Talk:Solar System/Archive 6

User:Eduardo Sellan III clarified the lead to say that the Solar System is a planetary system. User: Serendipodous reverted this and said in xyr edit summary that "The Solar System is not a planetary system." I don't understand why the Solar System wouldn't be considered a planetary system, given that the lead of planetary system states "A planetary system consists of the various non-stellar objects orbiting a star such as planets, dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and cosmic dust.[1][2] The Sun together with its planetary system, which includes Earth, is known as the Solar System.[3][4]", with 1-4 being valid, reliable sources. Furthermore, the hatnote on this article, which Serendipodous left intact, also states that the Solar System is a planetary system. I reverted Serendipodous, and would welcome xyr explanation of the change. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:34, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

A planetary system is the group of objects in orbit around a star. The Solar System, by definition, includes the Sun as well. Yes, the Solar System has a planetary system in it, but it is not a planetary system in itself. There is, at present, no generic word for "Solar System". Serendi^podous 07:39, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thank you for that clarification, it makes much more sense now. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:29, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I still can not understand why the solar system can not be considered a planetary system, but I edited the article with the purpose of giving a definition for the title. The article starts talking about the elements that constitute the solar system, but does not say what it is. Every article should start talking about what it's about the title. - Eduardo Sellan III (talk, contributions).

I didn't get it at first, either. It's a real technical distinction, but a correct one now that I understand. By definition, a planetary system includes only the things orbiting a star. By definition, the Solar System includes both the things orbiting the sun and the sun itself. Thus, the Solar System is actually the Sun plus the sun's planetary system. But I do understand your point about the first sentence not reading like the definition we usually start off with, mainly because (I think) of the use of the word "consists" instead of "is." What do others think about the following:

"The Solar System[a] is the collection of celestial objects bound to the Sun by gravity along with the Sun itself. Those objects were formed from the collapse consists of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago."

Would that help fix any confusion and still be logically/scientifically correct?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwyrxian (talk • contribs)

scientifically correct but syntactically awkward. I'll need to think a bit on how to rephrase it. Given that the Sun is 99.9 percent of the matter in the Solar System, it seems a bit odd to add it in a trailing clause. Since there is no word for what the Solar System is (until recently, we didn't need one, since there was only one) I don't think you can say, without lots of repetition, that the solar system "is" anything. Serendi^podous 06:11, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I am happy with how it reads. The SOLAR system is all about the Sun as the planets are secondary leftovers. -- Kheider (talk) 07:07, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Me too, except for the "celestial" bodies part, which implies that the Earth is not part of the solar system. It should say "astronomical objects", or even just plain "material" to include dust and other stuff that might not qualify as an "object" or "body". Tbayboy (talk) 16:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I suggest some definitions for "solar system":

• Region of the Milky Way
• Collection of celestial (or astronomical) bodies
• Collection of orbits

- Eduardo Sellan III (talk, contributions).

"Region of the Milky Way" is way too vague- it could apply just as much to the Orion Arm or to the outer regions of the galaxy where the Sun lies. "Collection of orbits" excludes the Sun, unless you count the Sun's orbit around galactic centre. "Collection of astronomical bodies" needs some form of qualifier- "including the Sun" is too vague, as it could just as easily apply to those stars embedded in the Local Interstellar Cloud. "Gravitationally bound to the Sun" excludes the Sun itself. There really is no way to define the Solar System at present, so I think it's best we just stick to what we have. Serendi^podous 15:34, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Not to mention that comets such as C/1980 E1 and Comet McNaught that are in the process of being ejected from the Solar System technically no longer orbit the Sun. -- Kheider (talk) 16:00, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Well they don't even fit the definition we have. Serendi^podous 16:38, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I was kind of suggesting that may not be a perfect "general use" definition. I think mentioning in the opening sentence(s) that the Sun's Hill sphere extends outward for about 3.6 light-years might be a little excessive for the casual reader. Though we could cite Chebotarev(1964). Of course once you reach half way to Alpha Centauri there becomes a serious dominance issue.-- Kheider (talk) 20:15, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

OK; took me a while but I think I've got it. Serendi^podous 16:37, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

These edits introduced unnecessary redundancy. The planetary system is part of the group of astronomical objects bound by gravity to the star, so there is no need to refer to it specifically. Also, can we keep "believe" out of it? It suggests we are supposed to take it on faith, rather than from an understanding drawn from the science. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Eris has just being found to be smaller than Pluto. Check the news here: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/106861063.html This makes some of the content in this page inaccurate, including a graphic that displays dwarf planets sizes compared to the Earth.Ricardojimenezr (talk) 03:09, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I have updated the section to mention that Eris is 25% more massive and roughly the same size. Given the error bars in the different size estimates, it is currently unknown whether Eris or Pluto has the larger diameter. As far as the diagram, it will have to wait for someone with better Photoshop skills than I have. -- Kheider (talk) 06:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article include a table (or possible separate tables for the inner and outer system) with key properties of the various planets? Specifically, I would like to see average density in that table...--Larssl (talk) 12:46, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

You can find density information at List of Solar System objects in hydrostatic equilibrium and Terrestrial planet#Density trends. -- Kheider (talk) 12:59, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Should there be a more obvious link to that list in the article? I mean it's not likely that a reader looking for that information will slap himself on the forehead and cry "Of course! Why didn't I look in List of Solar System objects in hydrostatic equilibrium?" Serendi^podous 00:11, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm thinking there should be. -- Kheider (talk) 15:34, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The Earth and Moon actually orbit a common center of gravity. The Moon does not orbit the Earth, just as Jupiter doesn't orbit the Earth.(Book Of General Ignorance) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.41.91.92 (talk) 17:40, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

