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Hey guys, one of you must put a caption under that new photo. What good is a blue sun photo; if no one knows what they're looking at. Come on..heads up guys. Pocketthis ( talk) 01:40, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I have never edited a document on Wikipedia and I have only just created an account. I did so because I think there's something wrong under the heading "Earth's fate" and it needs to be fixed. The very first sentence under the heading states that "Earth's fate is certain." However as the paragraph continues, Earth's definitive fate is not provided and there are a number of words like 'probably', 'suggests', 'if', and 'possibly'; words to the effect that Earth's fate isn't as certain as the first sentence would have us believe. Even if the paragraph didn't contain those words though, I still think it would be dubious to state, with absolute certainty, what is going to happen to the Earth several billions years from now. FillsHerTease ( talk) 07:45, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Is [1.392684×10^6 km] really so necessary that the much more obvious and easier to read [1,392,684 km] cannot be used? 74.235.197.171 ( talk) 00:39, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
In the section about the solar core, there is a "citation needed" sign next to the core temperature of 15.7 million kelvin. You can use citation [48] for that as well; but I can't seem to edit that article. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awumnox ( talk • contribs) 09:54, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
The following sentence is ungrammatical:
"However, since the Sun formed, the helium and heavy elements have settled out of the photosphere. Therefore, the photosphere now contains slightly less helium and only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun did; the protostellar Sun was 71.1% hydrogen, 27.4% helium, and 1.5% metals."
It would be better written like this:
However, since the Sun formed, helium and heavy elements have settled out of the photosphere. Therefore, the photosphere now contains slightly less helium than the protostellar Sun and contains only 84% of the protostellar Sun's heavy elements. The protostellar Sun was 71.1% hydrogen, 27.4% helium, and 1.5% metals.
My reasoning -- First, "the helium" should just be "helium" because the author is not talking about any particular helium, just helium in the photosphere. This is a minor gripe; however, there is no reason to add an extra word. Second, "slightly less helium and only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun did." This is not a minor mistake. It is okay to say "slightly less helium than the protostellar Sun" but not okay to say "only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun," which is the way it reads when both phrases are connected with the conjunction "and."
In addition, the verb "did" is redundant because the protostellar Sun does not exist anymore; therefore the past tense is implied. It is also not parallel since the verb being used is "contain." "Contained" could be used instead of "did," which would be parallel, but again, why add an extra word?
Also, it is not clear what the protostellar Sun is since it is not introduced anywhere in the article. The author simply starts discussing it as if everyone should just know what it is. The introductory sentence for the paragraph could be written like this: "The Sun inherited its chemical composition from the interstellar medium out of which it formed into a protostellar Sun." Ron012 ( talk) 11:25, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
This
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The following sentence (under Chemical composition) is ungrammatical:
"However, since the Sun formed, the helium and heavy elements have settled out of the photosphere. Therefore, the photosphere now contains slightly less helium and only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun did; the protostellar Sun was 71.1% hydrogen, 27.4% helium, and 1.5% metals."
It would be better written like this:
However, since the Sun formed, helium and heavy elements have settled out of the photosphere. Therefore, the photosphere now contains slightly less helium than the protostellar Sun and contains only 84% of the protostellar Sun's heavy elements. The protostellar Sun was 71.1% hydrogen, 27.4% helium, and 1.5% metals.
My reasoning -- First, "the helium" should just be "helium" because the author is not talking about any particular helium, just helium in the photosphere. This is a minor gripe; however, there is no reason to add an extra word. Second, "slightly less helium and only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun did." This is not a minor mistake. It is okay to say "slightly less helium than the protostellar Sun" but not okay to say "only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun," which is the way it reads when both phrases are connected with the conjunction "and."
In addition, the verb "did" is redundant because the protostellar Sun does not exist anymore; therefore the past tense is implied. It is also not parallel since the verb being used is "contain." "Contained" could be used instead of "did," which would be parallel, but again, why add an extra word?
Also, it is not clear what the protostellar Sun is since it is not introduced anywhere in the article. The author simply starts discussing it as if everyone should just know what it is. The introductory sentence for the paragraph could be written like this: "The Sun inherited its chemical composition from the interstellar medium out of which it formed into a protostellar Sun." Ron012 ( talk) 11:19, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
I am on my phone and ask that someone fix this for me
" The radiative zone and the convection form a transition layer, the tachocline" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1010:B106:CDC9:74CF:8CE6:5FE:29A7 ( talk) 19:20, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
I think the point is that it is TOO opaque. Maybe the clause should be cut out enitrely?
"the solar plasma is not dense enough or hot enough to transfer the thermal energy of the interior outward through radiation; in other words it is opaque enough" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.100.214.111 ( talk) 19:37, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Me again. I haven't got the expertise (or a keyboard) to do this myself but I see that the following sentence is outdated, there is no bow shock:
The heliosphere, which may be considered the tenuous outer atmosphere of the Sun, extends outward past the orbit of Pluto to the heliopause, where it forms a sharp shock front boundary with the interstellar medium. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1010:B106:CDC9:74CF:8CE6:5FE:29A7 ( talk) 21:01, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
I have significantly expanded the section of the life stages of the sun. Mostly this discusses the post-main sequence stages. The pre-main sequence stage seems OK, and the main sequence stage is "now" so not much more to discuss, The context for this is that there are various article sections all over the place about the "fate of the earth", "sun as a red giant", etc., which it seemed should be pulled together into one place and then linked from all the other articles. The main impetus was the large section Red_giant#The_Sun_as_a_red_giant.5B15.5D.5B16.5D.5B17.5D in the small article Red giant. If this location and text (no doubt still needing tweaks) is acceptable, I will then cut down sections such as Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System#The_Sun_and_planetary_environments and Future_of_the_Earth#Red_giant_stage and link them here. Lithopsian ( talk) 22:19, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
The section on potential eye damage from observing the sun is completely inaccurate, lacking in any scientific credibility, and just repeats the anecdotal warnings passed down through the generations. Surely we can do better without giving anybody ideas that would blind them. For example, the whole retinal intensity thing is wrong. No optical instrument produces a retinal intensity higher than that of the naked eye. The total energy passing into the eye can be higher, and the energy intensity at the cornea/iris/lens can be enormous with a small exit pupil, but that's not what the article describes. To quote something specific, the idea that binoculars can deliver 500 times as much energy to the retina as the naked eye is wrong. Total energy delivered to the eye is in the region of 50 times the naked eye (simply aperture divided by pupil size, squared), intensity on the retina as already mentioned is slightly less than the naked eye (aperture divided by pupil size, squared, divided by magnification squared, or more simply the exit pupil size divided by the pupil size, squared), and intensity at the exit pupil is of the order of 50 times (due to low magnification, telescopes can be much much higher). Lithopsian ( talk) 22:22, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ao/abstract.cfm?id=18060 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02476660?LI=true Lithopsian ( talk) 11:00, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Everyone has been assuming that the image of the Sun is well-focused on the retina. This is true in the visible part of the spectrum, but it is badly wrong in the infrared and ultraviolet. The cornea, lens, etc., of the eys blur the IR and UV from the Sun so it is spread over a much larger area of the retina than the sharp image, which greatly reduces its intensity per unit area. If the image is magnified by binoculars or whatever, the blurring still occurs, but its main effect is around the edge of the image. Near the centre, it only slightly reduces the intensity. So using binoculars does increase the amount of energy per unit area on the retina.
