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List of unsolved problems in astronomy?

The List of unsolved problems in physics page has a collection of astronomy/astrophysics points, and there's some discussion about perhaps creating a dedicated article for them (compare these lists). Your input would be welcome. XOR'easter (talk) 15:33, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I'd be fine with a separate astronomy/astrophysics list. I'd keep some redundancy, like baryon asymmetry, however. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:34, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

There's this: Astronomy#Unsolved problems in astronomy. Praemonitus (talk) 15:41, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Sure, though calling it List of unsolved problems in astronomy and planetary science might be better. I think it should include the cosmology section, not just the problems currently under the astronomy heading. On the other hand I agree with removing KIC 8462852 and the Wow! signal, as they're not major problems for the field. Modest Genius ^talk 16:17, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! Some quick thoughts: First, I think redundancy is inevitable and most likely not a problem. Second, the list in the "Astronomy" article is rather miscellaneous, and the article would I believe be better served if the list were split off into its own thing. Also, regarding KIC 8462852 and the Wow! signal, I don't have strong feelings about it, but there might be an argument for including items that have had significant pop-science media coverage, cultural uptake, reference in fiction, etc., even if they aren't major _targets of active research. If nothing else, what we say can provide a healthy dose of anti-sensationalism. XOR'easter (talk) 16:53, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

As was mentioned on List of unsolved problems in physics, there is a distinction between "unsolved problem" and "unexplained observation". An unexplained observation is you don't know why something happened. An unexplained problem is that you know exactly what happened, and can't explain it. In mundane terms, an unexplained observation is watching a car barrel through an intersection at 100 kph. KIC, Wow and trans-neptunian planets all qualify as such "WTF" observations - the issue isn't how it happened, but which of dozens of plausible explanations is the right one. An unsolved problem is when the car leisurely floats through the intersection 2-3 meters up in the air. That's a case where you don't have any plausible explanation, so is an unsolved problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tarl N. (talk • contribs)

Sure, there's a distinction, but the page as it stands doesn't actually care. It includes high-temperature superconductors, the fractional quantum Hall effect, phase transitions in liquid crystals, and plenty of other examples where plausible explanations using known fundamental physics exist, but we can't yet decide among them. XOR'easter (talk) 18:37, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

As to the examples here and in the article, you have to decide does something actually "defies some known physics law" rather than "might defy some known physics law." You require:

1. divergent observation
2. repeatable divergent observation(s)
3. shown it fails any prediction against known standard and theoretical physics
4. has agreed consensus among the scientific community that is a unsolved problem
5. several sources/citations discussing the unsolved problem

Examples of KIC, Wow and the possible trans-neptunian planets (preferential perihelion distribution, actually. See [1]) all fail.

In astronomy, almost all phenomena can be explained by current physics: Newtonian or relativity effects by gravitation, quantum mechanics with gas or exotic object, Maxwell's theory (magnetic fields, etc), fluid mechanics in planets, etc. without requiring any new physics. Problems are more to do with understanding the dynamic processes, like how galaxies or stars evolve, or supernovae explode, etc. As most astronomical processes occurs over very long time frames, where understanding phenomena relies upon observing many objects or events of similar nature. I.e. variable stars like, say, the Cepheids or looking at similar morphological type galaxies. Some phenomena may deviate from the norm, but it does not very likely require any additional or new physics to explain it. Just because a new discovery / observation has taken place, or is yet to be discovered, does not necessarily mean it is an unsolved problem but just an unknown problem.

Again, as I said on the article's talkpage, if you change this, I can add 1001 examples, which would make the article unwieldy and too long. (It will also bring out the anti-science or fringe science brigade, which has to be too be frequently dealt with. e.g. The discussion on inertia. Frankly, I see no need to add an astronomy page, especially it as most of the problems is based on astrophysics (physics of astronomy) not just astronomy per se. Arianewiki1 (talk) 02:55, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

There is a very recent article that discusses some astrophysical problems that apply to the List of unsolved problems in physics. This is "Life, the universe, and everything - 42 fundamental questions."[2] which lists these problems on pg.49-50. I'd think these are primary 'unsolved' problems, and this might aid the discussion here. Virtually none are astronomy problems.. Arianewiki1 (talk) 03:33, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

The distinction you seem to be making (a) is not actually implied by how the introduction of the page presents itself, and (b) would eliminate many items on the page that have existed without complaint for a long time. Physics is not just about discovering "new physics".

If our list of unsolved problems in physics grows too long, it can always be subdivided; if it turns out to attract frequent vandalism, it can be protected. I fail to see how including a larger number of mundane, as-yet-unresolved questions in applied physics will attract more cranks and crackpots than we already get for mentioning cosmological fine-tuning, the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and other such crank-magnet topics. XOR'easter (talk) 15:40, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

This appears to have devolved into a content dispute which has very little to do with whether astronomy problems should be split into a separate article. I suggest you take arguments over what counts as a 'unsolved problem in physics' to Talk:list of unsolved problems in physics and stick to the actual topic of discussion here. Modest Genius ^talk 16:32, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

I apologize for carrying on about the side issue here. XOR'easter (talk) 17:13, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

redirect to Messier's catalogue article

Hi, I have just discovered this redirect made in 2004 and it actually confused me a little bit. Am I the only one?

It is linked to the original title of the catalogue, Catalogue des nébuleuses et des amas d'étoiles, so a translation of the second half... but in my experience noone knows it like "Nebulae and Star Clusters", using only the second half of it. IMHO, it does not ring a bell when you say it like that. I found it on google although not all in the first results, but I have asked around to other people with Ph.D. and the string "Nebulae and Star Clusters" is not understood as specific of this work, so how can anyone in practice search for it or use it as a redirect here? In facts, it is unused.

