Talk:Star/Archive 1

message: From the first paragraph: "Almost all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium were created inside the cores of stars." Almost? What does almost mean? Is this referring to the infinitesimally small amount of Lithium and Beryllium formed around the start of the Big Bang, or is there some other way certain heavier elements are formed?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.191.95.151 (talk) 00:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Formation of Elements

message: This article uses billion, trillion, sextillion, etc. freely. It should be noted that this is using the short scale variant of these words, becuase they do have more than one meaning. Anyone mind if I add 109 to billion, etc, to clarify? Thanks, Ian Cairns 01:18, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: 70 sextillion = 70 x 1021 = 7 x 1022. — RJH (talk) 20:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Numbers

message: I think it would be more relevant to describe the length of time it would take to get to Proxima Centauri using the fastest means currently available to humans (i.e. rocket, space shuttle, whatever.) You wouldn't take the TGV to the moon, either. Being that I am neither an astronomer nor a physicist, I will leave this in someone else's capable hands to decide.
:I totally agree.  I looked at this, and my first thought was, who on earth (so to speak) would take a train to Proxima Centauri, let alone stop accelerating at a mere 500 kph?  The use of slow static speed, enabling big numbers (and exclamation marks) for 'wow factor', seems unnecessary.  But maybe I'm just on another obsessive encyclopedic-style crusade of mine. ;) -- Wisq 18:44, 2005 May 17 (UTC)
::You're right. The Orion drive could get there in a lifetime. But it would take a spacecraft designed for allowing births and such since the time requirement would be beyond a woman's fertile years. BioTube 16:11, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My suggestion is to read the articles on Right Ascension and Declination. That will give you the position of a star on the celestial sphere, as seen from the Earth. The parallax can be used to find the distance. Personally I would use SIMBAD for your final data. — RJH (talk) 15:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  space travel? 

message: I am trying to make a game with real star data. The problem is that I can't tell where the stars are! It would seem like a basic thing. Where are the stars? How can you find its position? How far is it to the star? I am using http://www.nstars.nau.edu/nau_nstars/multi_search_form.php as my source info.  So what are the stars coordinates and how do you understand them? Are they based on the starting point as the Earth or the Sun or What? Are they polar coordinates?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.39.215.72 (talk) 08:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My suggestion is to read the articles on Right Ascension and Declination. That will give you the position of a star on the celestial sphere, as seen from the Earth. The parallax can be used to find the distance. Personally I would use SIMBAD for your final data. — RJH (talk) 15:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Distance and position of other stars?

message: I just noticed that stars (the bright ones, mostly) alternate colors. If my vision is correct, they flash a faint red, blue, and white. What causes this change in color?
:This is an optical phenomenon due to atmospheric disturbances known as scintillation or (more commonly) twinkling. -- Xerxes 16:10, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternating Colors? 

message: Sorry for the confusion, Main sequence has the necessary information. Kosebamse 21:01, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Dwarf or not dwarf

message: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0503464 -- Xerxes 21:14, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: O2V

message: What kind of graph do you use oto show the temperature and brightness of stars. INFO NEEDED BADLY PLEASE HELP!!!!!!
:I believe you are looking for Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. You might try Wikipedia:Reference desk for these kind of questions. DannyZ 00:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Temp/Bright]] 

message: No offense to Dr. Figer, but does anyone else find it odd that the astronomers mentioned by name in this article are Hertzsprung, Russell, Eddington, Annie Jump Cannon, Flamsteed, Bayer, and Donald Figer?  The first six are historical figures who made key contributions to stellar astronomy, but Figer is currently working.  If Figer gets mentioned, shouldn't we have a paragraph about every moderately successful modern astronomer who works on stars?  JustSayin 01:43, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: People will always plug their favorite people in Wiki articles; for every one you take out, you can expect two more the next week. At some point it becomes a question of who has the patience to remove all the extra junk while remaining sane. Feel free to help out. -- Xerxes 00:45, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mention of individual astronomers

message: I've seen Carl Sagan's series: Cosmos, and need information about how the elements are formed. I can't quite remember how the elements are formed through the stars. a link, add-on to 'Stars' article, or explanation right here would be much appreciated.
:A good starting place would be the Wikipedia articles on Stellar nucleosynthesis and Supernova nucleosynthesis. Both of these articles have links to other articles with more detailed information. --DannyZ 06:28, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stars - Birth of the Elements? 