It's interesting to speculate that the eye's mis-focusing of IR and UV may have evolved because it reduces the damage caused by looking at the Sun.
DOwenWilliams ( talk) 18:16, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
I have some serious doubt about the accuracy of the title of this image:
First I doubt that plasma has a filamentary nature. Second, I thought the matter at the outer part of the sun were atomic or ionic in nature not completely stripped of their electrons. And I wonder if those are filaments of ions following the lines of the electric fields generated by the magnetic fields. Someone needs to track down the original photo or ask a person more deeply involved in physics Zedshort ( talk) 00:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
For now, I restored the deleted paragraph removed "because its info is covered fully elsewhere". I can see it doesn't belong where it is in Core characteristics. But that paragraph completes the end of the "photon's tale" and "neutrinos tale" from the paragraph above it. Better 1) move the (cited and linked featured paragraph, but deleted) paragraph to Convection zone as a lead in from there to Photosophere, or best 2)move both paragraphs to Radiative zone. — Cpiral Cpiral 02:28, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Existing sentence: "The photosphere is the last visible layer as those above it are too cool or too thin to radiate a significant amount of light to be visible to the naked eye"
Propose replacing the word "significant" with "sufficient" so the sentence will read: "The photosphere is the last visible layer as those above it are too cool or too thin to radiate a sufficient amount of light to be visible to the naked eye"
Additionally, the phrase "visible to the naked eye" is ambiguous. I suspect that this is referring to what can be observed at visible wavelengths. If so, the sentence should say that and should be further changed to read: "The photosphere is the last visible layer as those above it are too cool or too thin to radiate a sufficient amount of light to be observable in light at wavelengths visible to humans"
TerribleTadpole ( talk) 00:31, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
I can't tell if this statement is trying to sound like a textbook or what. It makes no sense. RocketLauncher2 ( talk) 09:52, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
At the end of the first paragraph of section Convective zone it says: "At the photosphere, the temperature has dropped two 5,700 K and the density two only 0.2 g/m3 (about 1/6, 000th the density of air at sea level).[48 ]". But the source says, "At the visible surface the temperature has dropped two 5,700 K and the density is only 0.0000002 gm/cm3 (about 1/10, 000th the density of air at sea level)" [3]. 84.202.218.13 ( talk) 10:26, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
With the planet Mercury having a large iron core and being the closest planet to the Sun, will our star supernova, or proceed directly to a white dwarf, soon after it envelops the planet Mercury in a few million years? I would think that as soon as the iron and nickel from Mercury is incorporated into the Sun it will quickly migrate to the core of the star, due to it's density, and interrupt the exothermic fusion process through photodisintegration or some other mechanism. In summary, will the endothermic nature of iron and nickel halt the helium fusion chain reaction, and if so, what happens next? -- NJB ( talk) 13:35, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Sun, or Sól, is the de facto name given to the star at the center of our Solar System.— HamiltonFromAbove ( talk) 03:50, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
In the article entitled "Sun" it states that the sun is roughly 150 million kilometers from Earth (1.5 billion meters). Later in the same article it states that light from the sun takes about eight minutes to get to Earth. Since the speed of light is roughly 300 million meters per second, either light must reach the earth in five minutes, or the distance to the sun averages 2.4 billion meters. I understand that the distance to the sun varies throughout the orbital period of the Earth, but these two statements are not mathematically coherent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtchdrmd ( talk • contribs) 16:55, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank you - foolish errors, and I am appropriately embarrassed. The numbers now work as stated in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtchdrmd ( talk • contribs) 18:48, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
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It seems to be the position of 'pop-science' in past decades. Scientists look more and more like salesmen trying to pedal their latest theory. If they don't state it in strong grammar that portrays their position as absolute fact, they fear they might lose popularity. Really. Isn't that it? Eg. the entirely speculative theory about the sun's origin... here's the real physics folks. In general things in space don't collide, they travel in hyperbolic or elliptical paths around one another. It is possible that collisions will happen and it's possible that a variety of things will dogpile at once and accumulate as this article says absolutely happened. It just is unlikely HOWEVER that isn't how we know this isn't how it happened. We know it didn't happen this way by evaluating solar wind energy and seeing what variety of particles would have been moved from the region. As it turns out, I seem to recall a few mm of Al density material would still be hanging around. This is a massive problem for the theory posted (as fact)... because think about it. THis mass of material comes together in a swirling mass. Wouldn't there naturally be a distribution of LESS obstructed matter continuing to orbit? That's kind of how things generally work right? Unless..some creator say INJECTED the right amount of material. But naturalistically we'd expect a vast variety of material that would dither down in density as collisions occurred and the matter lost orbital status and became part of the future sun. BUT ONCE THE DENSITY GOT TO A CERTAIN POINT, then there would be insufficient collision potential and eventually a mass of material would be found in orbit. And some would just continue on a hyperbolic path perhaps. But IF the sun formed...IF that huge mass came together there SHOULD be a large distribution of material that didn't wind up in it but did wind up in orbital paths. Then the sun ignites and solar wind drives out the less dense materials. However again if we do the calculations which are on my web page as I recall, and are easy to do... we find there should be a distribution of material that was NOT driven out. And not just in the asteroid belt but all over the region. Obviously planets (wherever they came from. One's spinning the wrong way so an accretion in a disk scenario doesn't work for that either) would clear their orbital paths of debris. But our probes do NOT find sufficient density of ANYTHING to promote the 'theory' that is promoted as FACT by whoever wrote that article or part of the article. I haven't even read the rest. Let me know when a person who has at least done well in upper level physics courses like E+M and CLassical Mechanics has been given oversight of the page. Really..wiki is a joke on subjects like this because it's always some person who just doesn't have the background to FACT CHECK.... before they state things AS fact.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sounddoctorin ( talk • contribs) 23:39, 9 July 2013
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Just reading this article for the first time -- really brilliant (like the subject...) and very well written, cited, documents. Complements on creating this FA. I was wondering though if the lede (and some parts later) might be improved by eliminating some of the specifics that are dealt with later in the article and if the non-astronomical encyclopedic aspects of the Sun could be given more emphasis. For instance, there is an explanation of spectral class label indications in the lede ("the spectral class label, G2 indicates its surface temperature of approximately 5778 K (5505 °C), and V indicates that the Sun...") but only at the end is the Sun's role in photosynthesis or its significance in human thought and belief mentioned (again, written quite well, but somewhat hidden after a discussion of cosmic background radiation, etc.). The sun's orbit and the galactic north pole is mentioned, but the fact that earth and the other planets orbit it is not. It would be good if eclipse were defined briefly somewhere in the article (I know that there are other articles that describe it well, but sun seems a good place to start), since a number of times the effects of eclipses on our ability to observe are mentioned. Thanks for listening. Best, -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 21:35, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
29-07-2013 In the article it is stated the Sun orbits at a distance of 24-26,000 light years from the galactic centre, but according to a search entered on NASA's website the distance is approximately 50,000 light years to the centre of the galaxy from Earth. An expert in editing Wikipedia should check this for accuracy and edit the article with the correction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.100.54.203 ( talk) 13:00, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I removed the chart at "File:Solar Life Cycle.svg" since it seems out-of-date. Here's my understanding based on the cited sources, especially [4], please correct me if I'm wrong:
1. The Sun exits the main sequence around 10BY, because the core hydrogen fusion is mainly finished and hydrogen fusion takes place mainly in a shell around the core. (I'd guess the technical criterion is based on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram?)
