Talk:Solar System

Clean up

I just made some major changes to the article. The most notable of which are:

• Convert small headers listing individual bodies into bullet points, conserving the links using {{visible anchor}}
• Merge oddball sections "Comparison with extrasolar systems" and "Location", create a new section for a general overview (which is basically a repackaged version of "Comparison with extrasolar systems" with some irrelevant information transferred to other parts of the article). Move "General characteristics" down for readability.
• Remove AU to kilometers and miles conversion, strictly only use AU. Also replaced "approximately X AU from the Sun" with clear aphelion and perihelion data.

There are a few parts of this article that I still feel lacking, such as the description of individual bodies or some subsections in "General characteristics". What do you think about the article as it is? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 08:12, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I've restored the comparison with extrasolar systems section. It made no sense to take a perfectly good descriptive title and rename it withe the meaningless "overview".

I've also restored the location section. Celestial neighbourhood does not belong in a section called general characteristics of the solar system. Fdfexoex (talk) 07:03, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Made sense, but I always feel like it is an odd-ball thing... CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 08:24, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I merged the "extrasolar systems" section to the general characteristics of the solar system. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:07, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

My dear, @Fdfexoex, what exactly would it be "overview" for you? Just a asking. 45.233.183.235 (talk) 13:09, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Also I just fixed picture placement. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:57, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: English Composition 1102 085

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 March 2024 and 2 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jgleana (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Jgleana (talk) 03:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

@Jgleana Hey! Do you want some help? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:12, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I noticed you commented this 1 month ago, what'sup? 45.233.183.235 (talk) 13:14, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Readers and lurkers, what do you think about this article

I'd reckon that at least one people see this talk page every day. If that person is you, please tell me:

• What do you like about this article?
• What do you don't like about this article?
• What is something that you wish this article would talk more about?

I want to get some ideas for improvement, because the Mars article as it is right now is great, but not amazing. I want to turn this into an amazing article. Readers, anonymous editors and registered editors, feel free to make a comment.

P.S. you might notice that I made the same thread at Talk:Mars. That's because I don't want to improve an article, I want to improve 2 articles. :) CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:24, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, both this article and the one for Mars are featured articles. Of course that there may still be room for improvement if we find out ways to improve them even further, but "great but not amazing" is not exactly specific. Cambalachero (talk) 12:54, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Both Mars and the Solar System have passed FAC in 2007, which I was 1 year old at the time and when Wikipedia's FAC standard was still relatively low. If both of these articles must go through FAC again, then it would certainly don't pass. But I feel that there's another problem at play here which is that these articles are simply not interesting enough. I want to have an article that...

• a teacher could copy the lead and give it to student to read in an assignment,
• a person could skim this article for facts to argue on the internet,
• a reader who's interested in astronomy could read as a comprehensive introduction to the topic, and
• an astronomer could read these articles as a refresher.

You know what I mean. I feel that Wikipedia right now is neglecting its readers and I want to reverse that trend. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:03, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

The page is a feature article and has been edited by scientists, astronomers, and other professionals in their fields. Can you point to an instance in the lead in which an edit would improve the page per the bullet points above, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:52, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I think that the biggest improvement to move towards this direction is to reorganize the content and make it easier to navigate. I can attest to that via my prior revisions to the article. Before, the article's planets and dwarf planets sections are a bit hard to digest. I removed the sub-subsections, turn them into bullet points and move individual images into small galleries at the top of the section. Virtually none of the content has been removed, except for unit conversions. Now, I think that the article is easier to skim compared to before. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:19, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Just looked at the page history and see you've done one of your multi-edit runs over the last few days (lot of edits to a featured and well-edited article). I hope page watchers take note and check your edits. Maybe better, maybe worse, but lots of edits on a well-known page, hopefully you know what you are doing. I'm not going to check for awhile but might end up reverting some again, hopefully not too many bad edits to dig out and spend time fixing but maybe a long-time page editor will come by to check. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:31, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I did a comparison and most of it seemed okay. I don't think there is a need to expand 'AU' and 'ly' in the infobox; the box should be kept succinct without additional word padding. Expanded definitions are best left to the article body. Praemonitus (talk) 17:38, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
Actually, per the MoS: "Where space is limited (such as tables, infoboxes, parenthetical notes, and mathematical formulas) unit symbols are preferred." Hence they should be reverted. Praemonitus (talk) 22:17, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Praemonitus, that's encouraging news. Can you please keep further track of the edits as CactiStaccingCrane is continuing the days-long edit run and I don't have the before-and-after mental pattern of the changes. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:53, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't need someone to babysit, thank you. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 11:46, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Don't take it personally, but you can expect featured articles to be watched closely. They have already passed a difficult edit review process to get where they are, and nobody wants to have to repeat that process unless they have to. Praemonitus (talk) 14:27, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I think that the asteroid belt and kuiper belt section needs some work. I think that the dwarf planets descriptions should be shortened significantly and content summarizing different minor planet populations should be further developed. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:30, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

The article is written Wikipedia:Summary style. There will obviously be differences in content preferences between different editors, but one decent paragraph for each of the dwarf planets seems about right. Praemonitus (talk) 15:08, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Poorly-cited infobox