Plus, at the time galaxies were considered nubulae, but not now, so without "Messier" people might be confused about the meaning of the redirect, since some Messier objects are not nebulae or star clusters, and many other clusters are not in the Messier catalogue. Some people actually were, before searching and reading and understanding that it was part of the catalog's original name. I have discovered it putting "Nebulae" in the search bar and originally I though that it was a redirect to some list of pages on the whole topic. Actually, the astronomer in my poll was more confused about it when I showed it, which is fun to think about. I could guess almost immediately there was some historical reason (the original title), he couldn't.

I am really curious: are me and my friends the only ones to feel this way? that is, to think this redirect confuses more than it helps?--Alexmar983 (talk) 22:39, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Alexmar983, you're welcome to send it to WP:RFD if you do not think it is useful. However, being a partial match for a title of a book written by Messier is (if I remember correctly) one of the acceptable reasons to have a redirect. I could be misremembering, though. Primefac (talk) 11:30, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Primefac I let the project decide, if people here agree, I'll link this discussion to RFD, otherwise fine with me. it's just that after having spent 20 minutes to discuss it (someone had a boring night, I guess), adding 5 minutes to write here was no big deal. Do you think it's not confusing? if so, we keep it.--Alexmar983 (talk) 11:48, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

I mean, it wouldn't be the first thing I'd be searching if I was looking for Messier Objects (or his book), but I could certainly see someone thinking "it was something about nebulae and clusters..." so I couldn't say if it's useful overall. Pageview analysis shows less than 1 hit per week for the last year, which is quite a bit lower than the 200-300 seen by the article itself. Primefac (talk) 11:59, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

I saw that number, I cut that part to reduce the size of my commment... but still the question remained in my head. Are those readers actually looking for Messier's catalog when they click there? Or are they more similar to my case, that is typing "nebulae" and clicking on it from the scroll menu thinking it is some short string for a redirect to a list of summary pages? I guess we'll never know.--Alexmar983 (talk) 13:51, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Not the most brilliant and necessary redirect I've ever seen, but I don't find it confusing. Follow it and you get to a type of nebula or star cluster. Possibly there is a better _target for it? I don't see anything that would obviously mark it out for deletion, the criteria for allowing redirects are pretty loose. Boldly re_targeting is almost always better than weeks of discussion that nearly always result in ... re_targeting. New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars? Don't double-redirect of course. Lithopsian (talk) 17:29, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

What about Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars too :D? I feel that what is missing (or i cannot find) is a page where all possible catalogues are listed with some comments, that it is the page I would make a redirect too, the most honest one for a reader. Not a disambiguation page, that I assume it's correct if it is string-based, but a "content page".

I am not sure if there is a clear scientific word to encompass these diverse "non star deep-sky objects" (not my real field, sorry) but in general a list with some comments of the articles listed in Category:Astronomical catalogues (and similar subcategories or same-level categories) by year of creation or main author/project could be probably useful. The perfect redirect should direct to that.

Just a guess, of course. In my experience by field and language this type of confusions can be ignored for years, but sometimes it is useful to reveal if something "structural" is missing. Look for example at Template:Messier objects or Template:Caldwell catalogue who include the objects and some historical catalogues. i believe that that second part in those navboxes should be removed in a new separate navbox, to be further enlarged and improved over the years. That could be a future base also on an article-list of some types. You see that quite well when you open Herschel_400_Catalogue that has no navbox. Just a suggestion, of course. Sorry I cannot really help... maybe I can separate the navbox, it is a good "seed" to plant.--Alexmar983 (talk) 14:55, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

We can always convert it, Nebulae and Star Clusters, into a WP:SETINDEX set index article, that lists the various catalogues of star clusters and nebulae that are so called that. The

Nebulae and Star Clusters may refer to

• Catalogue des nébuleuses et des amas d'étoiles (Messier "M" catalogue)
• New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (Dreyer "NGC" catalogue)
  • Index Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (JLE Dreyer's "IC" catalogue)
• General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (John Herschel 'GC'/"h" catalogue)
• Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (William Herschel 'CN'/"H" catalogue)

{{SIA}}

-- 70.51.203.56 (talk) 11:20, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

 Done This is now a set index. -- 65.94.42.219 (talk) 05:32, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

MediaWiki parser change

FYI, I noticed a notice at another WikiProject about an upcoming change in the MediaWiki infrastructure, that is, that TIDY parser, now HTML4 is being replaced by HTML5, which may break things (like tables).

The borked page listing is generated from Special:LintErrors. The infopage for the parser code replacement is at MW:Parsing/Replacing Tidy. A broken table example can be seen at MW:Help:Extension:Linter/deletable-table-tag

-- 70.51.203.56 (talk) 04:39, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the wikitext parser is going to change in June, and any page with an error may display strangely. I've been going through Special:LintErrors, and I've found some high-priority errors in articles tagged by this WikiProject.

What's needed right now is for someone to click these links and compare the side-by-side preview of the two parsers. If the "New" page looks okay, then something's maybe technically wrong with the HTML, but there's no immediate worry. If that column looks wrong, then it should be fixed.

The first list is all "deletable table" errors. If you want to know more about how to fix these pages, then see mw:Help:Extension:Linter/deletable-table-tag. Taking the first link as an example, there is highlighting in the wikitext that shows where the lint error is; it's in the star box. With the old parser, it makes one infobox; in the new one, the image infobox and the rest of the infobox will be displayed separately. All of these links have a problem that involves a template (and they may all be exactly the same problem):

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Aurigae?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=45233074
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Pyxidis?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=79547769
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LRLL_54361?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=8729806
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Cancri?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=32946605
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_158?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=10420585
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_162?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=10420595

This second list is "misnested tags". See mw:Help:Extension:Linter/html5-misnesting for more information. The highlighting for the first link indicates that the problem for that article is in the ==References== section. I'd guess that removing the {{refbegin}} templates would solve it; there may be some incompatibility in the HTML for the refbegin and the citation templates. I've added a second column of information, in the hope that it will help identify the specific problem; please let me know if that's actually useful.

