Talk:Solar System/Archive 7

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Orbital Stability

The article states that the solar system is going to remain the way it is until the Sun reaches its Red Giant stage...I have seen articles that seemingly directly contradict this, claiming that the solar system in NOT Lyapunov Stable and the planet's orbits are NOT predictable for more than 5 million years into the future. (The orbits are chaotic on the scale of tens of millions of years.) I am guessing that you can't have it both ways: either the orbits are stable or we can not know what the orbits will look like in, say, 50 million years (let alone a billion ot two). Can anyone find a source to reconcile (or correct) these contradictions? It seems to me that this is a pretty important point71.31.152.220 (talk) 00:29, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

The orbits are stable for a few billion years, but precise calculations are only accurate for about 60 million years. There is a big difference between pure chaos in 60 million years and simply not knowing where a planet will precisely be. -- Kheider (talk) 00:33, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Why is "Formation and evolution" one of the last sections?

I feel like it should be placed after the "structure" section and before the "sun" and inner planets section. I have heard it argued before that we should explain what the solar system consists of before explaining how it formed, but i think this is the best and most relevant place to put it. The structure section introduces us to how the solar system is arranged and its constituents and then the formation section can give a description of how this structure formed. Then we can give detailed descriptions of individual constituents. It is also important to note the the formation and evolution sections of many astronomy and biology articles are always one of the first sections. Cadiomals (talk) 19:50, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The "Formation" section discusses each planet individually by name, and before their specific sections, the planets are only named in the lead. Serendi^podous 05:27, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The "formation" section may mention the planets names, but it never singles them out and talks about how each one formed. The section just gives a general overview of the formation of the whole solar system, with a link to the main article as always. Therefore I still think the formation and evolution section ought to come after the Structure section and also ought to have more prominence in the article since it is an important topic. If no one really objects to this I will go ahead with it since it's not going to be a significant change. Cadiomals (talk) 19:45, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The formation section does briefly mention things like planetary migration, which concern individual planets. I suppose it could be reworded. Serendi^podous 20:16, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I have made the necessary changes to give a more general overview and less detail. Is this satisfactory? Cadiomals (talk) 22:02, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Edit for "Nearest known planetary system"

In light of the discovery of a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B we should change the Nearest known planetary system from The Epsilon Eridani system to Alpha Centauri system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Henjaffe (talk • contribs) 03:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Done. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 03:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

table of the attributes of objects in the solar system?

I'd like to see a table (or a link to a table) of the attributes of objects in the solar system such as the one in the article "Planet" (redirected from "List of Solar System bodies formerly considered planets")- is this feasible? Possibly under 'See Also'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.59.43.240 (talk) 06:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

See the hatnote. Serendi^podous 08:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Clutter in infobox

Copied from User talk:Ashill to here: Hey Alex! Just letting you know I undid you removal of the planet names from the infobox. While I totally agree with you that it looks less than ideal, what about those who read with images disabled? Granted, they're a minority... but they're still a minority. :) Theopolisme 22:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

For users who read with images disabled, the planet names are readily available in the text of the article (the opening paragraph of the lede, in fact!) as well as the hatnote-linked List of gravitationally rounded objects of the Solar System, though I admit that I hadn't even noticed that link until it was mentioned above on this talk page, so it's probably not obvious. I don't think the names of planets are hard to find at all, and I think the list of them in the infobox is cluttered, but it's certainly a tradeoff and I can see the other side. I won't revert as there's no consensus for my view. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 22:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Can't really provide consensus either way. A common theme in this article's feedback is people asking for information that is already in it, which means they aren't seeing it. I have no idea what will make the information more obvious to people, so I can't say if this is a good idea or not. Serendi^podous 07:27, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

No English language standard?