And I cannot resist adding that the common centre of Mass is within the Earth. So it is perfectly correct to state that the Moon orbits the Earth. −Woodstone (talk) 16:35, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

By that rationale, Jupiter doesn't orbit the Sun. Technically I guess you could say that we live in a binary system, but that's just going to confuse most people. Feyrauth (talk) 15:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Don't like it. It's unreadable and too large. Also, it's impossible on that scale to show the size difference between Mercury, Pluto and Ceres. Plus, the different scales make it essentially useless. AND the Sun isn't to scale. Serendi^podous 07:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Plus distances are from Earth, not the Sun. And I would prefer AU rather than km. It's too busy, and the scale information is already there, and better demostrated, in other illustrations on the page. Tbayboy (talk) 14:56, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, I think that's enough to take it down. If someone disagrees they can put it back. Serendi^podous 14:58, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Lee's chart additions have raised an issue: should the orbital chart be updated to include Haumea, Makemake and Eris? Serendi^podous 14:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

It also doesn't have Ceres, although that would get lost in the belt, and ugly. All those dwarfs (and especially if you think of adding the other non-official dwarfs, like Sedna: Quaoar, OR10, Orcus) would get cluttered. Some additional alternatives to consider: A) remove Pluto :-); B) just add Eris, as a representative of the scattered disc, with Pluto representing the extent of the classical belt and plutinos; C) same as B, but add in Quaoar to represent the cold classical belt. With Sedna there, it's not really a display of the official planets+dwarfs, so adding all the official dwarfs begs the question of why not Quaoar and other unofficial dwarfs -- that would get really messy. Tbayboy (talk) 21:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

A would be simplest, but it would beg the question of what Sedna is doing there. I think B would be best. Alternatively , we can do what image 3 does for Sedna and just have the current position marked, without the orbital path. That would save clutter and allow for more DPs to be added. Serendi^podous 21:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I have the following suggestions to improve the image, please tell me whether the image would be suitable for re-insertion into the article if these changes were made:

• Remove all the text (possibly except for the names of the constellations)
• Remove the distance grid in the background
• Change all the planet images to be the same size, don’t bother about scale
• Remove the shadey thing that tries to visualise the size (to scale) of the sun
• Put the names of the planets back, but as a legend in the corner instead of in the middle of the picture
• Add explanation of what the light/dark shading in the orbits mean (the primary thing this diagram is trying to convey) in the legend

What do you guys think? Timwi (talk) 19:28, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Thing is, this article already has an orbits picture and a sizes picture. So I don't know what that picture could add that our current layout doesn't already have. Serendi^podous 19:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, I see your points and concur. Nevertheless, I find all existing diagrams don't show the relative distances of all the planets at once (they are split into inner and outer planets). How about using this EasyTimeline to show their ranges instead?

Distances of selected bodies of the Solar System from the Sun. The left and right edges of each bar correspond to the perihelion and aphelion of the body, respectively, hence long bars denote high orbital eccentricity. The radius of the Sun is 0.7 million km, and the radius of Jupiter (the largest planet) is 0.07 million km, both too small to resolve on this image.

Thanks, Cmglee (talk) 08:45, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

That chart is a bit unweildy and I don't really know where it could be placed. Besides, Eris's perihelion is 37 AU; I'm not sure where you got that oribit from. Serendi^podous 08:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I've reduced the height and fixed Eris' perihelion (I misread the average distance value). Is that better? Cmglee (talk) 12:19, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Looks nice but where would you put it? Serendi^podous 15:01, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Having both AU and km lines is confusing. Either go AU only (both seems two busy), or match the colours of the numbers with the lines. Why Halley's comet? Or, why only Halley's comet, and not Chariklo, Quaoar, Sedna, etc.? The whole Mercury through Earth labelling is messy: maybe stack them vertically, like the plutoids. It might go better on list of solar system objects, at the bottom. Tbayboy (talk) 16:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, may I suggest to add this great weblink to an interactive 3D model of the solarsystem: http://www.solarsystemscope.com/. Kind regards --Frank —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.176.119.51 (talk) 09:06, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Short answer, no. Wikipedia doesn't do advertising, and unless that site is notable on its own accord, Wikipedia shouldn't link to it. Serendi^podous 10:45, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

What is the "solar systems ecliptic"? There is only one ecliptic that I know about. Earths orbital ellipse is called the ecliptic. Anything else is just an orbital ellipse. Am I wrong? What defines the "solar systems ecliptic"? Or even the "solar systems orbital plane"? Is the article talking about the Invariable Plane? Because I wouldnt be confused if the person who wrote this article actually knew what they were talking about. CogitoErgoCogitoSum (talk) 16:29, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Rather than asking rhetorical questions, could you suggest how it might be rephrased? I think what is meant is fairly obvious from the context. Serendi^podous 19:42, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Deleted "Solar System's". Serendi^podous 07:25, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but if you wanted to show the ecliptic in 3D, wouldn't it be better to show it side on? Serendi^podous 13:34, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi there,

List the planets. Your first paragraph is way too complicated.

