Talk:Astronomy

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	Astronomy has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.
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Astronomy was the Article Creation and Improvement Drive for the week spanning from Sunday, 09 July 2006. For more details, see the Article Creation and Improvement Drive history.

Archives Archive 1

Contents 1 Astronomical timelines 2 References 3 Nature of the article 4 Suggestion for reorganisation 5 Recent changes and GA 6 Good Article 7 Major questions in astronomy 8 History Section 9 Space Pinwheels 10 Vandalism 11 Help the simple english version of this 12 References (english) 13 Vandalism, again 14 Wikiproject

[edit] Astronomical timelines

This topic is already covered on the list of timelines page. Does it also need to be duplicated here? I don't see a comparable section on the biology, chemistry or physics pages. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 21:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I struggled momentarily with removing the list because there's no way to link directly down to the astronomy timelines on list of timelines. Then I found the Astronomy timelines category. My vote is with you to remove the list from the article (there's too many lists in this article already), but add the category to the see also list or something.--Will.i.am 23:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

That works, thanks. I was "bold" and made the change. — RJH (talk) 15:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

Since this is a high-level summary page, does it make sense to include detailed in-line citations everywhere? I would think those would be found on the drill-down detail pages. Would it make sense to just have a list of good-quality astronomy books, comparable to the list at World_War_I#References? — RJH (talk) 15:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm tended to agree with you, but I'm afraid this article is never going to make it to FA (or even GA) if it doesn't have inline references. Nick Mks 16:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought the same when I saw the "uncited sources" tag. Unfortunately too, none of the more general science (or arts) pages have been featured so there's little precedent. But there are a few spots where inline references might be able to be put in:

• "During the 1990s, the astrometric technique of measuring the stellar wobble has led to the discovery of large extrasolar planets orbiting nearby stars."
• "Kinematic studies of matter in the Milky Way have demonstrated that the galaxy has more mass than can be accounted for by the visible matter."

And places in the History section could be referenced (could be hard though because they're not inline in the main article).--Will.i.am 23:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you suggest then that we should try and go for GA with the current (or a couple more general) references? Nick Mks 13:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

After my 1000 edits to add one inline this afternoon.... I would definitely add three or four more general references. The inlines can wait until the review process points them out or we see more spots where they'd be appropriate.--Will.i.am 00:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps if everybody would be so good as to put some {{Fact}} entries after lines that they believe need citations, we can put in some appropriate references. Thanks!!! — RJH (talk) 20:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Here are some references available at Wikisource:

• s:The New Student's Reference Work/Astronomy
• s:The American Practical Navigator/Chapter 15

The second is sadly mising the figures --Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 18:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nature of the article

Quick question to those of you who have been here much longer: is this article about the fields of astronomy, their discoveries, or both? It mostly seems like both, but some sections (e.g. astrometry) just talk about what the scientists, do whereas others (e.g. galactic astronomy) only talk about discoveries. Most seem to approach both. Commentary?--Will.i.am 00:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Both I would think. I'd hope it would be a top-level overview with drill-downs to more detailed pages. Astrometry is probably closer to data collection than to an astronomical subject, so maybe it should be relocated. But it's also about data analysis, so I'm not really sure what's the best place. — RJH (talk) 20:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion for reorganisation

The layout of this article doesn't seem to me to allow it to cover everything it needs to. I'm not convinced starting with 'divisions' is the best way to go. I'd like to suggest a possible TOC here, which, if people think it would be good, we could rearrange the article around:

1. History

1.1 Prehistory to the 17th century

1.2 Telescopic astronomy

1.3 Astronomy in the Space Age

2. Astronomical observations

How objects are observed, with what tools, and what the results are (i.e. images, spectra)

3. Astronomical objects

3.1 Solar system astronomy

3.2 Galactic astronomy

3.3 Extragalactic astronomy

4. Amateur astronomy

The importance of amateurs - one of the only sciences where they make significant contributions