The infobox for this article has an atrociously poor level of citation, and is utterly inadequate for an FA-class article. I think it should be draftified until the citation issue is resolved. Praemonitus (talk) 14:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Praemonitus Cited most of them except for the galactic inclination info. I have no idea where it came from. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:22, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Same for the Hill sphere. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:22, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I just made a to-do box on top, feel free to add anything more into it – CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:01, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that a few uncited numbers in such article justify draftification. Artem.G (talk) 20:26, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Could you tell me where the problem is? I ain't any FA-class specialist, but I can't found the mistake here, maybe I could be wrong, but it is not clearly wrong. 45.233.183.235 (talk) 13:55, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Overall, many things need to be clarified here, so that in the future this article will become so unreliable, that it's gonna be almost impossible to redeem this later, It is always good to avoid this kind of referential stagnation—referential, in this sense, of reference sources. 45.233.183.235 (talk) 14:04, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

About gallery

Praemonitus, why do you think that galleries disrupt the flow of text? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:51, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

They create a block of space that directly interrupts the text. Where possible, the reader should be given the option of when to view the images. Praemonitus (talk) 12:58, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Make sense. Let me adjust picture placement accordingly. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:00, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Pushing "general characteristics" section below

I don't think that a lot of readers care about stuff in the general characteristics section and would much prefer read about the things that is inside the Solar System. Should I put that section below "Boundary area and uncertainties" section? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 04:26, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Starting with a high level overview makes more sense to me. Praemonitus (talk) 04:28, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Hmm... what do you think this article needs work on? I have a feeling that I have to rewrite descriptions about the dwarf planets and expand Solar_System#Centaurs,_trojans_and_resonant_bodies and Solar_System#Asteroids a little bit. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 04:36, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Infobox picture

What is the justification of the new lead image? Small text is practically useless, and previous image (without the text, but with a caption) in the infobox was imho a better choice. Artem.G (talk) 19:03, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I'm using an average sized laptop, AND using my reading glasses. I cannot read the smaller text. On any smaller screen that image would be quite useless. HiLo48 (talk) 02:40, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I would disagree. The text helps match the name of the planets with the planet pictures. I find it pretty helpful to show that to the students. 113.160.44.130 (talk) 09:58, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Congratulations on completely ignoring the concerns expressed in the previous two comments. I suspect that when you show it to students, you display it on a somewhat larger screen than my phone. HiLo48 (talk) 10:36, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

hey, CactiStaccingCrane, Praemonitus, Randy Kryn, any thoughts on this? Artem.G (talk) 07:49, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. The present image presents more information than the previous image (seen here). Even without reading the smaller print it presents large-enough useful printed data, and the smaller print is available by one or two clicks on the image. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:29, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

From my perspective, it's too cluttered with information for such a small image. I don't find it attractive, artistically. Less is more. Praemonitus (talk) 13:19, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

well, there was no discussion for the infobox image change, and though some editors like it, some (myself included) prefer the cleaner version without any (poorly readable) text. I'm replacing the image with the previous one, please discuss this change here if you strongly disagree and prefer image with text. Artem.G (talk) 12:50, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

That works for me. Praemonitus (talk) 13:49, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Are we done now?

Over the last month, this article has been completely rewritten from the ground up, without discussion or peer review. I think we need to take stock of what has happened. Perhaps bring in a disinterested party. Serendi^podous 12:33, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree that it has been completely rewritten, but there have been a significant number of changes. I've been making another pass through and trying to tweak the results. It mostly seems to be in decent shape, FA-wise. The one glaring omission I see is there is no mention of planetary migration in the "Formation and evolution" section, but the migration of Neptune is mentioned twice. Praemonitus (talk) 14:19, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I've attempted to address the last. Praemonitus (talk) 12:59, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

What's the point of changing the "asteroid belt" topic header to "asteroids" if you're not going to mention other asteroids?

Asteroids within the asteroid belt are not covered. Serendi^podous 22:50, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

There's some discussion at the end of the section. Praemonitus (talk) 14:53, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Never mind. I'll do it. Serendi^podous 16:11, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Distance conversions?

In some spots, distances in AU are presented without conversion, while others convert it to miles and km. It's inconsistent. The size of an AU is well defined at the start of the "Distances and scales" section. Do you think we can use AU thereafter without the intermittent conversions? An example is the Asteroid belt section, where the inner and outer radius from the Sun is converted, then AU is used for orbital distances without conversion. The benefit of the AU in this context is that it provides a convenient scale. There shouldn't be a need to keep converting it; that just adds clutter. Praemonitus (talk) 18:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

agree, AUs should be enough. there is no way anyone can imagine what (15 billion km; 9.3 billion mi) is, 100 AU does the same job and is more concise. Artem.G (talk) 19:12, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Support removing conversions. The distances in kilometers are simply too large, astronomical units are more appropriate to such large scales. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 01:02, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

As a note, a lot of other prominent astronomy articles employ this too (e.g. Pluto); should we remove conversions there as well? ArkHyena (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Well the pluto article just jumps in and starts using AU without defining it, so I'm not sure. Perhaps that's a more general discussion for WP:AST? If there's a consensus, it could go in the astronomy style guide. Praemonitus (talk) 03:26, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Why do we need a Spaceflight section?

I'm unclear why this section is needed. It discusses spaceflight maneuvering, rather than the properties of the Solar System. The previous section already mentions the history of exploration via spacecraft. This discussion can be better handled via a link in the "See also" section. Praemonitus (talk) 13:31, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I support removing most of the content; some of the info relevant to major missions could also be merged w/ the above subsection. ArkHyena (talk) 18:47, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

bow shock

A factual issue: this article states the Solar System creates a bow shock within the surrounding ISM, whereas the Heliosphere#Bow_shock article-section states this has been determined to be not the case. The Heliosphere page's applicable reference is more recent than that of this article. 98.1.3.105 (talk) 17:48, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. However, I don't think a bow shock has been completely ruled out.[1][2] Praemonitus (talk) 23:27, 28 June 2024 (UTC)