(if I was a betting man, I would put the odds of people wanting to remember a simple list, compared to the first paragraph, as it is now, at 10,000:1)

Thanks. (58.161.50.116 (talk) 12:00, 3 July 2011 (UTC))

have you looked at List of planets? Serendi^podous 12:28, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

There is hardly any information about moons in the introduction. Do you not think it should be expanded as to what some are made of, how they were formed etc. The Gaon (talk) 08:52, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

If you are talking about 'bodies' do you not think it would be more logical to talk about the moons of the planets before you start talking about the solar wind, as the solar wind is not a body but a stream of particles.The Gaon (talk) 08:55, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Is 'substantially more massive' a bit to long winded. 'Center' should be centre. Did the invention of the telescope not lead to the discovery of some planets not just geological features. Did Newton have anything to do with the fact that the earth moves around the sun. Is there any sources that show that the earth was at the centre of the universe, prob. Aristotle mentions it. 'Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to develop a mathematically predictive heliocentric system' this sounds like he created his own solar system. Shouldn't it be '...was the first to realise that the solar sysyem was governed by 'laws or something on those lines. 'For many thousands of years' is 'many' needed. 'Seasonal' do planets and moons have seasons. I think some moons remain frozen the whole year.The Gaon (talk) 09:14, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I've had a go at reordering the introduction. "Center" changed to "centre" except in proper nouns or titles. "More massive" has a distinct meaning from simply "larger" and so is required. As to your other comments:

• The line about geology refers to more recent times; ie. the last 100+- years.
• Isaac Newton's theory of gravity made acceptance of the heliocentric cosmos almost universal, because it explained how it could be.
• Copernicus realised nothing. He simply created a mathematical model that put the Sun in the centre of the universe. It was Galileo, Kepler and Newton who found the first evidence of a heliocentric cosmos.
• Most planets and moons have seasons; even Pluto, which is made of ice, has a "summer", in which it has an atmosphere, and "winter", in which its atmosphere freezes to the surface. Seasons depend on axial tilt and orbital eccentricity, not composition. Serendi^podous 09:31, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! But Pluto was only discovered in 1930 while the Hubble Space Telescope was used to discover Nix and Hydra two of Plutos moons in 2005.The Gaon (talk) 09:39, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

So? Pluto isn't a planet, and lots of moons have been discovered since then. Serendi^podous 10:08, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes but it says that 'telescope and the use of unmanned spacecraft have enabled the investigation of geological phenomena' when telescopes etc. have also been used to discover moons etc.The Gaon (talk) 10:53, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, fine. Sentence added. Serendi^podous 12:06, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

'All the planets and most other objects orbit the Sun in the same direction that the Sun is rotating (counter-clockwise, as viewed from above the Sun's north pole). For exceptions, see retrograde motion.' How is this known? there is no reference.

reference added.

'belt of rocky asteroids' is there any formal name for this.

yes. The asteroid belt.

'According to Kepler's laws' is it according to Kepler's laws if the planets actually move in the way his mathematical model prescripes. Should the section beginning with 'Kepler's laws of planetary motion...' have its own title.

Not sure what you mean. The structure section concerns the way the Solar System is "put together"; how all the various objects interrelate, and also what they're made of.

'(two of which are larger than the planet Mercury)' is this relevant.

If they were orbiting the Sun, we'd call them planets, so yes I'd say it was relevant.

In the paragraph beginning with 'The objects of the inner solar system' do you not think that the paragraph could be shortened if words were given references instead of them being explained. For example the word 'rock' could have a link to a page describing a rock instead of it being described in this article. The same is true for other words. Also the subjects in this section vary and they are not consistent. Compare the fact that the section titled structure focuses on the structure of the solar system. On the other hand the topics in this 'section' have no title and do not have a logical pattern.The Gaon (talk) 09:33, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Gas, Ice and rock do not mean the same things in planetary science that they do in common conversation. We see rock as always solid, but in planetary science, rock can be solid, liquid or gas. Same with gas and ice. Serendi^podous 10:09, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

OK but do you not think that it should have its own heading instead of the current 'structure' (if structure refers to those few paragraphs.) Also what I mean by 'according to Kepler's...' that we say according to Plato because Plato is of one opinion while others might disagree. But do we say 'according to Kepler' when Kepler discovered scientific truths which noone disagrees with.The Gaon (talk) 10:56, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Reworded. I don't think the structure section needs to be subdivided, but that's me. Serendi^podous 12:02, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I added a "composition" section. I hope that it is adequate to answer all concerns. Serendi^podous 21:23, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're trying to correct. You say that "bound to it by gravity" is an innacurate term yet your revision contains the phrase, in gravitationally bound orbits around the Sun. Leaving aside the fact that mentioning the word "Sun" twice in the same sentence is awkward, what, exactly, is the difference between your version and the previous? Serendi^podous 19:07, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind me changing the header to something more descriptive. I thought I had given adequate explanation in the Edit Summaries, but I'll try again here...

The key distinction to which objects are included in the Solar System versus which objects are excluded is whether or not the trajectories of those objects go around the Sun. If they go around the Sun, then they are part of the Solar System. If the Sun goes around them, then they are not. Here's further explanation as I was attempting in the Edit Summaries:

Jupiter and the Sun are bound to each other by gravity. Nothing controversial here. Because of this fact, it is accurate to say that Jupiter is bound to the Sun. Conversely, it is also accurate to say that the Sun is bound to Jupiter. Now consider the Sun's relation to the center of the Milky Way. There likewise is mutual attraction. The Sun is bound to the Center of the Milky Way (similar to how Jupiter is bound to the Sun). This is the error in the Solar System definition as it currently stands. It is totally inaccurate to state:

"The Solar System[a] consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects bound to it by gravity"

...because the Milky Way itself is bound to the Sun, gravitationally, as the Sun is bound to the Milky Way.