5. Major questions in astronomy

Brief summary of some of the biggest issues

6. Refs 7. External links

What does anyone think? Worldtraveller 11:34, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. The details can of course be filled in while in progress. Nick Mks 11:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Overall it looks good, and I like the idea of having an amateur astronomy section. But I'm not sure I agree with the astronomical objects section—I think your list has too few sub-sections. What about stellar astronomy and cosmology, for example? — RJH (talk) 20:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I was sort of mentally putting stars under the galactic astronomy bit, and cosmology in extragalactic, but we could certainly have more subsections there for those. In a way that section seems odd to me anyway - the types of objects studied will already have been mentioned in the history and observations section - but I thought we ought to have a decent overview of what types of things are out there. Worldtraveller 21:29, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

That certainly works for me, thanks. Were you going to start a temp sub-page to do the re-edit? — RJH (talk) 15:46, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I like it. This format (history, what is is, and then how it's divided) makes sense for article flow.--Will.i.am 00:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and did a global re-edit of the page to bring it closer to the above organization. It will need some more work though. :-) — RJH (talk) 17:53, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Should there be some mention of the connection between astronomy and navigation in this article? Historically navigation was certainly an important application of astronomy. --Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 02:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I added a sentence in the "Astrometry and celestial mechanics" section. Is that sufficient? — RJH (talk) 19:43, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent changes and GA

Hi all, I've been on a vacation lately, but I see that things keep improving here. Despite the ongoing discussions about references, nature and a possible reorganisation, I wonder whether we shouln't nominate it for GA now. If it fails, then at least we get an outside view of what isn't right. Any ideas? Nick Mks 16:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The tag at the top of the Astronomy about missing references or sources should mean that it fails GA, per WP:WIAGA 2(a). Plus there is the re-org. discussion above that has resulted in two new sections and a need for a re-edit. — RJH (talk) 17:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article

This article has horrible referencing and is therefore not suitable to be a Good Article. Also, the LONG article was removed from FA status recently. --GoOdCoNtEnT 07:41, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

It now has a number of general references, so hopefully that will be sufficient. — RJH (talk) 21:23, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Should very much be indeed. Finally... :) Nick Mks 09:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major questions in astronomy

I whacked out a couple of my own entries from this section because they are somewhat speculative in nature. I.e. there have been some hypotheses concerning these questions, but current evidence is mainly in the negative.

• Have the values of the physical constants varied over time?
• Does Newton's law of gravitation hold over long distances? Or can some alternate theory, such as the nonsymmetric gravitational theory, explain the mystery of dark matter?

This entire topic is also somewhat PoV, so I tried to add in some references to back the questions up. But it probably wouldn't hurt to add in a few more. :-)

Are there any other questions that could be added? I think an older major question about whether neutrinos have mass has already been addressed. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 16:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History Section

Should this article mention about the Mayans? Since they were very good astronomers. And the pyramids that they had for the 8 planets, Sun, and Moon, and one small side small pyramid that was speculated to be Pluto? Also, their calendar ends on when the Earth is in the galactic plane. Thanks, CarpD (^_^)

They are mentioned on the History of astronomy page. Perhaps that section on the Mayans needs expansion? I'd rather see this page focus more on modern astronomy, but that's just my preference. The history section is getting pretty bloated already, considering it's got a main article of its own. That may need some trimming down. :-) — RJH (talk) 21:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, did not know that there was a seperate page... Thanks, CarpD (^_^) 8/31/06

[edit] Space Pinwheels

i saw this of digg http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060904_mystery_monday.html i couldn't find a mention of space pinwheels on the pinwheel disambiguation page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinwheel is there no pinwheel page? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.170.90.4 (talk • contribs).