2. The Sun is a subgiant from 10BY to 11BY. Subgiants are not "main sequence" stars. The subgiant phase is marked by a large expansion for 500MY followed by an even larger expansion for 500MY. Is a subgiant technically considered a type of red giant? Also, are subgiants red/orange, or are they still white?
3. The subgiant expansion ends around 11BY. The Sun is in a stable "red giant branch phase" from 11BY to 12BY.
4. The RGB phase is followed by the eventful AGB phase, which lasts about 120 million years.
5. Near the end of the AGB phase, Schroder (2008) says around 12.17BY the Earth gets eaten by the Sun; nobody else has published a dissent with that in the five years hence that I could find. If that reflects the current scientific belief, can we just go ahead and state it as fact for now?
When does the first shell helium flash occur? When does the first core helium flash occur?
Rolf H Nelson ( talk) 21:16, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
This section is extremely poorly constructed and poorly written. Could someone please fix ?
Specifically:
1.quote:"When the Sun is an asymptotic giant branch star, it will have lost roughly 30% of its present mass due to a stellar wind, so the orbits of the planets will move outward."
Due to "a" stellar wind?? Please fix. I suggest:
"By the time the Sun has entered the asymptotic red giant branch, the orbits of the planets will have moved outwards due to a loss of roughly 30% of the Sun's present mass. Most of this mass will be lost as the Solar Wind increases."
2. quote: "If Earth should escape incineration in the Sun, its water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere will escape into space." and "... in the main sequence, the Sun is becoming more luminous ... in about another billion years the surface of the Earth will probably become too hot for liquid water to exist..."
These two statements are contradictory. The boiling of the water will precede the asymptotic branch phase by billions of years. The first sentence is just wrong. How long it takes for water vapor and Earth's atmosphere to escape Earth's gravity is much less that the 3-8 billion years between loss of our oceans and vaporization (not incineration; although that will happen first -- the Earth will not escape incineration, even if it does escape vaporization in the Sun). — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
173.189.74.6 (
talk) 06:59, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
The sun is not at the center of the solar system. The center is the barycenter, which is sometimes not even within the volume of the sun, let alone at its center. This needs to be changed to "near the center of the solar system". I would make the change myself but the page is protected. I can see not wanting to confuse unlearned readers, but as it stands now, it is flat our wrong. 129.63.129.196 ( talk) 21:22, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
I was left a little puzzled about the age of the sun after reading this article as I couldn't discern whether the ' billion' in this article was defiantly long or short scale
Would it be possible to also use scientific notation for units of time in this article for the sake of those countries where 'billion' causes confusion — Preceding unsigned comment added by Matburton ( talk • contribs) 22:06, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
New findings of massive, long-lasting plasma flows enhance explanation of why sun rotates faster at equator: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sun-rotation-driven-enormous-plasma-flows — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mercury's Stepson ( talk • contribs) 03:39, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
NASA just released a rather interesting and educational video of the Sun taken by SDO showing all of its filtered views at once. I've uploaded it to File:NASA SDO multispectral view of the Sun, September 2011.ogv, but will not add it to the article myself. If anyone thinks it has a place here or elsewhere, please find it a happy home. — Huntster ( t @ c) 02:56, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Should our sun, the star of our solar system, be called Sol instead of Sun? Sol is the common name for our star; "the sun" is 'that shiny object in the sky that gives us light and warmth'. On a planet of any other star system, I believe they would also point to their light-giving sphere and call it "the sun", even if the star is, say, Sirius A.
I would like to see this Sun wiki page linked to or moved to the wiki page Sol -- or at least the astronomical data of the star I think should be moved to wiki page Sol. Historical and cultural and etc data can remain here on the Sun page.
tl;dr: Sol is the scientific and astronomical name for our star -- much like Sirius, Rigel, etc have names. "The sun" is the common term for "light-giving sphere in the sky", which can be the case on any planet. It is not the name of our star. This page should be moved/updated accordingly.
Sources/References/Relevant:
Elaborating from Reference #4 above, there currently is no official name -- which is why I'm coming to wikipedia to try and encourage the use of Sol as the official name, because, as I explained above, I think it is a more practical name for both astronomy and the English language.
What does everyone else think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kamkila ( talk • contribs) 14:49, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Much like the word god is capitalized when referring to a specific diety, the word sun implies and is used to describe any star with planets while "Sun" or "the Sun" refers specifically to our star. The word Sol could then also be defined. I feel this should be clarified at the top of the article and/or included in the disambiguation section. I don't feel qualified to edit this page so I will leave it to someone who is.