Now it is easy to guess how this gross inaccuracy got put into the definition. A peek at the very first archive shows straightforward definitions that specify the Solar System includes the Sun and objects that orbit the Sun. I expect that people came along with gripes about technicalities about object like moons that orbit planets that orbit the Sun. Such a view says that these objects orbit their primaries, therefore it is inaccurate to say that they orbit the Sun. I thoroughly expect that it was someone holding such a view who changed the article to its current definition, that now inadvertently fails to exclude the Milky Way as part of the Solar System.

There is an inherent myopia in the above view. If the trajectory of any moon is to be examined in a Sun-centered frame of reference, it becomes obvious that all objects in the Solar System do indeed orbit the Sun. In such a reference frame, all moons of the Solar System can be seen to orbit the Sun, and their primary bodies (typically, their planets) can be seen as causing perturbations to their orbits around the Sun.

I carefully chose the wording:

"in gravitationally bound orbits around the Sun".

It does not deny that moons within the Solar System orbit around primaries, which themselves orbit around the Sun. All objects of the Solar System are included. All objects that the Sun orbits around are excluded.

Serendipodous, if this explanation leaves any question in your mind about why I've been pushing this change, please let me know. As to the notion that my actions violated Wikipedia policy, you might want to consider this:

"BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes."

I'd at least hope we can recognize members here who are doing their best toward improving Wikipedia, improving the planet, improving the Solar System as a whole.Tdadamemd (talk) 20:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I had no intention of blocking your attempts to edit. I simply wanted clarification because your edit was confusing. Now that I understand what you mean, I will endeavor to rephrase it more simply. Serendi^podous 20:39, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I like that! I hope others here will too. Thanks for your help.--Tdadamemd (talk) 21:15, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I propose to add a section of categorisation to this article. The objects should be categorised according their type, like planets, dwarf planets, minor planets, comets, dust, etc. with an enlisting of known important objects. What do you think about such a section? Sae1962 (talk) 13:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean like this?Serendi^podous 16:55, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Moon_transit_of_sun_large.ogg There seems to be a "dead" pixel right above the sun, abit right just off the center of the screen. But it slowly moves it's position, at one frame even going very close to the sun and afterwards going back to it's initial location. At first I thought it was a dead pixel, then I thought it was some asteroid crossing by, but it's really strange. Was there any investigation on this or am I the first to discover it? 89.114.56.250 (talk) 00:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

An almost identical statement was made on the lede for the Earth article. In the discussion over there the consensus was to remove mention of this point as agreement on the wording could not reach a stable outcome. The statement here makes the same universal claim for knowledge of life and just assumes human knowledge but does not acknowledge the anthrocentric subjectivity of this claim given that human exploration of the universe is thus far restricted to our Solar System and therefore this statement is somewhat of a shallow truth to extend to everything in existance. Also the reference link here seems to be dead. SkyMachine (talk) 02:20, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Of course it's earth centric. Wikipedia has to be based on some assumptions. Knowledge being that possessed by humans is one of them. Another is that in many, many articles we simply don't (and cannot) include the possibility that some"one" off earth has run faster, jumped further, experienced higher temperatures, etc. Change this, and you have to change every instance of "greatest" (or smallest, or hottest, etc) something ever recorded. HiLo48 (talk) 02:38, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes but if some one were to write "Usain Bolt is the fastest known runner in the universe" would you not agree that the universal claim there is on a different order (in terms of justifiable claims) to saying he is "the fastest known man?" In other words, why would you say such a thing if you didn't need to, to get the same point across? SkyMachine (talk) 02:59, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not talking about men. I'm talking about claims like "...hottest temperature ever recorded...", without context, or "tallest building ever built" or "longest story ever written", etc. Every one of those claims could be exceeded by a hypothetical achievement by an alien race we don't know exists. So, how careful do we have to be? HiLo48 (talk) 09:37, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Context matters. What frame of reference you use matters. From my frame of reference the sun is the brightest star because it looks to be so, however from a more independant reference frame there are stars in our galaxy that are a thousand times brighter, they are just further away. If you are talking about something on Earth (tallest building etc) we assume the frame of reference of "the world" (this happens to be most things in human culture). However, the universe as a frame of reference is evoked if you mention "the universe" and this is very many orders of magnitude larger than "the world". Our frame of reference for claims about life really should be the Solar System because that is all we have explored to any length (though far from completely), so far. We are not likely to have come close to exploring "the universe" in any near future (if ever). We are just barely at the point of detecting the first extrasolar planets somewhat the size of Earth. SkyMachine (talk) 10:30, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with all of that. So, we must now eliminate from Wikipedia every claim for largest, hottest, fastest, etc. without context. Right? (There are a lot of them.) HiLo48 (talk) 10:58, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Well no. Just start with the most egregious examples such as this statement that compares Earth (as a location known to harbour life) to the entire unexplored universe and everything in it except our Earth. Most things of interest to humanity assume Earth frame of reference by default without error so there should be no problem (or much less of one) for these fastest (the speed of light), hottest, coldest, smallest, largest claims. SkyMachine (talk) 11:18, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