message: Somebody wanted a reference about the number of stars visible to the naked eye. The Bright Star Catalogue lists all stars of magnitude 6.5 or higher, which is roughly equivalent to the number of stars that are visible to an unaided eye under ideal condition. (The eye would probably have to be pretty close to ideal as well, I would imagine.) Version 5 of that catalogue has 9110 objects, including stars. :-) — RJH (talk) 16:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naked-eye stars 

message: If you're interested please add your comment at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Stars. Thanks AndrewRT - Talk 23:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming Convention 

message: I added a link to an article talking about a recent study which showed the smallest observed stars had 8.3% of the mass of the Sun, which is about 87 times the mass of Jupiter. The article mentions that they could have detected smaller stars, but since they couldn't see any it seems like 8.3% is the minimum size for a star. I did another edit to remove the seemingly outdated references to Doradus and the minimum estimation of 75 Jupiters. Then RJHall reverted all my edits.
I would appreciate it if someone could change the section to include the latest information. Here's the article which talks about this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5260008.stm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.48.36 (talk • contribs) 
: I apologize for the reverts. This article suffers from a lot of vandalism so it needs constant tending. There was an article in the New Scientist that clarified the topic slightly. The value of 87 times the mass of Jupiter is applicable to stars of very low metallicity. For stars with Sun-like metallicity, the cut-off is 75 Jupiter masses. So both values are correct; it's just that the BBC News reference didn't delve into the topic with sufficient detail. Anyway the section has been updated.
: On the topic of the smallest star discovered, an ESO press release from 2005 says it's AB Dor C at 93 Jupiter masses. Another press release in NewScientist says it's OGLE-TR-122b at 96 Jupiter masses. They're pretty close. The reference is only a year old, so in what sense do you mean outdated? Thanks. — RJH (talk) 15:32, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: mass is a type of size (and there's a precedent, calling the population of a city its size) but Google does seem to show that the size of a star is its dimensions--diameter or volume; sites checked included Britannica, Hubblesite.  Encyclopedia Britannica seems to favor diameter (or radius).  Note Answers.com uses mass (but that might just be copied from Wikipedia) and KidsAstronomy.com uses magnitude!!! (Galileo used size to mean brightness, before we knew what stars were, and since brighter stars did appear bigger in his imperfect optics).  So, we should be careful how we use the size vs. mass language in the article.--Todd 00:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Size 

message: Simba 16:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Please see the speed of light article. — RJH (talk) 18:19, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proxima Centauri's light... 

message: This article says stars move from white dwarves to brown dwarves to black dwarves, yet I understand a brown dwarf to be formed from matter that conglomerates and never starts a sustained nuclear reaction. I've never heard of a white-to-brown-to-black sequence before.
:I believe you may be correct. Perhaps the brown dwarf was intended in the sense of a body that does not have a fusion reaction the core? Or that it radiates primarily in the infrared? But the part stating "to brown dwarves" could likely be removed without harming the text. — RJH (talk) 18:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  White to Brown to Black 

message: It was barely up there a week. How soon are these getting closed these days? Marskell 05:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes it was pretty brief compared to some I've seen. Perhaps they're trying to expedite the process? But no matter. The article has had some more improvements and is undergoing another PR, so I'll just try again after a judicious delay. — RJH (talk) 15:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I felt a little bad for you, actually. You were ready and willing to work on it. I'm curious to find out myself what the current closing standards are. I've got one up myself and don't want to see it arbitrarily cut off. Marskell 18:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be because there was only one support amid all the comments. It's partially my fault - I objected but didn't get to strike out the addressed comments before it closed. I was surprised - RJHall seems so motivated, I thought the FAC would end up passing, even if it stayed for a while. I've been helping with the peer review, though, and I think it will pass its next FAC nomination when we reach that point. Pagrashtak 19:23, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually I really appreciate all the work you've been willing to put into this article; it's in much better shape now. As Marskell mentioned, it was just a very fast FAC turn around. In the past there has been much more time to address FAC objections. — RJH (talk) 22:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The FAC 