Jellyneck (
talk) 20:44, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
There are modern languages of Latin descent, e.g. Spanish, in which "sol" and "luna" are the words for "sun" and "moon". If you want to speak Spanish, go right ahead. But in English, our local star is the sun (sometimes but not always with a capital initial). In other languages that are closely related to English, e.g. German, the words for "sun" are similar to "sun", e.g. "sonne". Are you going to try to make all the people who speak those languages switch to Latin or Spanish too? DOwenWilliams ( talk) 15:16, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
Agreed the listing is wrong reference to "the Sun" is neither factually correct nor scientific, at best it is a bad vernacular usage, and a hangover from regular recatagorisation. Earth's Star is properly named Sol, thus Solar System. Any star can be called a Sun, and thus use of "the Sun" is a generally used slang, at best. The article should be corrected to Sol and have Redirections from a disambiguation page for Sun, which references stars in general and "the Sun redirected to Sol ... the article on Sol should however for transparency sake consider including Sol (commonly referred to as "the Sun"). That should resolve this problem. AspieNo1 ( talk) 11:15, 30 October 2013 (UTC) AspieNo1 ( talk) 17:22, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I realize this discussion is several months old, but I'll just add my two cents: I would also like it if there were internationally-accepted scientific names for the Sun, Earth, and Moon. Unfortunately, as far as I am aware, there are not. Wikipedia should never take any sort of initiative in attempting to actively encourage changes in terminology. Wikipedia is not the place for international, scientific consensus to be reached on the issue, nor is it the place to put forward opinionated commentary as fact. Thus, renaming this article "Sol" would be disingenuous. At some point in the future, should humans ever develop interstellar travel, communication, and government, it is likely that official names for these celestial objects will be decided by scientific and/or political authorities. If Wikipedia still exists when that time comes, we (or our descendants) can change the name of the article. Until then, the encyclopedia must present the names as they are. --
Samuel Peoples (
talk) 00:27, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
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The first paragraph states: The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields.[12][13] It has a diameter of about 1,392,684 km (865,374 mi),[5] around 109 times that of Earth, and its mass (1.989×1030 kilograms, approximately 330,000 times the mass of Earth) accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System.[14] Chemically, about three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium. The remainder (1.69%, which nonetheless equals 5,600 times the mass of Earth) consists of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon and iron, among others.[15] The sentence: "Chemically, about three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium." is consistent with the values given under "Photospheric composition (by mass)" which addresses the Photosphere layer, not the entire sun. The NASA site, http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Sun, states "The sun is a star. A star does not have a solid surface, but is a ball of gas (92.1 percent hydrogen (H2) and 7.8 percent helium (He)) held together by its own gravity.", which I believe is correct. It might be best to insert this information prior to the incorrect sentence, and modify the incorrect sentence to identify the information as pertaining to the Photoshere layer. Engi1956neer ( talk) 15:51, 2 January 2014 (UTC)Engi1956neer My mistake, I see that the distinction was made between % and mass. Since Helium atoms are 4 times heavier than Hydrogen atoms,this brings the two statements into agreement. Engi1956neer ( talk) 20:14, 2 January 2014 (UTC)Engi1056neer |
The Featured diagram File:The solar interior.svg is pretty nice, but currently unused on English Wikipedia. Can we find space for it here, or is there a better subarticle? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:45, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
Theoretical problems lists three problems, of which one is now considered solved and two are considered unsolved. In principle we could provide a comprehensive list of every problem concerning the Sun in science's history, but in practice it would be inappropriate to include ones solved a long time ago, since both the title and the "present day anomalies" hyperlink (followed by "in the Sun's behavior that remain unexplained") imply a concern for unsolved problems only. If a fact about the Sun is well-established enough to be mentioned elsewhere in the article, I doubt it can be considered an as yet unexplained anomaly. For example, we quickly discuss the Sun's composition and power source. In fact, the SNP solution is already mentioned at the end of the subsection Core, and dated to 2001, well over a decade ago. I therefore propose that the subsection Solar neutrino problem be removed. But what do others think? 86.130.227.45 ( talk) 10:06, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Scientists predict that in approx 1 billion years its brightness will increase by 10%, this will result in all of the oceans on earth boiling away & all life will be destroyed. http://www.frontiernet.net/~docbob/sun.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.221.149 ( talk) 18:53, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Headline: Sun unleashes monster solar flare, biggest of 2014.
Interesting; fascinating; important to know. — IMO, Charles Edwin Shipp ( talk) 16:23, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
Headine-2: Watch: NASA releases footage of spectacular solar flare
QUOTE: “NASA released a spectacular video on Sunday from its Solar Dynamics Observatory of a flare erupting from the sun.” [Video, with no commentary.] — Charles Edwin Shipp ( talk) 15:16, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Headine-3: NASA Spectacular solar scene: Burst of radiation erupts from sun
QUOTE: “NASA unveiled incredible footage of a solar flare erupting from the surface of the sun. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the mid-level flair peaked at 10:05 am (EDT) on April 2.” [A lot of interest.] — Charles Edwin Shipp ( talk) 15:05, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Someone might want to create a section about sister stars, such as HD 162826. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 08:43, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Someone might want to work HD 162826 into the article, since it has been announced that this star is likely a sibling of our sun, born at about the same time in the same cloud. Reference at Physorg. I don't want to undertake it because the article seems sensitive. CoyneT talk 04:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
Minor point; rotational velocity is listed 7.189×103 km/h (superscript 3 doesn't copy correctly). Altho not much of a concern, takes fewer characters & space, and, more importantly, easier to read/interpret if listed 7,189 km/h. If number was larger then scientific notation would be beneficial. Number is not large so scientific notation not necessary. More legible without. This would also be true for the "Average Density" listing of 1.408×103 kg/m. Quisizyx ( talk) 01:31, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
I believe that declination and RA are references to where a celestial object appears to be, from earth, on the celestial sphere. (Click on the "declination" link to see what I mean)
The Sun has a declination, though it is continually changing between -23.4 and +23.4 degrees, and it has an RA that is also changing.
Can anyone explain to me why these values are here and what they mean? Dgluss ( talk) 23:00, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
My point is twofold: first, the value is not fixed, it's a variable. Second, the declination of the Sun can never be 63 degrees at any time. We are talking specifically about declination. (Oops, not the RA). So just declination, which runs between tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Dgluss ( talk) 19:18, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
I don't what this means: "Sun thermal conductivity 74"? I found it in one chart and can't find it anywhere else including this article. HELP! - Benjamin Franklin 65.34.130.188 ( talk) 15:10, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
I have heard from multiple sources that the sun is not a "yellow dwarf" but a "medium yellow" star. If this is the case, or both can be used, could this please be added as I found this a little confusing. 121.79.205.141 ( talk) 02:01, 10 September 2014 (UTC)10th September 2014
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2620:0:D50:1002:C9DF:8B7:FD56:D0F3 ( talk) 19:02, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Would it be possible to adapt Template:Infobox star so that it can be used for this page's infobox? -- JorisvS ( talk) 21:50, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
The Sun is currently traveling through the Local Interstellar Cloud (near to the G-cloud) in the Local Bubble zone, within the inner rim of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. [2] [3] Of the 50 nearest stellar systems within 17 light-years from Earth (the closest being a red dwarf named Proxima Centauri at approximately 4.2 light-years away), the Sun ranks fourth in mass. [4] The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way at a distance of approximately 24000–26000 light-years from the galactic center, completing one clockwise orbit, as viewed from the galactic north pole, in about 225–250 million years. Because the Milky Way is moving with respect to the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) in the direction of the constellation Hydra with a speed of 550 km/s, the Sun's resultant velocity with respect to the CMB is about 370 km/s in the direction of Crater or Leo. [5]
The mean distance of Earth from the Sun is approximately 1 astronomical unit (about 150,000,000 km; 93,000,000 mi) by definition, though the distance varies as Earth moves from perihelion in January to aphelion in July. [6]-- Inayity ( talk) 03:28, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
The Lead contains details which should be moved to the body per WP:LEAD. And While it is tempting to include everything, it does not make a good read. All i see is technical scientific specs. The sun is more than that, yet none of the "more than that" is in the lead. Here is some random stuff that has no business in the lead: Because the Milky Way is moving with respect to the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) in the direction of the constellation Hydra with a speed of 550 km/s, the Sun's resultant velocity with respect to the CMB is about 370 km/s in the direction of Crater or Leo, I mean that just fly over my head.-- Inayity ( talk) 03:05, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
Soln: List by priority the most important aspects of the sun, and then make sure they are covered, everything else should move to the body. Cut down technical specs. I think the human/culture element is unrepresented and that is far greater than Lux values and what not.-- Inayity ( talk) 03:07, 13 January 2015 (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 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
Hey guys, one of you must put a caption under that new photo. What good is a blue sun photo; if no one knows what they're looking at. Come on..heads up guys. Pocketthis ( talk) 01:40, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I have never edited a document on Wikipedia and I have only just created an account. I did so because I think there's something wrong under the heading "Earth's fate" and it needs to be fixed. The very first sentence under the heading states that "Earth's fate is certain." However as the paragraph continues, Earth's definitive fate is not provided and there are a number of words like 'probably', 'suggests', 'if', and 'possibly'; words to the effect that Earth's fate isn't as certain as the first sentence would have us believe. Even if the paragraph didn't contain those words though, I still think it would be dubious to state, with absolute certainty, what is going to happen to the Earth several billions years from now. FillsHerTease ( talk) 07:45, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Is [1.392684×10^6 km] really so necessary that the much more obvious and easier to read [1,392,684 km] cannot be used? 74.235.197.171 ( talk) 00:39, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
In the section about the solar core, there is a "citation needed" sign next to the core temperature of 15.7 million kelvin. You can use citation [48] for that as well; but I can't seem to edit that article. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awumnox ( talk • contribs) 09:54, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
The following sentence is ungrammatical:
"However, since the Sun formed, the helium and heavy elements have settled out of the photosphere. Therefore, the photosphere now contains slightly less helium and only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun did; the protostellar Sun was 71.1% hydrogen, 27.4% helium, and 1.5% metals."