All done

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Smyth?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=80044746	{"name":"cite","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Julius_Hyginus?action=parsermigration-edit&lintid=89858039	{"name":"cite","templateInfo":{"multiPartTemplateBlock":true}}

Note that the highlighting from the lintid code won't work reliably after the article has been edited, so for pages with multiple errors, it's best to try to fix them all at once. For more help, you can ask questions at Wikipedia talk:Linter. Good luck, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:10, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

all the errors now appeared to be fixed. Also thanks to Izno. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:09, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

New space station comparison diagram

Size comparisons between current and past space stations as they appeared most recently. Solar panels in blue, heat radiators in red. Note that stations have different depths not shown by silhouettes.

Hello all, I've made a vector diagram to compare space station sizes. It should be updatable and correctable over time. I've been surprised how hard it has been to find accurate plan flat diagrams, so please feel free to direct edit if I've made any errors! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 04:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

You're at the wrong wikiproject. This is a WP:SPACEFLIGHT concern, and unrelated to astronomy. On another note, your Salyut list is wrong. The Salyuts evolved over time, so no single silhouette would be accurate. Additionally, there were two architecture families for the Salyut stations, the DOS and the OPS series. But this discussion should occur at WT:SPACEFLIGHT -- 65.94.42.219 (talk) 04:56, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Very useful feedback, thanks. I'll move the the conversation there! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 12:45, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Discussion: renaming minor-planet article

The proposal to rename and move List of Mars-crossing minor planets to Mars-crossing asteroid has been contested.

Please join the discussion at Talk:List of Mars-crossing minor planets § Requested move 17 May 2018 which also concerns a set of related articles. Rfassbind – talk 03:25, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:26, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Starbox unit wrapping

{{Starbox astrometry}}

I noticed that some starbox fields can line-break between a value and its unit, which is usually undesirable. In particular, the parallax, which is having this problem more often with the highly precise Gaia DR2 parallaxes. AG Carinae is an example, at least with my screen layout. I set out to change it, found the template is protected, requested a change, and then found that there are a lot more fields like this, and that I should have discussed it first anyway. So ... discuss. Lithopsian (talk) 13:58, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd say this is pretty uncontroversial. For what it's worth, though, I'm not seeing the number/unit line break you're referring to, but I know everyone's screens are a little different. If you sandbox the changes to show they don't break anything, I'd be happy to implement them (i.e. I don't think "making the templates work better" needs a whole lot of discussion). Primefac (talk) 16:58, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I've edited the sandbox. I changed the space before all units, not just parallax, to a non-breaking space. Then the parallax broke at the ± sign. I created a second version which doesn't break there either. That's probably OK, but maybe it might too wide one day. Not sure what the solution to that would be; in most fields, the editor has control over formatting the value and the error margin, but for the parallax they are entered separately and combined in the template to allow for distance calculations. Lithopsian (talk) 20:15, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Some more examples with a long parallaxes that wrap for me: WR 31a, HD 35519, HD 240429/240430, and Nova Persei 2018. Lithopsian (talk) 13:33, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done. Primefac (talk) 14:13, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Deletion of List of largest galaxies and how to clean up galaxy sizes in articles

I've proposed to delete List of largest galaxies. See the deletion proposal and that page's talk for details.

More broadly, the galaxy sizes on individual wikipedia pages are generally wrong and are certainly inconsistent with one another. The effort required to fix them would be substantial, and there's not even an obviously coherent way to go about it: one would have to use an optical survey with a fixed surface brightness depth and measure the half light radii and get distances via spectroscopy or photometric redshifts. Just taking the various values quoted in NED doesn't make for a reliable list. I'm of the opinion that we're better off just removing the "size" or "diameter" section from the galaxy infoboxes. Ideas? - Parejkoj (talk) 20:06, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I think in general that specific reliable sources should be used for infobox data, rather than collection sites like NED and SIMBAD. The latter tend to change over time, potentially leading to confusion over the original source. If the galaxy size information is inconsistent, then perhaps it should instead be expanded to accommodate the different methods of determination? Praemonitus (talk) 13:48, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

User:Bibcode Bot revived

I finally got Bibcode Bot to query the ADSABS database. It meant half-assing things, so I don't yet know if anything broke, so keep an eye on your watchlist and report issues if you see them.

Issues, if anything, will likely be missed arxiv/bibcode/doi because of incomplete/wrong info in the citations, rather than bad info being added by the bot. And bot crashes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:58, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Got the last of the bot crashes resolved, thanks to the helpful staff at ADSABS. The bot is not as powerful as it once was at guessing things, but I think I can gradually restore advanced guessing functionality. However, the bot will now update temporary/old bibcodes to modern ones. If you see errors, please drop a message on the bot's talk page! Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:27, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Headbomb! Not an easy task. --Mark viking (talk) 20:33, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually the hardest part of this was to run down through every solutions suggested ADSABS guys until they gave up and whitelisted the bot to give it unlimited querying powers (the bot historically had those, but something changed a few months ago and it got blacklisted). So that wasn't particularly hard, it just took 2 weeks of emails going "alright, I tried your thing, which worked for a couple of edits, but then bot got blocked again". The hard work was mostly done by User:Betacommand/User:Δ, who resurrected the bot after a Wikipedia API update and who figured out the core of the bibcode update logic. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:41, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

