Talk:Sun/Archive 2

message: I don't see anywhere in the article about how long the sun will last and its eventual fate. From some sources, I heard it's 5 billions years. Please include this information. Thank you. --141.213.196.250 03:42, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the 4th paragraph of "General information" in the article.  Dragons flight 03:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fate of the Sun 

message: Our article states that it is 4.6 billion years old. Other sources such as  and this . What is the basis of our claim? Capitalistroadster 07:06, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Amelin et al. ("Lead Isotopic Ages of  Chondrules and Calcium-Aluminum-Rich Inclusions", Science 297, Sept. 6, 2002.) requires that the time of solar ignition be near but not younger than 4.56717 +/- 0.0007 Gyr ago.  Dragons flight 03:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Uh huh.... shouldn't there be a citation in the actual that directly relates to the age of the sun and not just a source with some secondary relation in the discussion page?209.169.111.193 23:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Age of the sun

message: Is it true that our Sun is the brightest star to be seen from one light year away? In other words, it's much much much brighter than all other stars in the greater neighbourhood? --Sonjaaa 06:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Depends on which direction. One light year in the direction of Sirius, I *think* the Sun would still be brightest, but there aren't any other stars within one light year of the Sun, so it's not much of a neighborhood.  If you define "neighborhood" with a radius more like 10 light years, then no, the Sun is definitely not the brightest.  You know all about apparent magnitude and absolute magnitude, right? --arkuat (talk) 06:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is rather belated, but just for anyone else who might stumble upon this, here goes:  If you define a 'local' area to be out to a distance of about 10 parsecs in every direction, then you end up with a group of around 250 stars (about half of these 'stars' are actually binaries.  In this set of stars, there are no stars at all of spectral type O or B.  The majority are of type M or K.  In fact, in this local region, the sun is roughly among the top 10 or 20 in terms of absolute magnitude.  Thus it is among the brightest, although it is certainly not the brightest.  To answer the original question:  At a distance of one light year, the next nearest star (after the sun) would be at least 3 light years away, probably more like 4 or 5.  Since there are no tremendously bright stars in our immediate solar neighborhood,  I am quite certain that at this distance the sun would still be by far the brightest object in the sky. Grokmoo 18:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: brightest?

message: Since the Sun is about 4 billion years old and the Earth is 4.6 billion years old how has the Earth been around?
:according to our articles on each one, the Sun is 4.6 billion years old, and the Earth is 4.57 billion years old. hope that helps.--Alhutch 03:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  age 

message: I'm not sure if this was already mentioned but the sun indirectly supports all known life on the planet yet the introductory paragraph states almost. Can this be changed?
:Actually some life, such as that found around black smokers on ocean floors, does not rely on the Sun, so 'almost' is correct.  Worldtraveller 00:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There wouldn't be an ocean let alone an ocean floor without the sun, so almost is incorrect. I'm changing it.Eno-Etile 00:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Almost is incorrect, stop changing it at least without some debate. I made the edit because I see no logical argument against my comment, but I wouldn't mind someone restructuring the sentence as it does read akwardly, and I cannot think of a better way to phrase it.Eno-Etile 03:22, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Ok somone changed it yet again and told me not to remove the almost without gaining consensus but no one is answering me I see no way to get a consensus so until I get debate I WILL continue to change it.Eno-Etile 17:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Sorry, haven't paid much attention here.  The 'almost' is because of the presence of black smokers and other sites where subterranean life is driven by geothermal energy rather than solar energy.  While it is true that the oceans themselves would eventually freeze if the Sun were not present, the life that is present in black smoker colonies is not being powered by the thermal energy in the oceans -- the oceans are a heat sink for those systems, which are much hotter than the surrounding water.  If the Earth were hurled away from the Sun (as in Fritz Leiber's "A Pail of Air" short story) the black smoker colonies would continue to survive for a long time -- even as all surface life perished and the air snowed out onto the surface of the planet.  So, it seems to me that the "almost" should stay. zowie 17:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay. I made the changes because no one offered an argument against them, yours was a pretty good one. So I gues almost stays.Eno-Etile 17:51, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: glad to be of service. :-) zowie 18:09, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Support of life 