It would be better written like this:
However, since the Sun formed, helium and heavy elements have settled out of the photosphere. Therefore, the photosphere now contains slightly less helium than the protostellar Sun and contains only 84% of the protostellar Sun's heavy elements. The protostellar Sun was 71.1% hydrogen, 27.4% helium, and 1.5% metals.
My reasoning -- First, "the helium" should just be "helium" because the author is not talking about any particular helium, just helium in the photosphere. This is a minor gripe; however, there is no reason to add an extra word. Second, "slightly less helium and only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun did." This is not a minor mistake. It is okay to say "slightly less helium than the protostellar Sun" but not okay to say "only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun," which is the way it reads when both phrases are connected with the conjunction "and."
In addition, the verb "did" is redundant because the protostellar Sun does not exist anymore; therefore the past tense is implied. It is also not parallel since the verb being used is "contain." "Contained" could be used instead of "did," which would be parallel, but again, why add an extra word?
Also, it is not clear what the protostellar Sun is since it is not introduced anywhere in the article. The author simply starts discussing it as if everyone should just know what it is. The introductory sentence for the paragraph could be written like this: "The Sun inherited its chemical composition from the interstellar medium out of which it formed into a protostellar Sun." Ron012 ( talk) 11:25, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
This
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The following sentence (under Chemical composition) is ungrammatical:
"However, since the Sun formed, the helium and heavy elements have settled out of the photosphere. Therefore, the photosphere now contains slightly less helium and only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun did; the protostellar Sun was 71.1% hydrogen, 27.4% helium, and 1.5% metals."
It would be better written like this:
However, since the Sun formed, helium and heavy elements have settled out of the photosphere. Therefore, the photosphere now contains slightly less helium than the protostellar Sun and contains only 84% of the protostellar Sun's heavy elements. The protostellar Sun was 71.1% hydrogen, 27.4% helium, and 1.5% metals.
My reasoning -- First, "the helium" should just be "helium" because the author is not talking about any particular helium, just helium in the photosphere. This is a minor gripe; however, there is no reason to add an extra word. Second, "slightly less helium and only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun did." This is not a minor mistake. It is okay to say "slightly less helium than the protostellar Sun" but not okay to say "only 84% of the heavy elements than the protostellar Sun," which is the way it reads when both phrases are connected with the conjunction "and."
In addition, the verb "did" is redundant because the protostellar Sun does not exist anymore; therefore the past tense is implied. It is also not parallel since the verb being used is "contain." "Contained" could be used instead of "did," which would be parallel, but again, why add an extra word?
Also, it is not clear what the protostellar Sun is since it is not introduced anywhere in the article. The author simply starts discussing it as if everyone should just know what it is. The introductory sentence for the paragraph could be written like this: "The Sun inherited its chemical composition from the interstellar medium out of which it formed into a protostellar Sun." Ron012 ( talk) 11:19, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
I am on my phone and ask that someone fix this for me
" The radiative zone and the convection form a transition layer, the tachocline" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1010:B106:CDC9:74CF:8CE6:5FE:29A7 ( talk) 19:20, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
I think the point is that it is TOO opaque. Maybe the clause should be cut out enitrely?
"the solar plasma is not dense enough or hot enough to transfer the thermal energy of the interior outward through radiation; in other words it is opaque enough" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.100.214.111 ( talk) 19:37, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Me again. I haven't got the expertise (or a keyboard) to do this myself but I see that the following sentence is outdated, there is no bow shock:
The heliosphere, which may be considered the tenuous outer atmosphere of the Sun, extends outward past the orbit of Pluto to the heliopause, where it forms a sharp shock front boundary with the interstellar medium. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1010:B106:CDC9:74CF:8CE6:5FE:29A7 ( talk) 21:01, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
I have significantly expanded the section of the life stages of the sun. Mostly this discusses the post-main sequence stages. The pre-main sequence stage seems OK, and the main sequence stage is "now" so not much more to discuss, The context for this is that there are various article sections all over the place about the "fate of the earth", "sun as a red giant", etc., which it seemed should be pulled together into one place and then linked from all the other articles. The main impetus was the large section Red_giant#The_Sun_as_a_red_giant.5B15.5D.5B16.5D.5B17.5D in the small article Red giant. If this location and text (no doubt still needing tweaks) is acceptable, I will then cut down sections such as Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System#The_Sun_and_planetary_environments and Future_of_the_Earth#Red_giant_stage and link them here. Lithopsian ( talk) 22:19, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
The section on potential eye damage from observing the sun is completely inaccurate, lacking in any scientific credibility, and just repeats the anecdotal warnings passed down through the generations. Surely we can do better without giving anybody ideas that would blind them. For example, the whole retinal intensity thing is wrong. No optical instrument produces a retinal intensity higher than that of the naked eye. The total energy passing into the eye can be higher, and the energy intensity at the cornea/iris/lens can be enormous with a small exit pupil, but that's not what the article describes. To quote something specific, the idea that binoculars can deliver 500 times as much energy to the retina as the naked eye is wrong. Total energy delivered to the eye is in the region of 50 times the naked eye (simply aperture divided by pupil size, squared), intensity on the retina as already mentioned is slightly less than the naked eye (aperture divided by pupil size, squared, divided by magnification squared, or more simply the exit pupil size divided by the pupil size, squared), and intensity at the exit pupil is of the order of 50 times (due to low magnification, telescopes can be much much higher). Lithopsian ( talk) 22:22, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ao/abstract.cfm?id=18060 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02476660?LI=true Lithopsian ( talk) 11:00, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Everyone has been assuming that the image of the Sun is well-focused on the retina. This is true in the visible part of the spectrum, but it is badly wrong in the infrared and ultraviolet. The cornea, lens, etc., of the eys blur the IR and UV from the Sun so it is spread over a much larger area of the retina than the sharp image, which greatly reduces its intensity per unit area. If the image is magnified by binoculars or whatever, the blurring still occurs, but its main effect is around the edge of the image. Near the centre, it only slightly reduces the intensity. So using binoculars does increase the amount of energy per unit area on the retina.