ADS are in the middle of some major changes to their backend and API, which might have caused the original problem. My thanks to everyone involved in maintaining Bibcode Bot! Modest Genius ^talk 13:11, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Yup, they are. I haven't taken at look at the new API just yet, but I don't think the changes will affect the bot much beyond slight regex changes. Maybe for the advanced bibcode guessing logic since that's currently borked and I haven't sat down to think of a solution for that just yet. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:25, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I ran the bot on all WP:AST's articles in the past few days. If you expand an article and want me to run the bot on it, or run the bot on some other articles, let me know. I'll be doing physics articles next, but I can always squeeze requests in. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:00, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

David Darling's list of notable stars

We should likely created articles / redirects for all the following entries:

• CH Cygni
• IC 10 X-1
• IP Pegasi
• SMC X-1 / 2U 0115-73
• TYC 8241 2652
• UX Orionis

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:38, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Headbomb, would you mind if I cut out the 90% of the links that already exist? Primefac (talk) 23:48, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Go right ahead. I was just lazy and linked everything so we could have an idea of what was already done, but keeping only what is left to do is also fine. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:40, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Done. Left the list for posterity, just hid it. The redirects all appear to point to the proper places (i.e. alt names) but I might have missed a couple. Primefac (talk) 01:30, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

IP Pegasi is in {{Stars of Pegasus}} but not List of stars in Pegasus. UX Orionis is in both equivalents for Orion. L1551 IRS 5 exists. Lithopsian (talk) 19:27, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Hipparcos reduction question

So I noticed that we have {{cite DR2}} for Gaia's release, and it got me thinking about the Hipparcos reduction by van Leeuwen; the reference is used on almost 3k pages - would it be worth it to create a template to replace all these uses (i.e. to standardize them)? Primefac (talk) 19:12, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Seems a bit late in the day. Hipparcos has been the main source of parallaxes for the bulk of stars brighter than about 10th magnitude for the last 20 years, but is now on the verge of being obsolete. Gaia DR2 parallaxes are available for the majority of Hipparcos stars and a great many more, and are usually more accurate. Producing the template wouldn't be hard, but the effort of writing a bot or manually editing 3,000 articles seems pointless when 99% of them could be replaced by Gaia parallaxes now or when the final data release comes out. Used to be that we had {{cite doi}} for centralisation of frequent refs but some bright spark decided that was a bad idea so now we have the same thing in 3,000 pages. Hopefully they won't spot {{cite DR2}}. Lithopsian (talk) 19:24, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, fair point. As for any potential for deleting DR2, I'd say that a template used on potentially thousands of templates is perfectly acceptable - not to rehash the DOI debate but that family of templates was being used for any DOI, including ones that might have only been used once or twice. Primefac (talk) 19:29, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

One of the reasons of using {{cite DR2}} was so we can add full bibliographic information as & when it becomes available (e.g. volume and page numbers). van Leeuwan's work was published a full decade ago, so doesn't have that problem. I agree that a template wouldn't do any harm, but it doesn't seem worth the effort of incorporating it into all those articles. Modest Genius ^talk 10:14, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Some time back there was an effort to use templates for common references, but that has since been rescinded. I didn't see the discussion for that decision. It does seem like references are ripe for inclusion in a common media database. Praemonitus (talk) 17:26, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

FL review for List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs

Hey guys, the featured list nomination List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs could really use some review from experts. Come give input on the Review page. Thanks! exoplanetaryscience (talk) 23:29, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Fact-checking Request

Can anyone of you fact-check the new top entry SDSS J140821.67+025733.2 in the List of most massive black holes? The purported mass (~200 billion solar masses) seems too high for me and I fear that it might cause another issue just like what happened in Holmberg 15A.

I can't open the reference because my cellphone truly does suck. It just crashes my browser. If anyone can dig open reference 6 and check the values there, that would be awesome! Please let me know. I just want to make sure that it's not an error. ^_^

Warm regards for anyone. SkyFlubbler ^(talk) 07:09, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Well the reference itself does not mention the fact. But in the data file the entry with highest field 12 has decimal RA DEC of 212.090299 2.959248 has the given black hole mass by use of CIV. The MgII line calculation does not confirm the mass. (Is CIV the C⁺³ emission line?). Not only that, but there are 20 with BH mass over 10¹¹ solar masses as determined by CIV. Using MGII there is only one entry with more than 0.1 trillion solar masses. Overall I think that it is an original research to claim the most massive black hole, as no one from a reliable source seems to have made the statement. This paper has been cited 4 times, so perhaps others are not relying on the mass estimates from it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:31, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I looked upon the table of reference 6 and the highest I've only seen is entry RA 0.00806 and DEC -0.24097 with the mass exponent M_BH of 9.39. This equates to only 2.45 billion M_Sun. Nowhere does any purported ~200 billion solar masses is listed in the reference.

I checked at the article history and I've found out that the entry of SDSS J140821.67+025733.2 was made by User:老干妈2333. He even made an article about it. I can see this as another case of WP:OR. In the meantime, I'll remove the entry of SDSS J140821.67+025733.2 at the massive black holes list. I'll also put his article at requests for speedy deletion. SkyFlubbler ^(talk) 11:26, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4

• Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4#Physics
• Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4#Measurement
• Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4#Astronomy

An IP has made a lot of physics-related proposals. Please comment. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Different values on two different version of the same paper.

