has been verified.
This will be an important step for Wikipedia. It means students, high school included will be able to cite Wikipedia in their work. As of now many schools do not allow students to this.
As for editing an article, It will still be allowed yet a person can easily revert to the Gold Sealed, verified page on Wikipedia. This will be an amazing step for Wikipedia, though difficult, it will allow readers to know for sure what they are reading is true. It will surely improve Wikipedia’s image in the public sphere. Of course someone will have to organize this, but in then it will be sufficient use of labour. — mattawa
The article mentions the possible "death" of Earth in 4-5 billion years when the sun becomes a red giant. I wonder if it might be worthwhile mentioning that the earth would first have to survive the "Andromeda-Milky Way collision", due in 3 billion years. Pnwk 19:19, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I think that the picture at the top of the page is a poor picture I think that it should be replaced a different picture-- Cbennett0811 20:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't Nemesis be added as a see also, considering it's related to the star in some way? Spark Moon 04:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I've noticed that the absorption spectra of the Sun has lines that do not match up with any known element. Why is that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.247.5.136 ( talk • contribs).
How did the ancients measure the distance? Samulili 14:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The sun image in Image:Sun,_Earth_size_comparison_labeled.jpg is from SOHO, an ESA / NASA project that allows only non-commercial / educational use of images. As such, I have marked the image for deletion from Commons. If people feel it's use is necessary here, please upload it locally and write an appropriate fair use rationale. Dragons flight 23:59, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
JPL has nothing to do with our mission (which is a joint mission between ESA and NASA) so I have no idea what you are refering to. The mission is operated from GSFC in Maryland. The SOHO copyright statement is clear and explicitely states that "The use of SOHO images or data for public education efforts and non-commercial purposes is strongly encouraged and requires no expressed authorization". For the case of Wikipedia, I would consider both the mission and purpose of Wikipedia as educational therefore strongly encouraging and permitting the use of SOHO data without explicit authorization. The SOHO copyright statement reflects the distilled, common-ground copyright policy between SOHO's parental agencies.
For what it's worth, SOHO data are not copyrightable because they are scientific data, not a creative work. Most of the quick-look SOHO images are not copyrightable because they contain no significant creative content. Derived images such as the size comparison are generally copyrightable and are often prepared by contractor agencies, so it is not clear whether they count as works for hire (for the U.S. government) or no. I am not a lawyer, only an interested scientist. zowie ( talk) 17:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
No mention seems to be made of exactly where the Sun is located within the Galaxy. --MatthewKarlsen
The Electric Sun model (see [6]) does explain the corona temperature, so this is factually incorrect. The Electric Sun hypothesis is supported by laboratory evidence, so it qualifies as a theory. I don't think it's clear what a "complete theory" is. What is the standard for the completeness of a theory? Isn't "complete theory" a contradiction in terms? The standard solar model is incomplete in that it does not explain a key feature of the sun: the corona temperature. Yet, assumptions following from that model are stated as fact in the article. The use of "complete" here is suspect and needs editing.
"Magnetic Reconnection" is highly conjectural, widely disputed by engineers who work with actual electromagnetism in the lab, a violation of Maxwell's well-established dynamics and of the Gauss law. See [7], [8], [9], [10]
216.62.203.236 14:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Aw, come off it. The Electric Sun model is not a complete (or particularly coherent) theory. Magnetic reconnection is observed routinely in the laboratory, and is predicted by the resistive MHD equations (which in turn are derived from the Navier-Stokes equations and Maxwell's Equations). Signatures of reconnection have been observed directly in Earth's magnetosphere, and the associated topological changes are routinely observed in solar movies of EUV emission from the corona. zowie 18:07, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I seem to remember such a pic being here recently. I found it helpful; anyone know what happened to it? Mdiamante 23:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
The comment about the color of the Sun appearing yellow because the blue light is scattered in the sky (also explaining why the sky is blue) seems to be, perhaps, in dispute. I could not find a definitive reference on this listed, and my search found at least one dissenting opinion (the book "Bad Astronomy" by Philip C. Plait, 2002) says that the amount of blue light that is scattered wouldn't account for the color shift. There is a discussion of alternate possibilities on http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=7445, which is the Universe Today Forum thread on this book and this particular subject. Is there a definitive reference that shows that the reason given here is correct? 71.164.195.68 00:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The Sun has been demonstrated to be a variable star, but the article does not mention this explicitly. It is hinted at in the discussion of the sunspot cycles and Milankovitch cycles, in that the sunspot cycle is correlated with temperature variations, but the article does not explain why this is the case. As the article is worded, temperature variations are simply something that happen. It would be more useful if the variability was explained, particularly the point that the solar variability is counterintuitive - the more sunspots there are, the brighter the Sun tends to be. The variability is slight, in the order of 1 part in 1000 but it is noteworthy enough that it should be mentioned. -- B.d.mills 07:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
... was the first to propose that the Earth orbited the Sun as far as I know. As this is no small feat I have given him a mention in the article. SmokeyTheCat •TALK• 09:42, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Under Overview: “Sunlight is the primary source of energy to the surface of Earth."