message: This article is far to complex and incomprehensible. It is written at a level appropriate for a university science student, not for the general public. It does not contain basic information as to what a star is.
My main criticism is the opening paragraph. In this paragraph we should learn that stars are spherical and give off light. We should learn that stars are visible in the night sky and that one particular star is the source of most energy on Earth, including daylight. We should learn that stars are grouped into galaxies. 
I'm sure one can see what I'm driving at. --58.109.24.120 02:26, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  The style of the entire article is physics-talk, which is fine with me, except that the article should at least begin with the kind of basic definition that you describe. Spebudmak 04:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Buhhh... well I guess we could always include a transwiki link to the wiktionary definition. — RJH (talk) 18:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes it's difficult to please everybody. When I compare this article to the FA'd photon, for example, the star article seems pretty tractible for a lay audience, at least to me. But perhaps some focus is needed on the simple english version to communicate similar information at a very basic level? — RJH (talk) 19:18, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Incomprehensible

message: I don't think this sentance should be at the end of the first paragraph.  It doesn't fit the style of the rest of the article. When I attempted to edit the sentance out, I could not find it between the words "life span' and "Astronomers determine", and when I went to preview edit ( without changing anything) the sentance was gone. But when I clicked on article, to see the change there the sentance 'A lot of people think stars are SO nice!" was still there. 
I am very confused. Hopefully someone with more wiki or html knowledge than myself could make sure the sentance " A lot of people think stars are SO nice!" was actually deleted, or could explain to me what is happening.
~~Jocelyn
:Its gone and has been gone for minutes now. Your browser is showing you a previous revision. Gdo01 02:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Clear your cache by pressing Ctrl-F5 (on a PC, I'm not sure about on a Mac). —Cuiviénen 05:12, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A lot of people think stars are SO nice! 

message: The "Observation history" section begins with the sentence "Stars have been important to every culture."  It then proceeds to talk exclusively about observaions by European and American astronomers.  If stars are important to other cultures then this should be elaborated upon.  (Or, that sentence should be dropped.)  Spebudmak 04:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. The statement is true, but most of the section is focused on the modern scientific observation of stars using telescopes, rather than philosophical speculation based on naked observation. So, as much as you may not like it, a good deal of the key elements of the scientific understanding of stars comes from observations by European and American astronomers. If you have facts to the contrary, I'd be very interested in seeing them. Hopefully in the future the new discovers will be from a broader base, but in this case I don't see a useful alternative. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 17:55, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that the introductory sentence has little in common with the rest of the section.  If the section is indeed about "modern scientific observation of stars using telescopes" then of course it should talk about the people who did those observations, who were for the most part European and American.  I am not contesting that.  However, the first sentence gives one the impression that the section will talk about the impact that the night sky had upon various cultures, which it certainly does not.  So, that sentence should either be scrapped, or elaborated upon, in my opinion. Spebudmak 21:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well we agree to disagree then. A re-write would be satisfactory, but a deletion of that paragraph is unacceptible, at least to me. There needs to be at least some comment in there about the early use of stars. Anyway I tried to expand on the text. — RJH (talk) 17:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Euro-centric 

message: after the "planet's definition changed and omg!"  "controversy" on the media many people wonder who establish standards and definitions in astronomy, an "a star is .. according to" in the beginning of the article would be useful imo. --87.194.72.129 13:08, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  by who's definition? 

message: Giving a star to an article about stars. How fitting. JIP | Talk 17:31, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Star FA 

message: The opening doesn't read like part of a high-quality, featured article tonight.  Edits in recent days have muddied the intro.  I can't figure out how to help clean up the section and maintain continuity, accessibility, and tone at the same time.  --Dc3 05:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes the opening paragraph looks good, although I had to disagree with the assertion that life would not be possible without stars—we can't really be sure of that. It's always possible that other forms of life exist that we don't yet understand. Thanks. RJH (talk) 21:41, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening section is getting trampled 