Hi everyone. The article HATS-36b cites this article on arXiv which lists the mass for that planet as being 2.79 ± 0.40 M_J. However, NASA's Exoplanet Archive (which the list of exoplanets uses) cites the same article on ADSABS, which lists the mass for the planet as being 3.216 ± 0.062 M_J. How did this come about, and which version are we to use? Loooke (talk) 00:09, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Go with the second value which matches the published version of the article here (Feb 2018) rather than the preprint version (June 2017) at arXiv. StarryGrandma (talk) 04:17, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Also NASA's exoplanet archive links to the full published version here, not the arXiv version. StarryGrandma (talk) 04:24, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Always go with published values. arxiv documents, when they are preprints, are exactly that: preprints. They haven't gone through peer review and are subject to change. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:43, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Well often scientists do post the accepted version (after peer review) on arXiv, so that's not always true. The term 'preprint' means different things to different people; it does not necessarily imply 'prior to peer review'. Nevertheless I agree that the final published version always trumps the preprint, whenever they differ. Modest Genius ^talk 10:15, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Hence the "when they are preprints" clause. While postprints are also on the arxiv. If the values differ in that case, there's an errata somewhere. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:02, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

The term 'postprint' is not used in astronomy. Professional astronomers refer to everything on arXiv as a preprint, regardless of its peer-review status. They have been doing so for 25 years, long before the term 'postprint' was invented. I am aware this terminology varies by field. Modest Genius ^talk 10:45, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Gaia data

At what point will data from Gaia be used to replace or be used along with the Hipparcos data? For many objects the data diverge considerably. Presumably, they are both reliable sources, so should we be adding that objects are, for example, distance X per Hipparcos and Y per Gaia into articles? just replace X referencing Hipparcos with Y referencing Gaia? keeping the Hipparcos data and ignoring the diverging Gaia data? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:27, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Generally, if the Gaia DR2 uncertainty is smaller than Hipparcos I would go with that. Gaia doesn't cover the brightest stars, so there's still a place for Hipparcos data, but for the vast majority of sources Gaia DR2 is the better source (DR1 was a hybrid of the two missions and has been entirely superseded by DR2). If there has been serious discussion of distance discrepancies in reliable sources (e.g. the distance to the Pleiades or Polaris) both should be quoted, but otherwise just stick to the more accurate one. Some care is required to ensure that you're really looking at the same star; a simple coordinate cross-match won't necessarily work due to proper motions etc. SIMBAD had to be very careful when incorporating Gaia data for that reason, but have done most of legwork. Modest Genius ^talk 19:01, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks. While not Gaia vs. Hipparcos data, I made changed the distance in Messier 2 per Gaia data, which pushed its distance from 33kly to 55kly - a very large change. That got me thinking about the vast numbers of articles containing citations to the most recent Hipparcos reduction and whether Gaia supersedes that or complements/contradicts that. For objects like globular clusters whose distances are not based on parallax but on theoretically derived numbers such as luminosities of RR Lyrae stars, I think that Gaia clearly supersedes those. But Hipparcos is more difficult. Has someone set up a template for citing to the Gaia DR2? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 19:23, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

See {{Cite DR2}} (subject to a rename discussion). Simbad is a good guide for which parallax to quote. It has incorporated Gaia DR2 and will generally show that parallax. That shouldn't automatically invalidate all other distance calculations, but will usually provide the best distance. The Gaia parallax is a direct method for calculating the distance and usually more accurate than other methods, but note that it is possibly subject to systematic errors that have not yet been ironed out and some other methods such as VLBI may still give a more accurate parallax. Naked eye stars are usually not in DR2, and may have serious errors when they are included, but will eventually have Gaia parallaxes by some clever trickery. Lithopsian (talk) 19:51, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

For some objects (such as Proxima Centauri) one may have to go to the ESA Gaia archive and perform a search from there. Praemonitus (talk) 15:44, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

2MASS J0249-0557 c has same spectra as beta Pictoris b

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-07-astronomers-famous-exoplanet-doppelgnger.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marasama (talk • contribs) 22:54, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

SIMBAD coordinate accuracy

Recently I noticed that SIMBAD has started listing the RA coordinates for the Gaia DR2 data down to ten decimal accuracy, which is a tiny fraction of a mas. Nice... perhaps. However, I look a little to the right at what I think is the margin of error, and it is on the order of a tenth of an arcsecond. (See for example HD 175535.) Am I reading that right? Praemonitus (talk) 20:04, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

The uncertainty is in milliarcsec [3], so that example is about 0.2mas. Still much bigger than the quoted precision though. Modest Genius ^talk 16:50, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 17:11, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

• I assume that MOS:UNCERTAINTY applies to these, and accordingly only precision to the first uncertain position is allowed. If error is 0.2mas, then SIMBAD (and Gaia's) report of position of HD 175535 of 18 53 13.5547782565 +50 42 29.784513125 is truncated to 18 53 13.5548 +50 42 29.7845. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 17:17, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

  I can find no such requirement at MOS:UNCERTAINTY; only vague wording about "appropriate" and "conservative" rounding. Personally I prefer two sig. digits of variance, where available. Praemonitus (talk) 18:58, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

  Common usage in astrophysics and other hard sciences is different. Astronomers have a (bad?) habit of quoting all the digits they have regardless of the margin of error. There are a number of reasons for this, some of them quite valid, some probably not so good but to some extent we should try tp follow this convention rather than making too many of our own changes to published values. Outputs such as the 21^h 18^m 52.02476(12)^s mentioned below would be one way to achieve this, assuming the notation is considered understandable by the average reader. Lithopsian (talk) 20:57, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree 1 sigfig is problematic. There's a big difference between 0.05±0.14 and 0.14±0.05, but they both round to 0.1±0.1 when only 1 sigfig is used. That's almost a factor of 8 difference in signal/noise hidden by the rounding. 2 sigfig is usually enough to avoid major issues. Modest Genius ^talk 14:16, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

• We could add a new 'err' variable to {{RA}} and {{DEC}}, then have the templates standardize the output appropriately; perhaps using the parenthetical notation for compactness. Thus: 21^h 18^m 52.02476(12)^s . People can then add as many digits as they want, and it will format nicely. Praemonitus (talk) 20:23, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

"CIRCLE with DOT" (SUN) is now illegal on Wikipedia

FYI, there's now an edit filter, Filter 680 that makes the SUN symbol illegal to use on Wikipedia. The Sun Symbol found at Solar mass in subscript form is currently disallowed when adding new text. So "☉" (U+2609) as in M_☉ is impossible to type in articlespace, and a big red vandalism warning shows up instead of being saved.