It's interesting to speculate that the eye's mis-focusing of IR and UV may have evolved because it reduces the damage caused by looking at the Sun.
DOwenWilliams ( talk) 18:16, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
I have some serious doubt about the accuracy of the title of this image:
First I doubt that plasma has a filamentary nature. Second, I thought the matter at the outer part of the sun were atomic or ionic in nature not completely stripped of their electrons. And I wonder if those are filaments of ions following the lines of the electric fields generated by the magnetic fields. Someone needs to track down the original photo or ask a person more deeply involved in physics Zedshort ( talk) 00:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
For now, I restored the deleted paragraph removed "because its info is covered fully elsewhere". I can see it doesn't belong where it is in Core characteristics. But that paragraph completes the end of the "photon's tale" and "neutrinos tale" from the paragraph above it. Better 1) move the (cited and linked featured paragraph, but deleted) paragraph to Convection zone as a lead in from there to Photosophere, or best 2)move both paragraphs to Radiative zone. — Cpiral Cpiral 02:28, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Existing sentence: "The photosphere is the last visible layer as those above it are too cool or too thin to radiate a significant amount of light to be visible to the naked eye"
Propose replacing the word "significant" with "sufficient" so the sentence will read: "The photosphere is the last visible layer as those above it are too cool or too thin to radiate a sufficient amount of light to be visible to the naked eye"
Additionally, the phrase "visible to the naked eye" is ambiguous. I suspect that this is referring to what can be observed at visible wavelengths. If so, the sentence should say that and should be further changed to read: "The photosphere is the last visible layer as those above it are too cool or too thin to radiate a sufficient amount of light to be observable in light at wavelengths visible to humans"
TerribleTadpole ( talk) 00:31, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
I can't tell if this statement is trying to sound like a textbook or what. It makes no sense. RocketLauncher2 ( talk) 09:52, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
At the end of the first paragraph of section Convective zone it says: "At the photosphere, the temperature has dropped two 5,700 K and the density two only 0.2 g/m3 (about 1/6, 000th the density of air at sea level).[48 ]". But the source says, "At the visible surface the temperature has dropped two 5,700 K and the density is only 0.0000002 gm/cm3 (about 1/10, 000th the density of air at sea level)" [3]. 84.202.218.13 ( talk) 10:26, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
With the planet Mercury having a large iron core and being the closest planet to the Sun, will our star supernova, or proceed directly to a white dwarf, soon after it envelops the planet Mercury in a few million years? I would think that as soon as the iron and nickel from Mercury is incorporated into the Sun it will quickly migrate to the core of the star, due to it's density, and interrupt the exothermic fusion process through photodisintegration or some other mechanism. In summary, will the endothermic nature of iron and nickel halt the helium fusion chain reaction, and if so, what happens next? -- NJB ( talk) 13:35, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Sun, or Sól, is the de facto name given to the star at the center of our Solar System.— HamiltonFromAbove ( talk) 03:50, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
In the article entitled "Sun" it states that the sun is roughly 150 million kilometers from Earth (1.5 billion meters). Later in the same article it states that light from the sun takes about eight minutes to get to Earth. Since the speed of light is roughly 300 million meters per second, either light must reach the earth in five minutes, or the distance to the sun averages 2.4 billion meters. I understand that the distance to the sun varies throughout the orbital period of the Earth, but these two statements are not mathematically coherent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtchdrmd ( talk • contribs) 16:55, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank you - foolish errors, and I am appropriately embarrassed. The numbers now work as stated in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtchdrmd ( talk • contribs) 18:48, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
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It seems to be the position of 'pop-science' in past decades. Scientists look more and more like salesmen trying to pedal their latest theory. If they don't state it in strong grammar that portrays their position as absolute fact, they fear they might lose popularity. Really. Isn't that it? Eg. the entirely speculative theory about the sun's origin... here's the real physics folks. In general things in space don't collide, they travel in hyperbolic or elliptical paths around one another. It is possible that collisions will happen and it's possible that a variety of things will dogpile at once and accumulate as this article says absolutely happened. It just is unlikely HOWEVER that isn't how we know this isn't how it happened. We know it didn't happen this way by evaluating solar wind energy and seeing what variety of particles would have been moved from the region. As it turns out, I seem to recall a few mm of Al density material would still be hanging around. This is a massive problem for the theory posted (as fact)... because think about it. THis mass of material comes together in a swirling mass. Wouldn't there naturally be a distribution of LESS obstructed matter continuing to orbit? That's kind of how things generally work right? Unless..some creator say INJECTED the right amount of material. But naturalistically we'd expect a vast variety of material that would dither down in density as collisions occurred and the matter lost orbital status and became part of the future sun. BUT ONCE THE DENSITY GOT TO A CERTAIN POINT, then there would be insufficient collision potential and eventually a mass of material would be found in orbit. And some would just continue on a hyperbolic path perhaps. But IF the sun formed...IF that huge mass came together there SHOULD be a large distribution of material that didn't wind up in it but did wind up in orbital paths. Then the sun ignites and solar wind drives out the less dense materials. However again if we do the calculations which are on my web page as I recall, and are easy to do... we find there should be a distribution of material that was NOT driven out. And not just in the asteroid belt but all over the region. Obviously planets (wherever they came from. One's spinning the wrong way so an accretion in a disk scenario doesn't work for that either) would clear their orbital paths of debris. But our probes do NOT find sufficient density of ANYTHING to promote the 'theory' that is promoted as FACT by whoever wrote that article or part of the article. I haven't even read the rest. Let me know when a person who has at least done well in upper level physics courses like E+M and CLassical Mechanics has been given oversight of the page. Really..wiki is a joke on subjects like this because it's always some person who just doesn't have the background to FACT CHECK.... before they state things AS fact.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sounddoctorin ( talk • contribs) 23:39, 9 July 2013
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Just reading this article for the first time -- really brilliant (like the subject...) and very well written, cited, documents. Complements on creating this FA. I was wondering though if the lede (and some parts later) might be improved by eliminating some of the specifics that are dealt with later in the article and if the non-astronomical encyclopedic aspects of the Sun could be given more emphasis. For instance, there is an explanation of spectral class label indications in the lede ("the spectral class label, G2 indicates its surface temperature of approximately 5778 K (5505 °C), and V indicates that the Sun...") but only at the end is the Sun's role in photosynthesis or its significance in human thought and belief mentioned (again, written quite well, but somewhat hidden after a discussion of cosmic background radiation, etc.). The sun's orbit and the galactic north pole is mentioned, but the fact that earth and the other planets orbit it is not. It would be good if eclipse were defined briefly somewhere in the article (I know that there are other articles that describe it well, but sun seems a good place to start), since a number of times the effects of eclipses on our ability to observe are mentioned. Thanks for listening. Best, -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 21:35, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
29-07-2013 In the article it is stated the Sun orbits at a distance of 24-26,000 light years from the galactic centre, but according to a search entered on NASA's website the distance is approximately 50,000 light years to the centre of the galaxy from Earth. An expert in editing Wikipedia should check this for accuracy and edit the article with the correction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.100.54.203 ( talk) 13:00, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I removed the chart at "File:Solar Life Cycle.svg" since it seems out-of-date. Here's my understanding based on the cited sources, especially [4], please correct me if I'm wrong:
1. The Sun exits the main sequence around 10BY, because the core hydrogen fusion is mainly finished and hydrogen fusion takes place mainly in a shell around the core. (I'd guess the technical criterion is based on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram?)