Pinwheel nebula. — RJH (talk) 14:50, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

It looks like this page was semi-protected on November 6th; the protection removed November 7th, and the page was then vandalized twice within a day. The apparent reason the semi-protection was removed? A very low level of vandalism. ;-) — RJH (talk) 16:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the semi-protection (which I requested) was discontinued too soon (after little more than 24 hours) and I also don't understand how there could not be a very low level of vandalism to a protected article. Hopefully the three damaging edits since were unintentional, but if there is one more I'll ask to reprotect. Nick Mks 17:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems as if vandalism semi-protection could be automated based on the number of reverts of a page by bots or named accounts over a period of time (such as over a four week interval). — RJH (talk) 21:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

As from now, I am discontinuing my efforts to limit vandalism to this article. Without the requested support from admins, this is becoming an impossible task. Nick Mks 18:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I can empathize. — RJH (talk) 19:13, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help the simple english version of this

Ok I was looking at the simple english wikipedia out of boredom... I noticed that the simple english astronomy article is not SIMPLE. Someone finish the job i started please?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by H3nrydah3n (talk • contribs).

I'm unclear what you mean. What is a "simple english" version? This article is primarily intended to meet the wikipedia good article criteria. — RJH (talk) 15:45, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh you mean this page. Never mind. — RJH (talk) 15:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References (english)

The references section at the bottom has the word English in brackets behind the writing. In a lot of cases this is rendering the text unreadable. Can this be corrected?--Jcvamp 10:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed the "language=" parameter from all the in-line citations. (The page are the citations are both in English, so the language tag isn't needed.) — RJH (talk) 16:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism, again

This is getting unpleasant, and I have requested an extended semiprotect. Have tried to clean up, but may have missed some. Please keep an eye on this article. (Why on earth are the vandals so attracted to this article? I can understand that the creationist opinion-pushers like to vandalize here, but what makes it so attractive to the simple bored schoolkids?) Kosebamse 06:59, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Presumably the vandal-kiddies are attracted to basic topics such as this due to their level of education. I've tried in the past to get this article semi-protected, but it was ignored. But I do keep this (and some others) on my watchlist and check regularly to make sure it has not been inappropriately altered. Thanks for your help to reduce the vandalism. — RJH (talk) 17:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject

Since articles can be within the scope of multiple wikiprojects I think astronomy should in addition to being within the scope of wikiproject astronomy and wikiproject physics which it already is should also be added to being within the scope of wikiproject mathematics since astronomy is very mathematical and was originally considered part of mathematics not of science even though now it is considered part of science not of mathematics. Prb4 21:01:42 February 14, 2007 (UTC)

Astronomy is as mathematical as physics and all of the other sciences. But I'm not seeing the particular connection to this page. Do you just want an association somewhere on the page? — RJH (talk) 23:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Putting an article in a wikiproject does not give that wikiproject ownership over the article. It merely means that that wikiproject has an interest in the article. It is perfectly normal for articles to be within the scope of multiple wikiprojects, e.g., the Nikolai Lobachevsky article is within the scope of wikiproject biography, wikiproject mathematics, and the Russian history wikiproject. The history of mathematics article is within the scope of the history of science wikiproject even though mathematics is not one of the natural sciences. Therefore it would be perfectly ok to put the astronomy article into wikiproject mathematics because astronomy is much more mathematical than most sciences are and it was originally classified as part of math, not part of science until recently when it switched to being considered part of science not part of math. In many respects astronomy is more like math than science. It involves spatial relationships and a lot of geometry and trigonometry. It also involves Euclidean distance. It also involves some complex geometry such as spherical trigonometry. This article should be added to wikiproject mathematics although it should still of course remain in wikiproject physics and wikiproject astronomy as well. Prb4 1:24:48 February 15,2007 (UTC)

"This WikiProject aimed originally to organize articles in the area of mathematics; in its broadest terms, this may include overlap into the areas of physics, computer science, operations research, and other areas." This is what wikiproject mathematics says about articles that are not about math but are about subjects that involve a lot of math. Therefore it would be legitimate to place the astronomy article within the scope of wikiproject mathematics. Prb4 2:28:24 February 15, 2007

Okay well you're implying things that I never stated, such as "ownership". But don't you think that the project tags are more effective if they are tightly focused on directly-related material? I'm highly familiar with the uses of mathematics in science, thanks. :-) Anyway I'm not clear why this needs to be discussed—most people just add in the wikiproject banner without asking. I usually just follow up by adding it to a {{WikiProjectBanners}}. — RJH (talk) 16:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)