@HiLo48. That there imprecisions in other Wikipedia articles is no excuse to create more of them/not to correct at least some of them. It could do us only good to continuously ask ourself it our POV is as neutral as possibly could be and try to correct our ways. --Dia^ (talk) 07:27, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed that it isn't on there. It's got plenty of other relatively obscure planetoids on it, so why not Ceres? I have probably missied something vitally important here, but as far as I can see, someone should put it on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.209.185.215 (talk) 21:53, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not there because there's no good picture of it. Yet. In 2015, we should get a good pic of Ceres, and Pluto & friends, too. Tbayboy (talk) 22:43, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

we are preparing new results for way of explaining reason of Jupiter’s' fast rotation

--IRAN nov 2011 Akbarmohammadzade (talk) 10:49, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Well if these results are published in a reputable, peer-reviewed journal, and become accepted by a portion of the scientific community, then it should be included in the Jupiter article. However, the currently accepted theory seem pretty rock-solid; by the very nature of the gravitational collapse scenario, more massive bodies will have a higher angular velocity. A new theory does not seem necessary. -RunningOnBrains(talk) 18:41, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

In astrophysics, the term star system or stellar system refers to any system of one or more stars and their gravitationally bound non-stellar mass. While galaxies are often called stellar systems, recent science indicates that they would be more accurately called "black hole systems", since galaxies seem to have black holes - rather than stars - at their barycenter. "Solar system" = "the stellar system centered on the star, Sol." Planetary system would not be accurate, as this excludes the primary star or stars. Patrickwooldridge (talk) 16:42, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but there hasn't been a large scale shift in definition yet.

The Universal Book of Astronomy defines a "planetary system" as:

A system of celestial bodies in orbit around a star including planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and dust.

This definition would exclude the parent star.

Collins Dictionary clarifies this distinction:

... A system of planets and other bodies, such as comets and meteroids, that orbits a star. The Sun and its planetary system together comprise the solar system.

The McGraw Hill dictionary of Astronomy defines a "stellar system" as:

A gravitational system of stars.

Chambers 21st Century Dictionary defines a "star system" as:

a group of stars thought of collectively

OED Concise defines "solar system" as

the sun together with the planets, asteroids and comets etc. that orbit around it.

According to these definitions, therefore, there are three separate concepts being defined here:

1. Planetary system: the substellar objects in orbit around a star.

2. Star system or stellar system: a group of stars garvitationally bound to one another

3. Solar system: our Sun, together with its planetary system.

As yet, there isn't a universally accepted general term for "Solar System". Serendi^podous 16:51, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

While some dictionaries with more abbreviated entries only refer to multi-star systems, those with more comprehensive citations usually also include single star systems. For example, the quote I cited is from the Wikipedia entry. Collins unabridged states "1. (Astronomy) Astronomy a group of celestial bodies that are associated as a result of natural laws." I consider this definition to be too vague; I would rephrase it as "a group of celestial bodies centered on a star or group of stars that are associated as a result of natural laws". From the point of view of just logic, I would contend that, since Sol is (a) name of our star, then the Solar System is by simple definition a stellar system.

Also: why did you object to clarifying that the majority of the mass in this system is not in the planets, but in the Sun? Patrickwooldridge (talk) 17:33, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

It occurs to me that one of the functions of Wikipedia is as a forum for clarifying and refining definitions and explanations. If you and I (and other astrophysicists) can agree that "stellar system" is an appropriate term for single-star systems, then eventually the dictionaries will catch up. The term seems both intuitively and logically correct to me. If the Solar System had a binary as its barycenter - or even if Jupiter had ignited - it seems there would be no question that it is a stellar system. We know that there are other similar systems of a single primary star orbited by a planetary system and, not only do I consider "stellar system" to be an accurate and descriptive term for these systems, but I cannot think of any other term that would be equally accurate and descriptive. Patrickwooldridge (talk) 18:01, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia's job is to report, not to lead the way. Similar discussions have been had over the definition of the Kuiper belt or exactly how many dwarf planets there are. In the end, we simply have to reflect the current situation, no matter how inadequate that situation may be. Serendi^podous 08:42, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

To keep my archives in line with previous ones, I've condensed the number of archives from 8 to 6. ~100k seems to be the minimum established for this archive, so I'll be sticking to that. Serendi^podous 09:04, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

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In the Milky Way wiki it says: "The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy 100,000-120,000 light years in diameter containing 200–600 billion stars"

In the Solar System wiki it says: "The Solar System is located in the Milky Way galaxy, which contains about 200 billion stars."

Please can one of these statements be changed so that the quantity of stars in the Milky Way is the same in both.

Many thanks.