message: I believe it should be stated more prominently that non-creationist star models are very speculative.  I cite the following in support: “We don’t understand how a single star forms, yet we want to understand how 10 billion stars form.” Carlos Frenk, as quoted by Robert Irion, “Surveys Scour the Cosmic Deep,” Science, Vol. 303, 19 March 2004, p. 1750.  Also, “In fact, given our current understanding of how stars form and the properties of the galactic center, it’s [stellar evolution near the galactic center is] not allowed to happen.” Andrea M. Gaze, as quoted by Ron Cowen, “Mystery in the Middle,” Science News, Vol. 163, 21 June 2003, p. 394.   In addition, “For example, no one can explain how the stars—which are 15 times heftier than our sun—got there [near the center of our galaxy]. According to most astronomical models, they are too big to have formed in the chaos of the galactic center but appear to be too young to have moved there from farther out.” Robert Irion, “The Milky Way’s Dark, Starving Pit,” (Science, Vol. 300, 30 May 2003, p. 1356 ).   Lastly, “We cannot even show convincingly how galaxies, stars, planets, and life arose in the present universe.” Michael Rowan-Robinson, “Review of the Accidental Universe,” New Scientist, Vol. 97, 20 January 1983, p. 186.  136.183.154.15 03:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Creationist star-formation models are, of course, false.  This is banned user "kdbuffalo" attempting to evade his ban.  This address is likely to be blocked, but he may use others. --Robert Stevens 09:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think I would say, rather, that they are non-scientific. It's always possible to concoct an extreme scenario under which a creationist viewpoint is "correct". But no scientific test has yet been found that can validate it. Otherwise, yes, I completely agree. The poster is attempting to turn scientific impartiality into evidence of falsehood. — RJH (talk) 16:17, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speculative nature of non-creationist star formation models 

message: Is is theoretically possible? Could a lifeform of any kind survive in a universe without stars? Would they ultimately survive long enough to create their own sources of power? - 86.151.100.68 16:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Life without medium-size atoms is inconceivable.--Dlatimer 14:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Impossible is too strong a word--Robert Forward's Cheela have no atoms, and I do not think it to be too much a stretch.  I suggest reading "What does a Martian Look Like?" by Martin Gardner and Jack Cohen.--Todd 17:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Life without stars

message: In the first paragraph it says that "A star is an extremely large ball of luminous ball of plasma".... large ball of luminous ball? Is that right? I mean, it sounds weird, and it doesn't make a lot of sense. Can someone fix this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.79.66.172 (talk) 15:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Paragraph 

message: I just counted, and in the last 50 edits over the past six days there have been 21 reverts. I propose that this page becomes semi-protected for the time being.--十八 08:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm all for it—I tried before to get semi-protection, but it was only done for a brief interval. — RJH (talk) 19:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have requested this page to be semi-protected now. I don't think it'll be declined.--十八 00:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This page is now semi-protected.--十八 09:18, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 16:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requesting semi-protect 

message: I had a thought the other day. And tried to find this answer to this on Wikipedia and other sources. But as a complete layman became very confused, parsecs/light years ect. This is my thought, we (the human race) have been sending out RF signals of a reasonable strength since 1922, please correct me on this if I have this wrong. Based on this knowledge, I wondered how far and how many star like suns (G class stars) have these RF signals reached by this year, 2007 ? You know where I'm going with this thought, and yes maybe life is not restricted to G class stars, or maybe it is, or maybe only to G2V, and we all known G2V's are capable! Then there's the age of these stars, and then the metallic make up as well. I wish someone with the right knowledge would draw up a list of theses stars. And using the above knowledge. We could then break the list up into the most lightly to the most unlikely places that intelligent life may exist. And that have also received RF signals from us. I believe this list would be helpful to SETI, to reduce their listing down to size, so they can focus on a more broader range of RF signals. As I also believe the RF's they are searching are far too narrow, and I feel a lot of time and money is going to waist at SETI. If anyone can help me with this please do, maybe I've got this wrong as I'm just a layman. But in any case, post me something, its bugging me! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.10.204.128 (talk) 23:51, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: see here: List of nearest stars, this shows all stars within 5 parsecs (16.308 light-years). Patrick1982 16:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Early radio signals were weak (drawing only a few watts) and may have been drowned out by the solar radiation. However modern radar can operate at tens to hundreds of megawatt, so they may pick up our defense systems radars. The number of class-G stars reached by our transmitters increases roughly as the cube of the radius (=time), at least until it reaches the edges of the galactic disk at which point it increases more as the square of the radius. But this assumes that anybody is even listening. We've only been doing so for about 0.000 001% of the age of the Sun. — RJH (talk) 14:54, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bet you find this Interesting? 