message: There's a woefully ungrammatical sentence in the very first paragraph. I don't know enough about the topic to infer what was actually meant, but could someone more informed fix it up? Soo 17:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Tell us which sentence?  Worldtraveller 17:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I hacked it this morning to fix it.  The photosynthesis sentence.zowie 19:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Much better, thanks :) Soo 10:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening paragraph 

message: Please let me know if this has already been addressed, but the sun is central to a great deal of human culture, religion, etc. This article seems exclusively science-based and fails to address the importance that people attribute to the sun for cultural or other reasons. Is this addressed anywhere on Wikipedia? FunnyYetTasty 14:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many moons ago there was such a section to the article (sometime last year -- more than 500 edits ago and I can't be troubled to hunt for it) but it never really grew much -- just spawned arguments over whether David Brin's Sundiver book counted as culture.  I'd like to see such a thing, if someone felt like writing about Sun-worshiping cultures, megaliths, origins of astrology in the seasonal variation of sun location, etc.  Ideally it would start as a section here and then, if it grew too much, spawn off as did the structure and history sections... zowie 15:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a potentially huge subject, with numerous cultures and ages worshipping the Sun, with numerous names for the Sun-god, etc --Iantresman 19:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sun in culture and religion 

message: Why the second person? Who is "our"? So much for neutrality! savidan(talk) (e@) 17:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't really see what's not neutral about that.  Perhaps arrogant, deigning to speak on behalf of all humanity, and maybe not great encyclopaedic style either, but I'm sure it doesn't contravene WP:NPOV!  I wouldn't object if it was changed.  Worldtraveller 23:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "our" Solar System 

message: Why are people cutting vast chunks out of this article ?  What good does it do to remove that information from this article?  I'm sure you could reproduce it elsewhere without removing it from a featured article.  62.249.214.195 14:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slash and burn 

message: Could anyone put more on history of human scientific understanding of the sun? Like history of attempts at measuring its distance from the earth.
=== Clarification Needed? ===
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)
replies: text: Well spotted - it should read "most of the elements heavier than hydrogen". I will go change it now.  Sophia 11:40, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More on Human Understanding 

message: 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)
replies: text: Well spotted - it should read "most of the elements heavier than hydrogen". I will go change it now.  Sophia 11:40, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification Needed? 

message: The accuracy with which we know the mass of the sun is limited by the accuracy with which we know the gravitational constant - we know GM_sun to about eight decimal places from observing the planets. Perhaps this is worth mentioning, and giving this number? (Or the mass of the sun in geometrized units) --Andrew 20:31, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mass of the Sun 

message: Anyone mind if I remove the image with this caption: "Artist's conception of the remains of artificial structures on the Earth after the Sun enters its red giant phase and swells to roughly 100 times its current size."? Tony 07:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't miss it. zowie 17:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rather silly image 

message: How many people use Kelvin in every day usage?
The temeperature should include Farenheit and Celsius.
Dudtz 8/3/06 8:19 PM EST
     Just subtract 273 from a kelvin and you get Celsius, it's pretty simple and Kelvin is the norm with planets --Dulberf 04:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seriously, I can't imagine a person able to use a computer and browse wikipedia who never heard of the temperature unit Kelvin in school. --217.17.197.166 13:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Kelvin is standard in science (where it simplifies certain mathematics).  While I've nothing against adding a farenheit value, we do have kelvin wikilinked if people want to look it up. RJFJR 04:14, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kelvin 

message: "The Sun is the star at the center of Earth's solar system, but that's not important right now."
This is a weird way to open the article, don't you think?
:Just some infantile vandalism, fixed.--JyriL talk 22:46, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening sentence 

message: I updated the mass of the sun and the equivalent number of Earths according to Measurement of Newton’s Constant Using a Torsion Balance with Angular Acceleration Feedback (Physical Review Letters; Vol. 85, Num. 14; 2 Oct. 2000) by Jens H. Gundlach and Stephen M. Merkowitz of the Department of Physics, Nuclear Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195.  They produced the most precise measurement of “Big G” yet with a value of 6.674 215(92) × 10–11 m3 kg–1 s–2.  This allowed them to calculate the mass of the sun (1.988 435(27) × 1030 kg) and the mass of the Earth (5.972 245(82) × 1024 kg), and the equivalent number of Earths (332,946).   Greg L 01:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mass of Sun