2. The Sun is a subgiant from 10BY to 11BY. Subgiants are not "main sequence" stars. The subgiant phase is marked by a large expansion for 500MY followed by an even larger expansion for 500MY. Is a subgiant technically considered a type of red giant? Also, are subgiants red/orange, or are they still white?
3. The subgiant expansion ends around 11BY. The Sun is in a stable "red giant branch phase" from 11BY to 12BY.
4. The RGB phase is followed by the eventful AGB phase, which lasts about 120 million years.
5. Near the end of the AGB phase, Schroder (2008) says around 12.17BY the Earth gets eaten by the Sun; nobody else has published a dissent with that in the five years hence that I could find. If that reflects the current scientific belief, can we just go ahead and state it as fact for now?
When does the first shell helium flash occur? When does the first core helium flash occur?
Rolf H Nelson ( talk) 21:16, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
This section is extremely poorly constructed and poorly written. Could someone please fix ?
Specifically:
1.quote:"When the Sun is an asymptotic giant branch star, it will have lost roughly 30% of its present mass due to a stellar wind, so the orbits of the planets will move outward."
Due to "a" stellar wind?? Please fix. I suggest:
"By the time the Sun has entered the asymptotic red giant branch, the orbits of the planets will have moved outwards due to a loss of roughly 30% of the Sun's present mass. Most of this mass will be lost as the Solar Wind increases."
2. quote: "If Earth should escape incineration in the Sun, its water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere will escape into space." and "... in the main sequence, the Sun is becoming more luminous ... in about another billion years the surface of the Earth will probably become too hot for liquid water to exist..."
These two statements are contradictory. The boiling of the water will precede the asymptotic branch phase by billions of years. The first sentence is just wrong. How long it takes for water vapor and Earth's atmosphere to escape Earth's gravity is much less that the 3-8 billion years between loss of our oceans and vaporization (not incineration; although that will happen first -- the Earth will not escape incineration, even if it does escape vaporization in the Sun). — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
173.189.74.6 (
talk) 06:59, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
The sun is not at the center of the solar system. The center is the barycenter, which is sometimes not even within the volume of the sun, let alone at its center. This needs to be changed to "near the center of the solar system". I would make the change myself but the page is protected. I can see not wanting to confuse unlearned readers, but as it stands now, it is flat our wrong. 129.63.129.196 ( talk) 21:22, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
I was left a little puzzled about the age of the sun after reading this article as I couldn't discern whether the ' billion' in this article was defiantly long or short scale
Would it be possible to also use scientific notation for units of time in this article for the sake of those countries where 'billion' causes confusion — Preceding unsigned comment added by Matburton ( talk • contribs) 22:06, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
New findings of massive, long-lasting plasma flows enhance explanation of why sun rotates faster at equator: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sun-rotation-driven-enormous-plasma-flows — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mercury's Stepson ( talk • contribs) 03:39, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
NASA just released a rather interesting and educational video of the Sun taken by SDO showing all of its filtered views at once. I've uploaded it to File:NASA SDO multispectral view of the Sun, September 2011.ogv, but will not add it to the article myself. If anyone thinks it has a place here or elsewhere, please find it a happy home. — Huntster ( t @ c) 02:56, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Should our sun, the star of our solar system, be called Sol instead of Sun? Sol is the common name for our star; "the sun" is 'that shiny object in the sky that gives us light and warmth'. On a planet of any other star system, I believe they would also point to their light-giving sphere and call it "the sun", even if the star is, say, Sirius A.
I would like to see this Sun wiki page linked to or moved to the wiki page Sol -- or at least the astronomical data of the star I think should be moved to wiki page Sol. Historical and cultural and etc data can remain here on the Sun page.
tl;dr: Sol is the scientific and astronomical name for our star -- much like Sirius, Rigel, etc have names. "The sun" is the common term for "light-giving sphere in the sky", which can be the case on any planet. It is not the name of our star. This page should be moved/updated accordingly.
Sources/References/Relevant:
Elaborating from Reference #4 above, there currently is no official name -- which is why I'm coming to wikipedia to try and encourage the use of Sol as the official name, because, as I explained above, I think it is a more practical name for both astronomy and the English language.
What does everyone else think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kamkila ( talk • contribs) 14:49, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Much like the word god is capitalized when referring to a specific diety, the word sun implies and is used to describe any star with planets while "Sun" or "the Sun" refers specifically to our star. The word Sol could then also be defined. I feel this should be clarified at the top of the article and/or included in the disambiguation section. I don't feel qualified to edit this page so I will leave it to someone who is.