Grinners80 (talk) 14:25, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

both say 200 billion; one just allows for possibly more. I don't think there's a discrepancy there. Serendi^podous 22:36, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Not done: I find myself in agreement with Serendipodous.--Hazel77 ^talk 18:40, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry if this has been mentioned before. I expected this article to talk about any solar system and another article titled 'Sol Solar System' or something similar would talk about our solar system. There are billions of other solar systems out there, why does this talk mainly about our own? I know we know lot more about our own than others but still. 124.254.78.121 (talk) 04:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Astronomical literature tends to refer to the systems of planets orbiting other stars as planetary systems: I think that article is what you are looking for. Our system of planets orbits the Sun (Sol in the Latin), so as you said, this is the (Sol)ar System (proper noun). Iridia (talk) 05:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

The current article (May 4 2012)has a section headed "Formation and evolution" devoted almost entirely to the formation and evolution of the Sun. The only reference to the planets is the brief "The planets formed by accretion from this disk". I expanded this to include a shortened summary of the content presented in much greater detail in the article Formation and evolution of the Solar System. My summary was reverted by user Serendipodous, with the comment "This is already covered in Formation and evolution of the Solar System". I think, perhaps, that Serendipodous failed to notice the carefully considered summary nature of my update. If this section is to be present at all, then it must surely contain more than a (fairly detailed) description of the life cycle of the Sun, and no reference to the evolution of the planets. In the light of this belief, I will unrevert my update. Please add some justification here before reverting me again. FredV (talk) 21:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

This article is pushing 100 K; at this point we should be trying to make it shorter, not longer. I've been pushing uphill with recent additions, and really this isn't the only thing I would delete at this point. At the very least, this section can be seriously shortened: 1. Bullet points are not stylistically appropriate for this article and 2. the paragraph on the Nice model could be reduced to a sentence. Serendi^podous 21:46, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree both that the detail in both the description of the Sun and in the formation of the planets was a bit excessive (with much of the former repeated verbatim in Formation and evolution of the solar system. I've taken a crack at trimming both. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 00:42, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

A new subsection "Comprehending the vast distances" was added today. I have a few concerns about this section that I want to mention here instead of just reverting.

1. The entire section is unreferenced (though I don't think there's anything factually controversial there) and seems a bit like original research.
2. It doesn't present any new information and is quite different in tone than the rest of the article; the rest of the article focuses much more on the scientific facts instead of pedagogical presentation. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing.
3. The article is already quite large. That's not a reason in itself not to include new material, but might this material be better off somewhere else (either in a separater article or not on Wikipedia at all?

—Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 10:08, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

This is adequately covered in Solar System model. No need for a repeat here. Reverted. Serendi^podous 10:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

To clarify my reversion: I think the image used, like the text that was reverted as described above, is way too much on the pedagogical side for Wikipedia. See WP:NOTTEXTBOOK: "The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to teach subject matter." —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 02:37, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Ashill. This article already has about as many images as it can handle, and the mini-essay in the thumbnail does not conform with Wiki style rules. Serendi^podous 05:04, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I removed the image from the structure section as well. In addition to my objections above: a) I don't think this image does convey both the relative sizes of the objects and the distances at the same time; it just gloms together the two concepts, which is already done separately -- and better -- in several of the other images in the article. b) Much of the text is illegibly small. c) The relevance of the golf ball and chewing gum pack require so much explanation that I don't think its helpful, certainly not encyclopedic, and perhaps only helpful to a subset of the world's English-speaking population. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 10:55, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

The text and image I added were deleted for the reason that the vast distances were conveyed somewhere there already. Where? I can't find it - neither in words nor in images. Quite to the contrary, every single image in the article presents a grossly distorted view of the Solar System.

I definitely agree with the criticism that the article is way too long. Info about greenhouse gases does not belong here, along with about half of the other info it presents. But there is fundamental Solar System info that this article, in its present state, utterly fails on. Perhaps the most glaring:

- The lede never states that the Solar System is a planetary system.

- Nowhere in the body of the article is this ever stated either.

Reverting unnecessary info is a vital aspect to Wikipedia editing. But in this article, the baby has been thrown out and an excess of murky bath water has been preserved for public display. If this article were properly written, it would convey the basic info about the Solar System all contained within the lede. And a key part of that is how vast the spaces are between objects. With very few exceptions, just about everyone has a gross misunderstanding of those vast distances, because all they've ever seen are this dramatically misrepresented diagrams of the solar system.

Yes, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a primer. But when that encyclopedia presents info in a very distorted manner, it takes on the duty of correcting that very misrepreresentation it made. One way to do that is to make note in the images. But to simply state "distances not to scale" fails to quantify the extent of distortion. Imagine instead if the note were to state "sizes shown to scale, distances compressed by a factor of 10,000", (or whatever it actually is). And even to quantify it like this, it still runs into the problem of numbers that are incomprehensible.

What my effort was trying to do was to simply state that on the scale of a football field, you'd have a object smaller than a golf ball at one end and an object smaller than a BB at the other end, with a few other BBs and several much smaller objects distributed in between. This is basic info that people do not comprehend. Not even many (probably most) astronomers. If they did, they would be a lot more careful when presenting these outrageously distorted images.--Tdadamemd (talk) 18:42, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Uh, the Solar System is not a planetary system. It has one in it, but it is not one. This article has two images listing the distances to scale, both in the Structure section, so I don't really know what you're talking about there. The only time greenhouse gases are mentioned is in regards to Venus, where they are quite relevant. As far as mentioning the distances in the lead, well, which distances? The distance to Sedna? The Oort cloud? Alpha Centauri? Space is big. Serendi^podous 18:59, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

You seem to be perfectly ok that nowhere in this article is it stated that the Solar System includes the Sun with its planetary system.

And I did not say that the article does not have anything that shows distances to scale. The very point at issue is that nowhere is the vast distances between the objects communicated. In other words, how extremely small these objects are in relation to those vast distances.