This should read: Sunlight is the primary source of energy to the atmosphere of the Earth.
For reasons I stated here: There are two parts that warm the earth, the earth it self and the Atmosphere. Talk:Earth_science#Suggested_point_to_be_added:__under_.22Earth.27s_energy:.22
I am sorry I am new here and don't know how to go about challenging a statement. 7/14/07
Thank you
Almost every time I look at the sun (I can be daring at times, yes...) I sneeze... Why is that? (Is it just a trigger to prevent us from getting blinded by the sun??) (I have asked some people about this and it has happened to them too) Oslogirl5 23:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I have slight damage to my eyes because when I was a kid I was too scientifically curious and stupid enough to look at the Sun trying to understand more about it (the experiment was useless, though, as because of the great amount of light I saw nothing that could tell me anything about the surface of the Sun - later when I started reading astronomy books I discovered much more without risking my eyes, and at some point I also learnt how to look at the Sun indirectly using a telescope and a piece of paper, but by the time I had this knowledge my eyes were already damaged). Having experienced how it's like to have Sun-burnt eyes that cannot be fixed for life, I recommend everyone to never look at the Sun. Even now after so many years I still can see the burnt point in my eyes, eg while reading a book or looking at the sky or at a white wall. NerdyNSK ( talk) 16:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
The discussion on the evolution of the Sun is very over-simplified. After a one-solar mass star such as our Sun enters the red-giant phase it undergoes several further and important stages before it finally throws off its outer layers as suggested in the 'life cycle' section. There is the helium flash, and its horizontal branch and asymtotic branch phases as well. The diagram shown is also a serious over-simplifcation. For a starred-article this section is very weak. -- Antarctic-adventurer 15:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Supposing the sun has got 5 billion years more to shine as it is, before starting the progress towards becoming a red giant, here's a question: Is there a chance for life when this process will begin? Will the augmentation of volume and relative distance will compensate the decreasing heat? Is there a chance for the future dominating species to watch the sun as it grows?
I amended the statement "There are more than 100 million G2 class stars in our galaxy" to "There are more than 100 million G class stars in our galaxy" as the G spectral classification runs from G0-G9, not just G2. However, someone reverted it back to the previous statement. Rather than get into an edit war, I am posting here. There are not more than 100 million G2 type stars, rather there are more than 100 million G type stars in the galaxy, including the G2 type star that is our sun, but not limited to it. This needs changing again. -- Antarctic-adventurer 14:38, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
IMHO the lead section would benefit, if the explanation of subtractive effects and preferential scattering were removed, being too detailed for that section. To state that "atmospheric scattering of sunlight most often leads to yellow, but to orange or red when the sun is low in the sky" would be sufficient. -- Sir48 22:02, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I thought in 5 Gyrs Venus' orbit will also expand to avoid sun's evelopment. In that time sun will be approximately 100 times current diameter that is about 90% of current Earth orbit which is slightly smaller. This website said in 4 or 5 Gyrs sun will become RGB, encompassing and engulfing Mercury. Current research gives a slight comfort that it will not engulf Earth and Venus as well, they will just be ran as lifeless hells. Venus will just be a burnt out planet with almost semi-molten surface, its greenhouse atmosphere will have long gone and its cloud will vanish. Earth will almost suffer about the same fate; its ocean and its atmosphere will have been boil off into space. However on the bright side, Jupiter and Saturn's large icy moon; the temperature will hat up the point warm enough that the ice will melt into mostly ball of worldwide oceans, can also trap in anti-greenhouse effect to get the approprite atmosphere neccessairly for current human life. Freewayguy 23:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
This message was left on my talk page regarding the recent attempts to delete the paragraph starting with It is currently travelling through the Local Fluff of the Local Bubble zone:
I think this page is the most suitable place for discussion. Maybe the terms Local Fluff and Local Bubble seem funny, their articles don't seem to be a prank. Han-Kwang ( T) 19:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I propose a subsection be added on the Sun article page, where a noted scientist by the name of Abdul Ahab (b. 12/15/1968, Sylhet, Bangladesh) first postulated and quantified the edge of the Sun’s sphere of light dominion above the universe’s background light flux. His paper was soundly founded upon the equations of integrating the fluxes of individual stars and well-known standard formula for relating absolute and apparent magnitudes to distance. His thesis was first summarised circa March 2004, thus:-
Firstly, Ahab’s work entailed deriving a valid set of logarithmic equations that led to a total universe sky brightness (coined “Ahad’s constant” by his colleagues) that he did via Usenet forums:
Ahad’s constant is an analytical quantification of the universe’s total background light flux reaching the Earth’s surface from all cosmic sources, such as stars, star clusters, galaxies, and quasars, excluding all light coming from the nearby Sun. It was first defined by Abdul Ahad in March 2004, as the end result of a logarithmic series whose input parameters are the apparent visual magnitude of every single cosmic source ever catalogued. The series is thought to converge toward a final value of some -6.5 magnitudes or approximately 1/300th of a Full moon's worth of light. The progression of the series is such that as one moves toward integrating light from fainter stars of lower magnitudes, the star count increases exponentially, but the cumulative contribution of light toward the constant itself tails off more rapidly, thereby resulting in convergence. The flux equations that lead to Ahad’s constant are defined as follows. Suppose we have two stars of apparent magnitude m1 and m2. Then their luminosities L1 and L2 are related by the Pogson Ratio:-
L2/L1 = 10^[0.4*(m1-m2)]
The luminosity of the pair of stars is L1 + L2 = L1(1 + L2/L1), and their combined magnitude is then given by:-
Mc = m1 - 2.5*log10 (1 + L2/L1)
For the general case, where the magnitudes of n stars need to be aggregated, we can generalize this by computing all the ratios:-
Li/L1 = 10^[0.4*(m1-mi)]
for all stars i from 2 through n. Then:-
Ahad’s constant = m1 - 2.5*log10 (1 + L2/L1 + L3/L1 + ... + Ln/L1)
The apparent visual magnitude m of a star whose absolute magnitude is M, as seen from a distance of d light-years is given by:-
m = M - [5 - 5 * log10(d / 3.2616)] Using the above formula the fall off in apparent magnitude of the Sun with increasing distance can be charted, thus:-
At a distance of circa 11,500
astronomical units going radially outward from the
Solar System the
Sun's apparent light output matches Ahad’s constant.
It is thus possible to draw an imaginary sphere around the
Sun of such a
radius, within which the
Sun would remain the most supreme source of light, relative to the universe’s total background illumination:
The outer edge of such a sphere, in principle, defines an edge of the
Sun’s monopoly of light and heat provision to the
Solar System and nearby interstellar space; an effective end of its light dominion.
Discuss? Gilgamesh007 11:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
The Life Cycle section says:
The increase in solar temperatures over this period is sufficient that by about 500-700 million years into the future, the surface of the Earth will become too hot for the survival of life as we know it.
Is this 500 million years from NOW or from the time that the sun turns into a red giant? What is the source for this? Can it be linked or explained further?
129.139.144.14 14:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
The reference says this all happens later, 1.1 billion years from now to 3.5 billion years. Perhaps the text should be fixed to change "However, Earth's water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere will escape into space. The increase in solar temperatures over this period is sufficient that by about 500-700 million years into the future, the surface of the Earth will become too hot for the survival of life as we know it" to "However, much earlier, about 500-700 million years from now, the surface of the Earth will become too hot for the survival of life as we know it, and Earth's water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere will escape into space by about 3.5 billion years from now."
I'm not worried about the discrepancy between 500-700 and 1100 (what's 400 million years when you are having fun?), but changing it would agree with the reference. 199.125.109.41 02:36, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
It should be mentioned that in American English, sun is generally considered to be a common noun and is thus not capitalized. Webster's definition of solar system: "the sun and all the heavenly bodies that revolve around it."