As these are rangeblocked unicode characters, I suspect that many astronomical symbols are currently deemed illegal on Wikipedia. -- 65.94.42.168 (talk) 10:22, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

That would be a serious problem, but I was able to add the symbol to an article without any issues: [4]. Also, the filter you linked to says "last modified: 12:55, 20 October 2017". Modest Genius ^talk 10:31, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

It only affects new users, like the unregistered ones. Also it has been in effect since last year. When I checked the log, 65 seems to be the only one limited in adding constructively to an Astonomomy related page for quite a while. There is a lot of funny stuff that is stopped by this filter, but it seems to occasionly stop some good faith work. So 65.94.42.168 register an account and keep editing! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:56, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

You could use {{Solar mass}} instead, that should work. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:36, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Presumably an exception could be made here - pinging @Rich Farmbrough: as the last person to edit the filter. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 13:06, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

I have modified the rule, please ping me if there are still difficuties. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:52, 24 July 2018 (UTC).

Astronomical symbols lists many symbols that may be encountered in editing astronomical articles, which might need to be handled if they are currently deemed illegal. (particularly CIRCLE with CROSS (EARTH) symbol) -- 65.94.42.168 (talk) 04:27, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

The symbols are not "illegal", of course. They are often used in vandalism. So, a filter was created to stop this. Ruslik_Zero 06:54, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Redirect for The Sun

There is discussion about changing the redirect _target for The Sun. Please feel free to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2018 July 25#The Sun. Kaldari (talk) 09:54, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

AU, au or ua?

A discussion has started at the mosnum talk page about the appropriate symbol for the astronomical unit. The present text recommends AU. Some editors are arguing for a change to au. Comments are invited. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 07:47, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Haven't we been through this discussion already? Praemonitus (talk) 14:23, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, this rings some bells for me too. I thought we settled on au at some point before? Modest Genius ^talk 14:35, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

We settled on AU last time, and for good reasons. People now want to change this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:37, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm new in this discussion, do you have the original discussion? --MaoGo (talk) 14:39, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@MaoGo You can find the orginal RfC here. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 14:44, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

And the original discussion from 2014. Primefac (talk) 15:23, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure there are still other discussions, because I definitely commented on at least one of them and didn't on either of those links. Anyway, point being this has been discussed many times. Modest Genius ^talk 14:48, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

The discussion has concluded, with support for au but allowing AU as a deprecated option. MOS:NUM has been changed to state "The preferred option is au. Articles that already use AU may switch to au or continue with AU". Modest Genius ^talk 11:04, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

I call B.S. There was no consensus. Praemonitus (talk) 15:48, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Help

Please help me to add more categories or rename some files. They all got description. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Top_100_ESO_Images --Sergkarman (talk) 15:17, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikidata property proposals & WD:ASTRO participants list

FYI there are several new astronomy-related Wikidata property proposals here, here, and here.

If you wish to be notified of (mostly) these and (sometimes) other goings-on at d:Wikidata:WikiProject Astronomy, please add yourself to the participants list @ d:Wikidata:WikiProject Astronomy/Participants (I only recognize 1 person from en.wiki on the list, which is my reason for bringing it up). Notification is conveniently done via the {{Ping project|Astronomy}} template at Wikidata, and pings everyone on the associated project's participants list page.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:17, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education hiring an experienced Wikipedian

Wiki Education is hiring an experienced Wikipedian for a part-time (20 hours/week) position. The focus of this position is to help new editors (students and other academics) learn to edit Wikipedia. The main focus of the position is monitoring and tracking contributions by Wiki Education program participants, answering questions, and providing feedback. We're looking for a friendly, helpful editor who like to focus on article content, but also with a deep knowledge of policies and guidelines and the ability to explain them in simple, concise ways to new editors. They will be the third member of a team of expert Wikipedians, joining Ian (Wiki Ed) and Shalor (Wiki Ed). This is a part-time, U.S. based, remote or San Francisco based position.

We are especially interested in people with experience editing astronomy-related articles. See our Careers page for more information. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:11, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ian (Wiki Ed): shame about the living in the US requirement. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:52, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

@Headbomb: I know. But as things currently stand, we don't have the capacity to navigate the bureaucratic hurdles, especially since we've never done it before. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:14, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ian (Wiki Ed): feel free to ping me for some occasional pro-bono work or general help every now and then though. I look at the required qualifications and I obliterate them. Can't say I'll be available on a 9am-5pm California time basis, but I'm generally around enough to reply within a day. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:08, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

AFD Discussion - Modern Mars habitability

There is an article at AfD that may interest you. The article is here Modern Mars habitability. Please vote or comment at WP:Articles for deletion/Modern Mars habitability

Robert Walker (talk) 03:46, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

eVscope

Unistellar's product, introduced last year at Consumer Electronics Show, seems to have attracted a bit of notability. Enough to start an article? Enhanced Vision Telescope -Space.com. Oh, also Stellina and Hiumi, like there's a trend underway. Jim.henderson (talk) 02:26, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposed name change

WikiSky has been renamed or some how changed to Sky-Map.org. I propose renaming {{WikiSky}} to {{Sky-Map.org}} with redirects in place. Any objections ? - FlightTime (open channel) 17:09, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Seems reasonable, especially since WikiSky seems to be down. Primefac (talk) 17:32, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