Jellyneck (
talk) 20:44, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
There are modern languages of Latin descent, e.g. Spanish, in which "sol" and "luna" are the words for "sun" and "moon". If you want to speak Spanish, go right ahead. But in English, our local star is the sun (sometimes but not always with a capital initial). In other languages that are closely related to English, e.g. German, the words for "sun" are similar to "sun", e.g. "sonne". Are you going to try to make all the people who speak those languages switch to Latin or Spanish too? DOwenWilliams ( talk) 15:16, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
Agreed the listing is wrong reference to "the Sun" is neither factually correct nor scientific, at best it is a bad vernacular usage, and a hangover from regular recatagorisation. Earth's Star is properly named Sol, thus Solar System. Any star can be called a Sun, and thus use of "the Sun" is a generally used slang, at best. The article should be corrected to Sol and have Redirections from a disambiguation page for Sun, which references stars in general and "the Sun redirected to Sol ... the article on Sol should however for transparency sake consider including Sol (commonly referred to as "the Sun"). That should resolve this problem. AspieNo1 ( talk) 11:15, 30 October 2013 (UTC) AspieNo1 ( talk) 17:22, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I realize this discussion is several months old, but I'll just add my two cents: I would also like it if there were internationally-accepted scientific names for the Sun, Earth, and Moon. Unfortunately, as far as I am aware, there are not. Wikipedia should never take any sort of initiative in attempting to actively encourage changes in terminology. Wikipedia is not the place for international, scientific consensus to be reached on the issue, nor is it the place to put forward opinionated commentary as fact. Thus, renaming this article "Sol" would be disingenuous. At some point in the future, should humans ever develop interstellar travel, communication, and government, it is likely that official names for these celestial objects will be decided by scientific and/or political authorities. If Wikipedia still exists when that time comes, we (or our descendants) can change the name of the article. Until then, the encyclopedia must present the names as they are. --
Samuel Peoples (
talk) 00:27, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
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The first paragraph states: The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields.[12][13] It has a diameter of about 1,392,684 km (865,374 mi),[5] around 109 times that of Earth, and its mass (1.989×1030 kilograms, approximately 330,000 times the mass of Earth) accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System.[14] Chemically, about three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium. The remainder (1.69%, which nonetheless equals 5,600 times the mass of Earth) consists of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon and iron, among others.[15] The sentence: "Chemically, about three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium." is consistent with the values given under "Photospheric composition (by mass)" which addresses the Photosphere layer, not the entire sun. The NASA site, http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Sun, states "The sun is a star. A star does not have a solid surface, but is a ball of gas (92.1 percent hydrogen (H2) and 7.8 percent helium (He)) held together by its own gravity.", which I believe is correct. It might be best to insert this information prior to the incorrect sentence, and modify the incorrect sentence to identify the information as pertaining to the Photoshere layer. Engi1956neer ( talk) 15:51, 2 January 2014 (UTC)Engi1956neer My mistake, I see that the distinction was made between % and mass. Since Helium atoms are 4 times heavier than Hydrogen atoms,this brings the two statements into agreement. Engi1956neer ( talk) 20:14, 2 January 2014 (UTC)Engi1056neer |
The Featured diagram File:The solar interior.svg is pretty nice, but currently unused on English Wikipedia. Can we find space for it here, or is there a better subarticle? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:45, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
Theoretical problems lists three problems, of which one is now considered solved and two are considered unsolved. In principle we could provide a comprehensive list of every problem concerning the Sun in science's history, but in practice it would be inappropriate to include ones solved a long time ago, since both the title and the "present day anomalies" hyperlink (followed by "in the Sun's behavior that remain unexplained") imply a concern for unsolved problems only. If a fact about the Sun is well-established enough to be mentioned elsewhere in the article, I doubt it can be considered an as yet unexplained anomaly. For example, we quickly discuss the Sun's composition and power source. In fact, the SNP solution is already mentioned at the end of the subsection Core, and dated to 2001, well over a decade ago. I therefore propose that the subsection Solar neutrino problem be removed. But what do others think? 86.130.227.45 ( talk) 10:06, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Scientists predict that in approx 1 billion years its brightness will increase by 10%, this will result in all of the oceans on earth boiling away & all life will be destroyed. http://www.frontiernet.net/~docbob/sun.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.221.149 ( talk) 18:53, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Headline: Sun unleashes monster solar flare, biggest of 2014.
Interesting; fascinating; important to know. — IMO, Charles Edwin Shipp ( talk) 16:23, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
Headine-2: Watch: NASA releases footage of spectacular solar flare
QUOTE: “NASA released a spectacular video on Sunday from its Solar Dynamics Observatory of a flare erupting from the sun.” [Video, with no commentary.] — Charles Edwin Shipp ( talk) 15:16, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Headine-3: NASA Spectacular solar scene: Burst of radiation erupts from sun
QUOTE: “NASA unveiled incredible footage of a solar flare erupting from the surface of the sun. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the mid-level flair peaked at 10:05 am (EDT) on April 2.” [A lot of interest.] — Charles Edwin Shipp ( talk) 15:05, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Someone might want to create a section about sister stars, such as HD 162826. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 08:43, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Someone might want to work HD 162826 into the article, since it has been announced that this star is likely a sibling of our sun, born at about the same time in the same cloud. Reference at Physorg. I don't want to undertake it because the article seems sensitive. CoyneT talk 04:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
Minor point; rotational velocity is listed 7.189×103 km/h (superscript 3 doesn't copy correctly). Altho not much of a concern, takes fewer characters & space, and, more importantly, easier to read/interpret if listed 7,189 km/h. If number was larger then scientific notation would be beneficial. Number is not large so scientific notation not necessary. More legible without. This would also be true for the "Average Density" listing of 1.408×103 kg/m. Quisizyx ( talk) 01:31, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
I believe that declination and RA are references to where a celestial object appears to be, from earth, on the celestial sphere. (Click on the "declination" link to see what I mean)
The Sun has a declination, though it is continually changing between -23.4 and +23.4 degrees, and it has an RA that is also changing.
Can anyone explain to me why these values are here and what they mean? Dgluss ( talk) 23:00, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
My point is twofold: first, the value is not fixed, it's a variable. Second, the declination of the Sun can never be 63 degrees at any time. We are talking specifically about declination. (Oops, not the RA). So just declination, which runs between tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Dgluss ( talk) 19:18, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
I don't what this means: "Sun thermal conductivity 74"? I found it in one chart and can't find it anywhere else including this article. HELP! - Benjamin Franklin 65.34.130.188 ( talk) 15:10, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
I have heard from multiple sources that the sun is not a "yellow dwarf" but a "medium yellow" star. If this is the case, or both can be used, could this please be added as I found this a little confusing. 121.79.205.141 ( talk) 02:01, 10 September 2014 (UTC)10th September 2014
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2620:0:D50:1002:C9DF:8B7:FD56:D0F3 ( talk) 19:02, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Would it be possible to adapt Template:Infobox star so that it can be used for this page's infobox? -- JorisvS ( talk) 21:50, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
The Sun is currently traveling through the Local Interstellar Cloud (near to the G-cloud) in the Local Bubble zone, within the inner rim of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. [2] [3] Of the 50 nearest stellar systems within 17 light-years from Earth (the closest being a red dwarf named Proxima Centauri at approximately 4.2 light-years away), the Sun ranks fourth in mass. [4] The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way at a distance of approximately 24000–26000 light-years from the galactic center, completing one clockwise orbit, as viewed from the galactic north pole, in about 225–250 million years. Because the Milky Way is moving with respect to the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) in the direction of the constellation Hydra with a speed of 550 km/s, the Sun's resultant velocity with respect to the CMB is about 370 km/s in the direction of Crater or Leo. [5]
The mean distance of Earth from the Sun is approximately 1 astronomical unit (about 150,000,000 km; 93,000,000 mi) by definition, though the distance varies as Earth moves from perihelion in January to aphelion in July. [6]-- Inayity ( talk) 03:28, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
The Lead contains details which should be moved to the body per WP:LEAD. And While it is tempting to include everything, it does not make a good read. All i see is technical scientific specs. The sun is more than that, yet none of the "more than that" is in the lead. Here is some random stuff that has no business in the lead: Because the Milky Way is moving with respect to the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) in the direction of the constellation Hydra with a speed of 550 km/s, the Sun's resultant velocity with respect to the CMB is about 370 km/s in the direction of Crater or Leo, I mean that just fly over my head.-- Inayity ( talk) 03:05, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
Soln: List by priority the most important aspects of the sun, and then make sure they are covered, everything else should move to the body. Cut down technical specs. I think the human/culture element is unrepresented and that is far greater than Lux values and what not.-- Inayity ( talk) 03:07, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
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