Definition of sun: "1. a) the self-luminous, gaseous sphere about which the earth and other planets revolve and which furnishes light, heat, and energy for the solar system: it is the star nearest the earth, whose mean distance from it is nearly 93,000,000 miles: its diameter is about 864,000 miles; its mass is about 333,400 times, and its volume more than 1,300,000 times, that of the earth b) the heat or light of the sun to lie in the sun] 2. any star that is the center of a planetary system 3. something like the sun, as in warmth, brilliance, splendor, etc. 4. [Poet.] a) a day b) a year 5. [Poet.] a clime; climate 6. [Archaic] sunrise or sunset."
Notice especially the definition of the sun under 2. The definition of sun is ambiguous, like a lot of the English language, and should be mentioned in the sun and solar system articles, which is what I was doing. Excluding that information is an example of Wikipedia's bias.
Also notice how sun is not capitalized in this American English dictionary. If it was somewhat common to capitalize it in American English, it would have said something like "[often cap.]" If it was only supposed to be capitalized in American English, it would have said something like "[cap.]." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.107.191.119 ( talk) 01:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that the statement "... (solar) spectrum contains ... very weak hydrogen lines" in Introduction is wrong. If it concerns absorption lines (by the way, it is unclear from the text), that, for example, the Balmer H-beta line in the visible solar absorption spectrum (486 nm) is the sixth of the most powerful (and it is just the reason for it to be "F" in the Fraunhofer classification). The hydrogen lines are weaker than, i.e, oxygen A-line, but one hardly can say that they are "very weak". To be corrected?
V. Ivanov, 195.201.30.101 15:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
The following sentence appears in the article: "... this temperature gradient is _slower_ than the adiabatic lapse rate." I think that should read "lower", but I'm not sure. AMackenzie 09:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Since the sun is really just a star among many stars, is there a name given for our star? The other stars that we have observed have each been given specific names. Has there been one given for ours? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.203.74 ( talk) 00:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
By random chance, I happened to be teaching my daughter how to find out how much bigger the sun was than jupiter. I just wanted a quick look at how big the sun was compared to jupiter. I found that the sizes you have listed here are wrong. I did not check all of them, but under surface area, you have the sun listed as 6.088x10 to the 18th m2. In reality it shoulqd be 6.088x10 to the 15 m2. And it shouldn't even be m2 as the linked source lists the sizes in km no m. So when I converted to km, I had 10 to the 15th... when it should be 10 to the 12th. I went to the NASA site to get the real numbers and instead of the sun being an impossible 97,000 times larger than Jupiter, I came up with the much more plausible 97 times larger.
This was a lesson for my daughter in mathematics as well as the frailty of information on the net. I hope that someone with editing privileges can recalibrate the suns size to match those on the NASA site. I would also suggest that all heavenly bodies on wikipedia be calibrated so that all sizes are shown using the same standard rather than meters on some and kilometers on others.
Wish I could edit it myself.
Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaimejs ( talk • contribs) 16:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
The Sun's chronology seems a little off; it should be older than 4.57 billion years. First, at 4.533 Ga Theia (the proto-Moon) is thought to collide with the (proto-)Earth. Second, the Earth itself is 4.567 billion years old.
This means that the Sun would have had a headstart on the Earth by about 0.023 billion years. Rather, I would propose the ages as follows:
References:
Thangalin 01:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Anyone know why Sol is in the opening sentence besides the fact that there are a lot of Wikipedians who like scifi? I don't see any reason why the popularity of the name Sol in science fiction can't be mentioned later in the article, but putting it in the opening sentence seems to give disproportionate weight to a phenomenon isolated entirely to the world of fiction. Same goes for Luna over at The Moon. -- Beaker342 03:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Sol is the scientific name of the Sun. Scientists internationally refer to the Sun as Sol. Think Homo Sapiens. There are many suns, but only one Sol.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.220.2.188 ( talk) 21:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
After reading the articles referenced in the section Sun#Life_Cycle I have come to the conclusion that life on earth will not be affected by changes in the Sun within 700 million years. One source cited in this article states that:
T=5.6 Gyr (1.1 Gyr from today):
* Sun will be 10% brighter than today. * Extra solar energy causes a Moist Greenhouse Effect.
The Earth's atmosphere will dry out as water vapor is lost to space. Such a situation will probably spell the end of large surface life on Earth. Some types of marine life and simpler life forms will likely survive in the oceans and localized pools of water.