message: I suggest a slight change to the latest edit by 02:36, 8 April 2007 by Crescentnebula.
In the sentence "Because of the relatively vast distances between stars in the outer regions of the galaxy...", replace "the outer regions" by "most regions".   Timb66 10:20, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would disagree with that. That sentence sets up the context for the following sentence that then talks about where stars are closer together, astrologically speaking of course. Also, "most" is a weasle word, and we're trying to be specific as possible, espeically for an FA. I did however change "because of" to "due to" since I believe it is bad grammar to start sentences with because.--十八 10:43, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that this sentence links to the following one, but I still think "outer regions" is misleading.  To me it implies outskirts, but not necessarily the majority. It is certainly true that the stellar density in the vast majority of the galaxy (both disk and bulge) is too low for stellar collisions to occur with significant frequency.  I don't think "most" is a weasel word in this context.  It simply means "majority", something that is not implicit in "outer regions".  In fact, "outer regions" is actually wrong given that many globular clusters are in the outer regions of the Galaxy.  (I notice the page is no longer protected, but I thought I would discuss here before modifying the page) Timb66 01:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you Timb66. In fact I'd go so far as to say "outside the core region" of the galaxy. — RJH (talk) 16:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit requests 

message: I have removed the statement that "The variability is caused by the stellar aging process, which produces changes to the outer envelope" because it misleading as it stands.  The pulsations are caused by a feedback process that works like a heat engine, which is quite well explained in the page on asteroseismology.  Some stars go through stages during their travel in the HR diagram in which they are unstable to these pulsations, and temporarily become pulsating variable stars.  I think the page on variable stars needs to be updated to describe this more fully. cheers, Timb66 22:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was going by the reference, which stated that, "types of pulsating variables may be distinguished by the pulsation period, the mass and evolutionary status of the star, and the characteristics of their pulsations." Some mention of evolution seems appropriate. — RJH (talk) 15:56, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Hi Timb66: I added a request for a "Stellar pulsations" page on Wikipedia:Requested articles/Natural sciences#Astronomy_and_cosmology. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 22:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes they are, but covering every possible variable star would be prohibitive on a summary-style page. The variable star has a section on the topic (although that page needs lots of work).—RJH (talk) 19:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Variable stars 

message: I changed the font size and added additional information to the original pic. -- Penubag  03:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Upgraded HR

message: I'm not intending to compete with the above image, this is about star navigation, not about a physically correct HR-diagram from true data. My HR-diagram looks like this:
It's used for jumping from one star category to another, but:
:Have I got everything correct?
Grateful for comments and corrections. Said: Rursus 18:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe this is an old-fashioned version of the HR diagram.  Astronomers typically do not divide stars into "supergiants", "bright giants", "giants" and "subgiants" as is shown above.  Instead, astronomers would divide stars into classes such as horizontal branch stars and asymptotic giant branch stars, which are classifications based on the phenomenology of the stars and not just the stars' luminosities.  It would also be very useful to have links to the spectral types, which is as important as the luminosity classes.  Dr. Submillimeter 21:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Was long time ago this was decided upon, but factually: WC Wolf-Rayets are varying nuances of purple, from blue-purple to red-purple, due to two strong emissions, one in blue and one in red. About green stars: I think there are none, but who knows? Theoretically, if one star exhibit a very strong emission in green, the star could be green. Imagine a fast rotating star with a hot ring, and the ring happen to have a temperature such that an emission of Fe or Mg around E or b lines dominate the spectrum... Said: Rursus ☻ 23:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Nav HR diagram

message: ScienceDaily posted an article today about a new discovery that upsets the 'single period for star birth' theory.  I don't know much about stars, so maybe one of you could look at the article and decide whether it's worth including it in Wikipedia.  Here's the article.  Dionyseus 20:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe it had to do specifically with globular clusters. I've added in a reference and some text to that article. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 22:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New discovery upsets the 'single period for star birth' theory? 