 Done - FlightTime (open channel) 15:24, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Relevant featured picture candidate

• Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Diagram of the Sun 2

This nomination could probably use input from people knowledgeable on the subject to give assurances that it is an accurate depiction before it is promoted and likely to appear on the main page. GMG^talk 10:36, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

There are another two diagrams also nominated for FP that need review for scientific accuracy:

• Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Moon diagram.svg
• Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Earth poster.svg

Thanks. MER-C 17:00, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

d:Q284657(relativistic jet) and d:Q27656067(Astrophysical jet)

We should move some labels and items from d:Q284657 to d:Q27656067. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:2D8:E256:2A5:0:0:BAC8:3700 (talk) 15:41, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

No, the Korean entry should be merged to the older d:Q284657(relativistic jet), which started off as the wikidata entry for en.wiki's Polar jet (now moved). Even though not all astrophysical jets are relativistic, in many language wikis the article on the topic is called relativistic jet. The Korean article is very similar to the en.wiki article. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:56, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

This appears to be a Wikidata discussion, not related to the English-language Wikipedia. I suggest you discuss the issue (whatever it is) at wikidata.org Modest Genius ^talk 09:59, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Mass of Neptune

I noticed a comment at Talk:Neptune#The mass is incorrect by Machine 4. The infobox says the mass of Neptune is 1.0243×10²⁶ kg but the reference says it is 102.413×10²⁴ kg. That is, instead of 1.0234 the article should say 1.02314. I would have fixed it but I don't see any other values in the infobox with six significant figures. Would someone familiar with relevant procedures please fix. Johnuniq (talk) 07:16, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Mensa (constellation)

is at FAC at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mensa (constellation)/archive1 - FAC is quiet so all input will be gratefully received. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:16, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Errrr....anyone? Things are really slow there.... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:14, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Review added. Praemonitus (talk) 15:11, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Entire 'Minor planets by source of name' category tree at CfD

@ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 October 26#Minor planets by source of name.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:36, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Cross-posting

I was going to execute the results of the discussion at WT:SS#Meanings of minor planet names: completely empty lists but then I remembered that it's not a well-viewed project. Cross-posting here before I take any action. Primefac (talk) 16:27, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Gaia parallaxes

It is nice to see lots of parallaxes updated with Gaia data on SIMBAD....but does anyone know why the brighter stars have not been updated yet? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:50, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The Gaia DR2 dataset itself is missing bright stars (bright limit of G ≈ 3.).[5] --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 20:29, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Gaia can't observe bright stars accurately, more or less anything naked eye, as part of its standard program. Although many are present in the database, it is important to check that they are reliable because there are a number of possible sources of error. Many of the more blatant problem stars have been weeded out before publication. Special methods have been developed to allow observations of all but the very brightest stars but these require individual processing and are not present in Data Release 2. Gaia (spacecraft) discusses this is a little more detail and has references for full information. Lithopsian (talk) 20:38, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Ah ok, thanks. Some of the margins of error are larger with cooler stars. Interesting to see. Ok, trying to go through some of the FA constellations.... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:39, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Not sure which cool stars you're looking at, but I'm guessing giants and supergiants. There is an inherent difficulty that Gaia's observational precision is higher than the angular diameter of many of these stars, leading to some loss of accuracy. It should improve by the final data release but I suspect will still be a problem for some of the larger and more irregularly-shaped or spotted stars. There might be issues with binaries too. I haven't looked into it, but I know Hipparcos performed special processing for known and suspected binaries, I imagine Gaia will do the same. Must be something written about that in one of the publications. Lithopsian (talk) 15:14, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Another thought. Where are you looking for your Gaia data? Simbad portal pages or the VizieR tables? Simbad filtered out many stars that it considered to have poor Gaia data, although I noticed that more recently a lot more showed up sometimes with quite high margins of error. I wonder if an initial automated pass has been refined or manually added-to? Lithopsian (talk) 15:17, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Decreated

Can anyone tell me what the word “decreated” means in astronomy/astrophysics. It appears on threes pages: Kappa Canis Majoris, Phi Andromedae and Omega Canis Majoris, each time in reference to circumstellar gas or material. When I look at the papers referenced I can’t find the word “decreated”.EighteenFiftyNine (talk) 11:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

My understanding is that, in this context, it is the opposite of accretion. See Glossary_of_astronomy#D. Praemonitus (talk) 14:49, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Never heard of it. I assumed it was the reverse of accretion (astrophysics); Wikitionary has this to say: [6] "The act of decreasing." The three instances noted above do not seem to be used in this context. Rowan Forest (talk) 14:59, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

An accretion disk is a disk that deliveries material onto the star. A deccretion disk is a disk formed from material expeled from the star. Jolielegal (talk) 15:07, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Looks like a translation or possibly just a guessed word. I don't think it exists. I've created a redirect for decretion disk (and decretion disc) which is definitely a valid term, and linked it from those three articles and others. Currently it points to Be star although that article doesn't explicitly use the term. Accretion disk is a tempting _target, but could be considered confusing since it is not the same thing at all, and it doesn't describe the term. Lithopsian (talk) 15:40, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

'Decretion' is the opposite of accretion e.g. material being thrown off a star. 'Decreated' appears to be a typo for 'decreted', which is the past participle. Modest Genius ^talk 15:20, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Template:The 10 largest stars by radius

Please could people comment at the TfD? Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:16, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I would have commented, but I blinked and it was gone. No complaints though. Lithopsian (talk) 15:40, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Name of Hubble's law

See Talk:Hubble's_law#Do_we_rename_article_to_Hubble-Lemaitre_law?. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:10, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

More recently: Talk:Hubble's_law#Requested_move_1_November_2018. Praemonitus (talk) 16:10, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection (GRAND)