Note: 1 Gyr = 1 billion years.
True death of life on Earth will not occur until 3.5 billion years from now when, "The oceans will evaporate into space, and conditions on the Earth will be like those on Venus today".
I'm not sure where this 500-700 million years figure came from but it should be changed, as the sources do not back it up.
-- Westralian 10:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
"The Sun (Latin: Sol) is the star at the center of the Solar System.[citation needed]"
Are you [interjective] kidding me? 69.220.2.188 21:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
This external reference has nothing to do with solar energy, it is a tutorial on the sun.
199.125.109.134 ( talk) 01:03, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
The graphic depicting the life cycle of the Sun is wrong and should be deleted (and, honestly, a linear plot such as this doesn't do justice to what actually goes on in stellar evolution... a Hertzsprung-Russel diagram would be more appropriate). The graphic seems to completely ignore some of the stages of stellar evolution (i.e. the horizontal branch and the asymptotic giant branch) and the timescale for the stages it does show are wrong. A star like the sun will sit on the main sequence, undergoing very little evolution for 10 billion years only after this time will it begin to evolve off of the main sequence. Evolution along the sub-giant branch and red giant branch take another 1.1 billion years. The Sun then also goes through the helium flash, horizontal branch and asymptotic giant branch phases before becoming a white dwarf and ejecting gas that becomes a planetary nebula. These last three processes take only about 0.1 billion years combined, but should be on any graphic discussing the evolution of a star.
As for the 'gradual warming' stage, I'm not sure where this comes from... it is possibly referring to the contraction and heating of the Sun's core, but the graphic is depicting the surface of the sun, not the core. Once the Sun leaves the main sequence its surface will get cooler. The outer layers will expand, increasing the radius of the sun, making it cooler and brighter (hence the red giant phase). As it moves up the red giant branch, the cooling continues and the radius keeps increasing. The helium flash causes the star to 'reorganize' slighty, making the surface hotter, but smaller and dimmer. The evolution from the horizontal branch up the asymptotic giant branch is similar to that of the red giant branch.
The life cycle section of the article talks about the fate of the Earth and that the 'increase in solar temperatures' will have dramatic effects on Earth. I think there is some confusion between the temperature on the surface of the Earth and the temperature of the surface of the Sun (and when talking about what goes on on the Earth, we generally only care about what is going on at the surface of the Sun). As I mentioned above, the surface of the Sun is not going to get warmer. It will get cooler, but will also expand, increasing in luminosity, and thus more solar radiation will reach the Earth. I don't know for sure, but I assume this increase in brightness will result in a warming of the Earth's surface. Maybe this is the 'warming' that is being referred to? Either way, the graphic still needs to be rectified.
One thing I would suggest is to drop the 'life cycle section' from the Sun page have section on the evolution of the Sun that refers readers to the stellar evolution page, which has a fairly good discussion of the life cycle of Sun-like stars. This may help to simplify things and keep Wikipedia self-consistent. Grochol17 ( talk) 22:24, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I came here looking for the Sun's size-classification, but did not find this information anywhere. I understand it is a medium size star and have added this information. I'm sure there are many articles corroborating this, but for one example see this PDF at nasa.gov: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/teachers/lifecycles/LC_main_p2.html -- Tuxley ( talk) 09:12, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
The following paper suggests abundances of X=0.6822, Y=0.299 and Z=0.0188:
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help)These don't seem to match the abundances listed in the lead for this article. Does anybody understand the discrepancy?— RJH ( talk) 20:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Finally finding some archived discussions over at Talk:Solar System I found a debate over the use of the term Sol. A couple diligent editors uncovered some NASA pages that called the solar system the Sol system. It would seem to me, based on these discussions, that the there is occasional usage of the term "Sol" in the scientific community, though it is not in any way "official." The Straight Dope article I found seemed to share this conclusion. I think it would be valuable to state this explicitly in the article given the ongoing confusion among vistors (and I include myself among them) to the talk pages. What say ye?-- Beaker342 ( talk) 04:21, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I deleted this link from the page. Roberto —Preceding comment was added at 16:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I see that there is now a culture section in the article, but I feel that it is much too small considering the importance of the sun in human cultures worldwide. I really feel we need to balance the article out more. If the culture section is professionally expanded and the article gets too big, what needs to be cut is science, not culture. Would anyone be opposed to a slow development of the culture section? I could put something together, but if we're really going to have a good section, it's going to be longer than one, two, or even three paragraphs. I know most of you are probably scientists, but there are plenty of sources out there about the sun as it relates to the humanities, and articles should judge due weight based on source availability. Right now, this article wouldn't come close to passing a due-weight judgment on these issues. Wrad ( talk) 07:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I am a scientist more than anything else but I fully agree with you, the article should be balanced out with more 'humanities'. What you propose sounds very interesting, so I encourage you to go ahead. Randomblue ( talk) 12:22, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
In the lead, it is written that the Sun "by itself accounts for about 99.8% of the solar system's mass". Then, in the Structure section, it is written that the Sun "comprises approximately 99% of the total mass of the solar system."