As to the point about space being big, people have a general understanding that space is big. But then the Solar System is thought of as this local clump of matter. What the huge disconnect is is that the Solar System itself has vast space within it. Matter is the great exception, even with the Sun and Jupiter. As for the relevant distance to scale to, the one that was being highlighted was the space within the Solar System, with the key length being from the Sun to the outer most planet. Yes, the distance across the Oort cloud would be good to convey ...as soon as that info becomes available. And no, the distance to Alpha Centauri is not totally relevant to this article. That would be good to have in an article about Alpha Centauri, or an article about the Milky Way.

And yes, greenhouse gases are very relevant to Venus. I see that info belonging in the Venus article. If you wanted to get down to that level of detail in an article about the Solar System then you'd have an article as long as the current one: way too long with trivial details in relation to the Solar System as a whole, yet missing key info about what the Solar System really is, and what it isn't.--Tdadamemd (talk) 19:23, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

The "planetary system" discussion has been had before. Please be sure to see the link marked "These edits". The article also has an image that shows the sizes of the Solar planets to scale, so what exactly is your point? Serendi^podous 19:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that pointer. As for the original issue being discussed here:

There is no image, nor text, that describes how small these Solar System objects are in relation to the vast distances between them. Even to represent the largest object, the Sun, as a single pixel in those images is a gross distortion.

For anyone who maintains that this is adequately done already, I would like to see the exact words or image(s) where you feel this is properly communicated in the article, pre-reversion. For reference, here's the image and caption that got deleted:

This is the only image that I know of where this small size-vast distance is accurately communicated. Everything else I'm seeing in the article looks grossly distorted.--Tdadamemd (talk) 19:59, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm unclear as to why you think your image is an improvement. It's unclear, cluttered, and completley fails to get its point accross. The fact that it requires so much exposition to explain shows that it is not conveying the idea visually. And there's a reason for that: YOU CAN'T convey this idea visually. It's impossible wihtout a page the size of a football field. Serendi^podous 20:08, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

It can be easily stated with words:

"If the distance from the Sun to the outer-most planet, Neptune, were scaled to the 100 yard length of a football field, then the Sun would be smaller than a golf ball, and Neptune along with all of the other Gas Giants would each be smaller than a BB pellet."

There. Done. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this is key info that belongs in the lede.

As for why this article does not communicate the Solar System in relation to the generalized concept of a planetary system, I'm still reading through that archived talk to try to understand the reasoning that was arrived at. Whatever it may have been, I see it to be a major mistake. That is one of the very first things I would want to see stated in an article about the Solar System. I'm now curious as to whether the article conveys at all that the Solar System is not at all unique in this respect. That it has just one of a multitude of planetary systems. Again, very basic info that belongs in the lede!--Tdadamemd (talk) 20:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Serendipodous. The image is more confusing than enlightening. The text by itself is better, but it should be less culturally specific. I don't think it is key or essential information, so I don't think it belongs in the lead. Something like it could extend the paragraph about Solar System models (at the end of Structure).

As for "Solar System", there is no generalised term for a star together with its planetary system. The "see also" note (at the very top of the article) indicates the distinction between "the Solar System" and "the planetary system orbiting Sol". The first sentence of the lead could be amended to include "planetary system" (splitting the collapse bit off to its own sentence), but I think that would read poorly with the note there, unless we're not supposed to "see" the note and lead together (dunno the Wiki-stance on that). Tbayboy (talk) 03:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

The image is wholly uninformative for me. I have no idea what the upside-down numbers on the green background are meant to be. And what is the picture of the rectangular thing in the bottom right corner? I've got some idea of the normal size of a golf ball but how does that scale to the other things in the picture.

And what is a BB pellet? I've never seen or heard of one before. I would have to go and research that before the explanation made any sense to me. By which time I would have given up and ignored the whole thing completely. HumphreyW (talk) 04:06, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Someone named Tim back in the early 90's popularized this thing called hypertext. <=See how those letters are a different color? You can click on it if you don't know what it means, and it magically takes you to a new page that explains it to you. It's called "the internet". Oh wait, you're soaking in it!--Tdadamemd (talk) 05:09, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

@Tbayboy: I'm not seeing what is so culturally exclusive about a golf ball, a stick of chewing gum, and a BB pellet. Those seem like items that are ubiquitous to the English-speaking world, for this English wikipage. And if there are better items to use for scale comparison, I am all for it. As for the football field, it covers pretty much the whole world to let people know that it's nearly the length of a soccer field (other football field). ...which might be nice to go with from the get-go if that 100 yards thing wasn't so convenient.

But for whatever reason there is an amazing amount of pushback against just the concept of trying to accurately communicate this info about how vast the expanse is. Humphrey's reply above really went the extra mile! Or make that "extra kilometer", as he will say that he has no idea of what a "mile" is (nor the inclination to look it up).

As for what you're saying about the header note, trying to convey article information through those notes is a misconstructed article. Those header notes are properly used to redirect a person who is looking for a totally different topic. If the concepts are related, then the note should be deleted, and the info moved into the article where it belongs.