Hello. I just created the article Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection (GRAND) and since physics and astronomy are not my strength, I am humbly requesting members of this project to please review the text and the categorization. Thank you. Rowan Forest (talk) 17:41, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

@Rowan Forest: Nice article! You might want to nominate it for 'Did you know' on the main page, at Template talk:Did you know. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:30, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

It is still a work in progress. I wonder if this detector qualifies as an observatory, or as a telescope? The media reports call it a telescope, but not the proposing researchers. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 23:29, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

"Radio array" seems the best phrase. An observatory tends to have subparts (e.g., multiple distinct telescopes). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 00:00, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

quark deconfinement supernova

In case you haven't seen this by now. I thought of adding it to some articles like quark-nova but figure this project can do it better than I could. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 10:47, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

WP:TOOSOON? MaoGo (talk) 13:44, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

It seems usable to me. There's some secondary coverage[7] if that's what you're worried about. I know some people get freaked out about citing biology research articles in Wikipedia on the theory that readers might undertake crazy medical self-treatments as a result, but this isn't comparable. Nobody is going to make a supernova at home and have it go wrong because of this. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 20:54, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The issue about cutting-edge research isn't that users might go crazy, but that we really want to report consensus, not every speculation. This report certainly seems speculation (as best I know, Quark-Gluon plasmas are not well-enough characterized to conclusively say they will do x or y), and I haven't seen much in response to the article. And I can't read the article itself immediately, being behind a paywall. I'd agree that it's WP:TOOSOON until we start seeing further developments or refutations. Tarl N. (discuss) 21:42, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Well I'll trust your judgment about TOOSOON for this, but I don't agree that we're only supposed to report consensus--we're supposed to report minority views as well, in which I'd include interesting new developments if they look significant, though not every speculation as you say. You're more informed than I am about whether this qualifies so I'll leave it to you. A quick web search does find other stuff by the authors on this topic, plus Science is a prominent outlet that I thought was pretty selective about what it publishes, but whatever. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 22:21, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The WP:WEIGHT policy covers this. Praemonitus (talk) 22:39, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Mistake in image of 2017 eclipse

The image used at the beginning of the article Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 probably has one clear issue, the rotation of the moon.

We discovered it during the very last step of validation for Wiki Science Competition, see the discussion here. The image was declared a quality and featured image on commons months ago.--Alexmar983 (talk) 21:16, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Featured quality source review RFC

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:36, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Citation bot now handles bibcodes better

Just a notice, you can now put {{cite journal|bibcode=1985A&AS...60...99W}} in an article, citation bot will now expand it (see how to trigger the bot) to the full

• Westin, T. N. G (1985). "The local system of early type stars. Spatial extent and kinematics". Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series. 60: 99. Bibcode:1985A&AS...60...99W.

You can activate Citation bot here or via scripts and other methods. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:34, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Great! That will save having to paste both DOIs and Bibcodes into {{cite journal}}. Have you tested with a more recent paper to see if it adds the DOI from just a Bibcode and/or vice versa? Your example doesn't have a DOI listed in ADS (presumably because A&AS was discontinued before DOIs were adopted). Modest Genius ^talk 15:31, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Great news. A couple of quick tests show it working, and yes it adds doi's based on the bibcode. The new activity log format is also nice, much easier to spot what the bot has actually done. Lithopsian (talk) 15:48, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Yup. It doesn't make my User:Bibcode Bot entirely useless, but there's been a burst of updates on Citation Bot that makes it hugely more useful than before, and a bit more aggressive in standardizing crappy ways of doing citation. It's not perfect and still needs review every now and then, but it's sooo much better than before, it's pretty insane. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:45, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

What happens in the meantime though is that the citation appears to have an error condition, which will lead to editors attempting to address it. If it instead said something like, "Citation details pending", that might be useful. Praemonitus (talk) 15:37, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Citations without titles? Well to be fair it is an error condition, and not necessarily one that Citation Bot can fix. The bot also intermittently fails to expand bibcodes, possibly for capacity, timeout, or throttling reasons. Lithopsian (talk) 16:36, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

My point about wasting editor's time is also valid. Praemonitus (talk) 19:02, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

If you've made such a point here, I don't see it. What do you mean by "wasting editor's time"? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:43, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

A hypothetical helpful editor, ignorant of the automation, goes to the AX Circini article, sees the "Missing or empty |title=" error, and decides to complete the reference. Time wasted. Praemonitus (talk) 20:05, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Well that's a rather different concern than having the bot being able to expand citations from bibcodes in the first place. But if you're interested in cutting down on missing titles errors, and saving editors time, please see Help talk:Citation Style 1#Links to citation bot, revisited. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:18, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 13:22, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

BTW, you can take a look at User:Citation bot/use to see how to activate the bot and get the best results from it. It had a big revamp in late August, so if you missed it, do take a look. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:44, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Planetbox deprecation

Howdy all. There is a discussion taking placed at WP:TfD about whether to deprecate the use of the Planetbox template series in favor of {{Infobox planet}}. Want to make sure that people from this project weigh in so please leave a comment Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2018_November_18#Template:Planetbox_begin. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 00:32, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2018_November_20#Template:Infobox_star. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:03, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Infobox supercluster

Template:Infobox supercluster has been nominated for merging with Template:Infobox galaxy cluster by User:Pigsonthewing. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you.

  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:58, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Splitting 'List of unnumbered trans-Neptunian objects'

Please comment at Talk:List of unnumbered trans-Neptunian objects#Page size. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:22, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

New version of Template:Infobox star

At Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2018_November_20#Template:Infobox_star there was some support for rewriting it to provide a simpler repacement for the Template:Starboxes series. PhilipTerryGraham has asked for comments on his first version of the rewrite at Template talk:Infobox star. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:14, 14 December 2018 (UTC)