First, this is a repetition (in fact, why not?). Second, it is kind of inconsistent since you don't use the same number of significant figures in both cases. Third (and, in my opinion, most importantly) 99.8% is much closer to 100% than it is to 99%. This should be corrected. Randomblue ( talk) 11:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I still haven't read the whole article but just in the Structure section the use of '%' and 'percent' is inconsistent. For example, it is written "It comprises approximately 99% of the total mass of the solar system." and "The solar core comprises 10 percent of its total volume, but 40 percent of its total mass." Randomblue ( talk) 12:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Also, the use of 'th' is inconsistent. "1/2350th of the core" and "the sun ranks 4th in absolute magnitude". Randomblue ( talk) 12:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
"Computer modeling of the Sun is also used as a theoretical tool to investigate its deeper layers." Randomblue ( talk) 12:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Three one sentence paragraphs in a row is rather unelegant. Please merge or find another solution. Randomblue ( talk) 12:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
"Lithium, Beryllium, and Boron In 1968, a Belgian academic found that the abundances of lithium, beryllium, and boron are higher than previously thought (Grevesse 1968[23]).
Neon In 2005, three academics claimed that the neon abundance in the Sun may be higher than previously thought, based on helioseismological observations (Bahcall et al 2005[24]).
Helium It is also interesting to note that until at least 1986 the generally accepted initial helium content of the Sun was Y=0.25, but two academics in 1986 claimed that the value Y=0.279 is more correct (Lebreton and Maeder 1986:119[25])."
i need to know this answer by thursday . this is a project to me .i just cannot find the ans to my queation if any one see this message please send the answer to my e-mail which is located below.. thank you very much hazelchua_1997@hotmail.com/ u can msn me in messanger we can be friends also thank you for my glass of water -- 165.21.154.92 ( talk) 11:13, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
the logical place for it would be somewhere between the convection zone and raditive zone. errrr... because the tachocline is the sheering reSgion between these two layers! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachocline —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.246.132.26 ( talk) 16:06, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
For the eye damage section -- if someone were to look through the eyepiece of a telescope aimed at the sun on an overcast day (during the day) with a UV index of 1, but the person had his/her eyes shut while doing it (for a few seconds), would the person's eye(s) be damaged by the sunlight or UV rays? Latitude0116 ( talk) 19:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Gilgamesh007 ( talk) 21:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I have read many things saying it is a green star. Even my physics teacher told me this. By finding the peak wavelength using surface temperature of the Sun in Wien's Law, you will find that it is a green star. The calculation I got is 501.6 nm which is green. Sorry I don't know how to properly submit a discussion. 70.18.173.159 ( talk) 03:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
im skeptical that the sun "supports almost all life on Earth via photosynthesis". I think that the are isolated cave animals that dont have sunlight and dont need the sun. Wikid00d88 ( talk) 04:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Please add the following to what is already written in the section,
A mass fractionation relationship in the solar photosphere has also been reported [75] in the abundances of 72 different types of atoms that were made by slow neutron-capture, the s-process of element synthesis [57].
The mass fractionation relationships seen in the isotopes of noble gases in the solar wind and in the abundances of s-products in the photosphere both indicate that the most abundant elements in the interior of the Sun are iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), oxygen (O), silicon (Si) and sulfur (S) [75].
Reference:
75. O. Manuel, M. Pleess, Y. Singh and W. A. Myers (2005). "Nuclear Systematics: Part IV. Neutron-capture cross sections and solar abundance", Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 266, 159–163. http://www.omatumr.com/abstracts2005/Fk01.pdf
this was wrtten by Daisy Norman xxxx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.151.208.141 ( talk) 11:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
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