message: Note that some lithium and (I think) also beryllium were created in the Big Bang.  Therefore, the opening paragraph needs some editing. Timb66 10:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup, a massive one atom in ten trillion. ;-) — RJH (talk) 20:58, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Big Bang 

message: The sun is NOT the closest star to the Earth it's the moon. A moon is a type of star. Aishe zq 23:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Stars shine by their own light. Moon isn't a star because it reflect light from the Sun. --Banus 20:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I know but ... some stars reflect light and use that light while others make their own light. Look up your info theirs new information. people have learned more about stars and the moon IS as star. Look up your info like i said before. Oh ya remember to use only web sites that have new info. After all the way your talking you'd believe that pluto was a planet. Aishe zq 23:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Aishe zq is right! the moon IS a star and its closer to earth than the sun so it's the closest star.Smartestgurl 14:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hasn't anybody told you it's not safe to drink and drive on the internet? — RJH (talk) 15:21, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Hasn't anyone told you not to talk about things you don't know about? Aishe zq 20:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

text: They got it backwards, every child knows that the Sun is a Moon! Because it revolves around earth, and earth is a planet! Said: Rursus ☻ 23:48, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sun closest? 

message: A sub-section on Magnetic field needs to be added to the Characteristics section. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Hot/S4 has a request for Stellar magnetic field, so the subject may need a separate article as well. (Also listed are Stellar rotation and Stellar temperature.) — RJH (talk) 19:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay I put together a start-class article on the topic. But it can obviously be expanded considerably. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 19:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Magnetic field 

message: The table for O-class main sequence star burn duration has typo in S/Si entry? In revisions before 5 June 2007 the entry is given in days, and in later revisions the entry is given in years but the number is unchanged. JTMnen 10:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch! I checked the reference and the 11.5 is in days, so I modified it to fractional years for consistency. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 14:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Burn duration 

message: Only the largest stars can have a supernova. Our Sun is actually not large enough to. It will simply expand until its gases float off into space.--4.249.210.74 22:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The 'Collapse' section covers core-collapse supernovae. Type Ia supernovae are caused by accreting white dwarfs in a binary system, or by a (rare) collision between two white dwarfs. — RJH (talk) 16:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supernova 

message: These are nowhere mention, but they outnumber stars in globular clusters by several times as I understand. --Mrg3105 11:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume you mean this, a star that falls along the line of sight to the cluster? I'm curious to know where you heard that they outnumber the stars in the cluster? It should depend on where the cluster is located in relation to our galaxy. — RJH (talk) 17:15, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Field stars 

message: The article needs to be smoothed out by integrating some of the subby paragraphs into their neighbours. I think this needs to go to WP:FAR for the purpose, unless anyone's willing to do it in the meantime (?) Tony (talk) 08:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can take a crack at it. Most of this problem has happened because of innumerable small revisions since the FA. — RJH (talk) 18:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, thanks; that would be excellent. Tony (talk) 03:43, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've done some updates. Are there any other parts of the content where you have a concern. — RJH (talk) 18:19, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Choppy paragraphing --> FAR? 