My understanding of how Wikipedia should work seems to be the outlyer from the vocal majority here. Because of that, I'm going to step back from any more input here for the time being. I've made my critiques known. You all can do whatever you see to be best with that info. I'll check back after some time to see what, if anything, has changed.--Tdadamemd (talk) 05:27, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

(outdent) While I agree with all but one editor in this discussion that the proposed edits would make the article worse, it is true that there's no mention that most of the volume of the Solar System is outer space. I added a mention of this to the lede. I'm not entirely convinced that the way I added it is the best possible, though. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 11:48, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

"Volume of the Solar System" makes little sense, since the Solar System is a collection of objects, not a region of space. The biggest issue I have with the whole "vast distances" thing is that where you decide to measure those vast distances from is entirely arbitrary. Do we start from Neptune? The Kuiper Belt? The heliopause? The Oort cloud? The Sun's Roche sphere? If we're only talking about distances between planets, then that arguably belongs in the structure section, not in the lead, since the planets are not the only things in the Solar System, and the structure section already covers distances tolerably well. Serendi^podous 12:55, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, I've added a brief description of the Sweden Solar System to the paragraph on models. Don't know why I've bent over backwards to appease this guy, given that he has done nothing but insult us, but there. It's done. Serendi^podous 14:22, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I came here to this article to make constructive edits. When those edits were reverted, I moved to this Talk page to present constructive criticisms. It became clear that my positive intentions were not being taken positively, so I decided to step back. If you feel personally insulted by my criticisms, then perhaps that is because you feel personal ownership of this article, and perhaps it is attitudes like that that are the fundamental problem that have manifested into this article. You do not own this. I do not own this. It is a shared community.

This is not an insult. This is another example of me trying to offer constructive criticism on how this article (and Wikipedia on the whole) can be improved. I would hope that we all share the goal of having the best article, the best community, the best planet, and the best Solar System.

I'm going to step back into the observer mode here once again.--Tdadamemd (talk) 23:44, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Re "the Solar System is a collection of objects, not a region of space." Really? I don't think that makes sense. The article uses the concept "outside the Solar System" twice, which implies that the Solar System is a region of space, and we would certainly say that, for example, Pioneer is within the Solar System, and the interplanetary medium obviously is. I think this depends on context. Britannica (whose words we obviously can't use verbatim), says "solar system, assemblage of [a bunch of objects]; and vast reaches of highly tenuous gas and dust known as the interplanetary medium."

You're certainly right that the Solar System doesn't have a clearly defined volume, but I think it is perfectly clear what "volume of the Solar System" means in this context. I could have said "the volume which contains the objects that make up the Solar System", but that's just clumsy and conveys no more information than "the volume of the Solar System", in my opinion. Though I think that the (good faith) text and image proposed by Tdadmemd have mostly made the article worse, the editor is not without a point: I do think an encyclopedic (and brief -- probably less than a sentence!) mention that nearly all the mass is contained in essentially none of the volume would improve the article. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 01:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Re your last sentence: Second sentence of the lead. Tbayboy (talk) 03:55, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Earlier today I made a new image to show diameter comparisons in how the Sun, Jupiter, Earth and the Moon are related in orders of magnitude. These are arguably the four most important objects of the Solar System (from an Earthling's perspective). I think it would be an excellent addition to the article, and I would add it myself, but during the above discussion about communicating the vast distances between these objects, I committed to holding off from making edits to the article. I hope you all like it, and that you find it as useful as I do. Here it is...

Ironically, while this image may make the size relationships much more clear, it may contribute to people having a distorted understanding of the distances between objects (particularly in the first frame with all four bodies). It may be helpful to add a note directly onto the image.

I'll be glad to address feedback on this new image in this section, but I still prefer to hold off on adding to the discussion in the previous section, for the time being. What this section would best be used for is the appropriateness and helpfulness of this image if it were to be used in the Solar System article. For anyone who has feedback specific to the image itself, it would probably be better to add that over at its Wikicommons page.--Tdadamemd (talk) 00:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I think this image would be an excellent companion to the orbits image in the 'Structure' section.--Tdadamemd (talk) 00:15, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

This is not necessary. The very first image in the article gives the size scales of all the planets. And there are more images below that that do various comparisons. This image appears to add nothing that isn't already in the article. HumphreyW (talk) 00:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

What you are saying is akin to holding the view that all the info in the new image is contained within the very first quadrant, and that the other three quadrants are unnecessary. But notice how much more detailed info those other three quadrants give. It shows at a glance that Jupiter is one tenth the diameter of the Sun, and that the Earth fits 11 times across Jupiter. And the bigger point is in identifying the general trend of the order of magnitude relationship between various categories of bodies found in the Solar System. This does not come across at all in the first image of the article (not to me at least). It is a fundamental quality of the Solar System. I'm not sure how well it comes across in the text of the article. This image is offered as a very quick and convenient way to communicate that fundamental info.

If the concern is that the article already has too many images, I would agree. I can also suggest several images that the article would not lose much by eliminating (actually, the article would be improved by eliminating).--Tdadamemd (talk) 02:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC) [edited]

I also don't see the point of the image. It might be useful in Orders of magnitude (length) though. Serendi^podous 08:28, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

The point was that this image is illustrating a fundamental characteristic of the solar system. I don't see how this is communicated clearly in the article as it currently stands. Another way this could be communicated is through a graph that lists the diameters of Solar System objects in descending order. My expectation is that such a graph would clearly show that these major objects fall into four distinct categories that would look like stair-steps (if the y-axis showed diameter logarithmically), roughly speaking. The Sun would be on the top step. The gas giants would be on the next step. The terrestrial planets one step down from that. Then the dwarf planets on the bottom step. This image was my way of showing the transitions between those four steps, but instead I showed the Moon at the bottom end with a comment in the description of how it is very large proportionally, which is a distinctive feature of it as a moon in our Solar System.--Tdadamemd (talk) 05:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)