message: Has any man-made object ever made contact with the sun? I know it would never make it there, it would just burn up, but I am curious. --Cngodles 15:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the answer is No.  NASA had plans to launch a Solar probe spacecraft that would have flown through the solar corona, and in 2000 they even collected and reviewed proposals for instruments, but one of the first actions of the Bush administration was to cancel it, 13 days after taking office in January 2001. zowie 20:19, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Great expense of money lets spend lots of money to send something into space that not only are we never getting back but were also melting in the largest furnace ever,  could just light the money on fire and use it to warm some homeless people.Eno-Etile 00:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Solar Probe was designed to survive the close flyby, and a related mission may yet fly eventually.  The Solar Probe mission in its entire eight-year development, launch, and flyby phases would have cost about as much as 12 hours of the Iraq occupation. zowie 17:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

text: A 1972 solar impact mission was considered, using a Saturn 1B vehicle with a Jupiter gravitational assist. You might also check whether the objects at the Earth-Sun L1 point were self-contained, as if they used rocket boosters see where the boosters went (such as in a decaying solar orbit): List of objects at Lagrangian points#L1 (SEWilco 06:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spacecraft 

message: The infobox was just changed to read 
! align="left" | Surface temperature
| 5785 K 
This implies a precision of measurment to the degree.  5780 would imply +/- 5 degrees or so.  I rather doubt we have measurements to the degree.  Do we know a tolerance for this? RJFJR 17:42, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Precision 

message: Is there any particular order that is generally used for external links?  If so, where can we find the guidelines? Rylan42 01:59, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order of External Links 

message: I've added some bits on the dangers of observing the Sun.  I have laid it on a bit thick, but I think that is appropriate in this case. Man with two legs 10:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When we were kids, we used to play a game to see who could look at the Sun with wide open eyes, without blinking, for the longest time. This was often for minutes on end and played frequently. Our parents didn't know about this and at that age we certainly weren't going to tell them. The upshot of this is that I am in the final years of my life, have vision good enough to read fine print without glasses, and have never had cataract surgery or any other eye problems. I'm not suggesting that our childish games improved our vision, but on the other hand, it certainly does not seem to have done any harm. Of course, a different genome or physiology would give different results, but the dangers of direct looking at the Sun do seem to be exaggerated. Paul venter 08:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ...during the Archean period, the Sun was only about 75% as bright as it is today. I think it explains itself. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.9.181.35 (talk) 22:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: The snag is that by the time you find out if you got away with it, it is too late.  Many other people have been damaged by looking at the sun.  It is especially dangerous when any kind of telescope is used. Man with two legs 12:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sunBut Mama, that's where the fun is ... Daniel Case 03:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Safety

message: For anyone watching here, I just redirected "The Sun" (i.e., with the definite article) to this page but expect to get reverted again. I'm surprised every day on the Wiki, but this was absolutely astounding. Any comments on that redirect talk page welcome. Marskell 23:22, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[The Sun]] disambig 

message: I got rid of the "artist's conception" image because (A) it doesn't really focus on the Sun, (B) it is misleading.  There is no reason to suppose that artificial structures will survive the intense heating from the red giant phase of the Sun's "life".  Without some back-of-the-envelope justification, at least, for the presence of cracked mud and non-burned telegraph poles, the picture is misleading and worse than useless in this context.  (Don't get me wrong, I think it's kind of cool -- just not appropriate here).  Please discuss here before adding it back in.  zowie 07:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Artist's (mis)conception of the red giant phase 

message: ??? Zabrak 02:38, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Only if that was going to happen.  Read Sun#Life_cycle.  (SEWilco 02:50, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should we talk about how the sun is going to explode and engulf the Earth 

message: Copied from User talk:Howcheng:
:The Sun isn't an average-sized star. It's above-average sized. Average-sized stars are classed as red dwarfs. Please can you fix this? --Jrothwell (talk) 17:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Average" sized? 

message: The Dutch Wikipedia-page includes a table on solar evolution. I don't know how reliable it is scientifically, but it has some sources listed: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zon
Iblardi 19:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Solar evolution