message: The Etymology of the word Star on this page is wrong. It in fact disagrees with the reference it cites! (Online Etymology Dictionary).
The word in devanagri is misspelt as  सितारा (satiara), which should be िसतारा (sitara) instead. Also, this word is not Sanskrit as stated - it is of Farsi (Persian) origin1, and now in common use in Hindi. The corresponding Sanskrit word is तारा1 (tara), also in common use.
The Online Etymology Dictionary actually agrees with Oxford Concise Dictionary and Chambers English Dictionary, giving Old English 'steorra', Greek 'aster', Latin 'stella', German 'stern' (amongst others), but not the Sanskrit word.
I consider it unlikely that the Farsi word (Farsi being Middle/New Persian ?) is the origin. Unless somebody has profound knowledge on this matter, sticking to what Oxford, Chambers and Online Etymology Dictionary concur on would be wiser.
However, the article might be better-off without an etymology, for none of these words give any historical background or any other kind of insight about stars. You might want to know the etymology of "Fata morgana" to see how the word came about, or appreciate knowing that "disaster" refers to being under a bad star, but a star is only a star in any language in any era, and the origin tells nothing more.
I shall wait for responses here for some time before editing the main-page.
1 "Brihat Hindi Kosh" (by Gyanmandal Ltd.), a reliable Indian dictionary.
--Ankurtg (talk) 20:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I find it hard to believe that the word spread between any of these languages.  Surely it has been in use for many many thousands of years, and all the similar sounding terms came from an ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's won't break my heart to see the etymology removed. Although some will disagree, I think it belongs in the wiktionary anyway. The etymology/pronunciation in various articles always seem to go through a lot of excessive churn, as if people can't agree or get it quite right. — RJH (talk) 23:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have removed the Etymology. To reiterate, the entity "star" would have been known to any ancient civilization and the origin of the name reveals nothing of interest. Also, the existing information is wrong. (I now suspect that the error in the devanagari script (सितारा / िसतारा) is due to a discrepancy between web-browsers. The original word appears right on IE 7.0, but wrong on Mozilla Firefox 2.0). Either way, the fact is incorrect.--Ankurtg (talk) 14:56, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: I cleaned up the stellar structure section a bit, most notably the incorrect statement that a core temperature of 107 K is necessary to maintain the equilibrium in a star. (Protostars and, for that matter, the Earth's atmosphere are in hydrostatic equilibrium at much cooler temperatures.)
:Thank you.—RJH (talk) 17:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The "main article" link in the structure section was pointed to the stellar structure page with the expectation of that page growing and improving in the future. Many of the astronomy "main article" pages linked from here are in need of improvement, but my feeling at the time was that the improvement should begin by bring this core topic/vital article page up to featured article status. (Which it is now.) I think the stellar structure page should expand on the summary content on this page, rather than trimming down this page. If you perform the latter then I think this page will no longer be considered as "comprehensive"; one of the featured article criteria. I don't see any particular urgency in changing the link or the content on this page. But I would really like to see the linked articles be improved and expanded.—RJH (talk) 17:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Makes sense. I'll try to work on the stellar structure page soon. I agree that there's no urgency, but it was misleading. I will put a note on the stellar structure page (for now) that there's more detail on the stars page. Ashill (talk) 21:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be great. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 18:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Stellar Structure

message: I have noticed that in the article it says that Main Sequence Stars are also called dwarf stars, which is incorrect as only some stars in the main sequence are dwarf stars. For example, a Blue Giant is a Main Sequence Star.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.115.172.120 (talk • contribs) 
:I believe that in this context the term "dwarf star" is used to describe a star that has a "normal" size for its mass. So a Blue Giant is also a dwarf star. It's an unfortunate term.—RJH (talk) 22:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It doen't make any sense to me either, but any star in the main sequence is technically considered a dwarf. Why there are white dwarfs and black dwarfs too is incomprehensible to me. Sorry, but that's how it is. J.delanoygabsadds 01:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See Stellar Classification#Yerkes spectral classification for the description of the so-called "luminosity classes". "Dwarf" means a star of luminosity class V (five), also known as a main sequence star. "White dwarf" is something else entirely, just to keep you confused. Like many terms in astronomy, it's a collection of historical artifacts because these things were all named before anyone knew what was going on physically, and the arcane names have stuck around. It's a shame, but that's the way the field is. "Black dwarf" is an uncommonly used term, largely because of the possibility for confusion with white dwarfs and dwarf stars. I'll try to clean up the language in this article to clarify things a bit, but it comes down to confusing, poorly chosen nomenclature that we all use. ASHill (talk) 05:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

text: I changed dwarf star, which was a redirect to main sequence, to a page explaining the various uses of the term dwarf in the context of stars. ASHill (talk) 05:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If the term causes confusion, then perhaps black dwarf ought to be merged with the white dwarf article.—RJH (talk) 14:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that's necessary; even though the term is not one I've often heard or ever used myself, the black dwarf page is very clear about what it means and it does have a somewhat distinct meaning from white dwarf. ASHill (talk) 15:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

text: 10 to the power of 10 is actually a 1 with 10 zeroes - 10 billion years in other words.  This is the correct figure for our Sun.  But thanks for checking - sometimes mistakes make it in and its good to keep your eyes open. PhySusie (talk) 03:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

text: For a reference, see: Main sequence#Lifetime —RJH (talk) 15:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Main Sequence Stars