I don't see any standard saying this article is to be written in british or american english, etc. I don't know if there is anything else but what I notice is the use of the words "disc" and "disk". We should agree on a standard to remain consistent, I don't really care which. Cadiomals (talk) 20:19, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

It's supposed to be in British English, though a few words here and there have slipped through. Serendi^podous 20:48, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Should this be made clearer, perhaps with {{British English}} or the like? Someone could probably run AWB/some-sort-of-text-replacement on it fairly quickly to fix anything that slipped through the gaps — consistency is key... or at least something we might want to consider. Theopolisme 22:54, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

angular momentum

Why not also add that although the sun contains the vast majority of solar system mass, it contains very little of the solar system's total angular momentum, due to magnetohydrodynamic effects in the sun. 71.139.177.218 (talk) 17:55, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

link to persian (Farsi) is incorrect

the link to persian page is incorrect. solar system page is linked to a page which is called in english "solar system objects". i wanted to correct it, but it is impossible. please refer to a permitted user to correct the link. off course, there is a page in persian corresponding solar system.Gshahali (talk) 02:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I tried to correct it too but there seems to be a problem with how links to other languages are translated by the Wiki software. The link is still incorrect. Nxavar (talk) 20:30, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

number of known dwarf planets, shape of Sedna

No. DPs was listed as "5", I changed to "5 (per the IAU)". We could also source "2–9", and personally I think that would be better for a scientific article. Regardless, it's wrong to simply state that there are 5 known DPs without saying by who, since major experts in the field have different numbers. It also seems to be incorrect to say Sedna's shape "has yet to be determined with certainty"; AFAICT, Sedna's shape has yet to be determined at all. — kwami (talk) 03:37, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we say five because the IAU accepts five, and there is sufficient explanation as to the possible others already. This has been discussed at length over the past few years. As for Sedna, instead of deleting the entire line, you should have just removed "with certainty" so that it says the shape has yet to be determined. I've since fixed that. --Ckatz^chat_spy 03:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but the infobox should summarize the info in the text. People may read it without reading the entire article. It is factually incorrect to say there are five known DPs. That needs to be corrected. You may have a better way of doing that than my edit, but reverting to an incorrect number is detrimental to the article.

You just made four nontrivial edits to the article. Every one is factually incorrect.

1. [1] and 4. [2] "per the IAU". That would be fine if we said "per the IAU". Otherwise these are incorrect.
2. [3] "per Kwami's note". Except it's not per my note; you re-added the "with certainty" that you just said should be removed.
3. [4] " it's the IAU definition ... it is implied by the fact it is their definition". No, it is not their definition. It also directly contradicts the body of the article, which was changed by several other editors despite your reverts. Acceptance by the IAU is not part of the IAU definition of a DP. We have been over this again and again. An object is a DP because it meets the IAU definition of a DP, regardless of who determines that it meets that definition. I can't believe you still fail to understand that.

This article is not about the IAU, it's about the Solar system. We do use IAU definitions. But we accept the conclusions of all RSs, not just official pronouncements of the IAU. This is a scientific article, after all. — kwami (talk) 04:26, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Point #2 was an error, now corrected through the removal of the inadvertent "with certainty". The others... sorry, but to be honest this smacks of reviving the debate at Talk:Dwarf planet which dragged on for over a year. If you wish to suggest changes, get consensus here first to avoid the mess that occurred with the DP article. --Ckatz^chat_spy 04:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

These are all things that other editors have agreed with; they merely bring the footnotes and infobox in line with the text of the article. And with our sources. — kwami (talk) 05:19, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

If that is the case, then it should not be too difficult for yo to secure consensus for your preferred wording. Prior to that, however, it would be best to avoid what happened at the DP page. --Ckatz^chat_spy 05:28, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

As for the number of dwarf planets we may say that "different experts of the field have different opinions[some citations]. The IAU has at the moment confirmed the existance of five ... [names] ...". I think that is too much to carry this distinction to the infobox. Just "5" or "5 (IAU)" suffices. We can instead include the above information in the introduction (not the main body) so that anyone actually reading the article instead of just checking the infobox will have this information. Nxavar (talk) 07:56, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

That's basically what I had. Any objections, then? — kwami (talk) 08:06, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Obviously, yes, and you can wait (please) for a wider range of input. --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:15, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay, it's been 12 days, and there has been no reason given not to make the article self-consistent. — kwami (talk) 05:38, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and you still haven't demonstrated consensus to implement your preferred version. Frankly, it's not necessary, and the changes several people (including you, me and others) have contributed are an acceptable compromise. --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:08, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

We cannot say that according to the IAU definition the Solar System has five dwarf planets. As is mentioned in the Dwarf planet article only two of these can be proved as such. The rest are accepted on a "most likely" basis. So saying "according to the IAU" is in fact mandatory. Nxavar (talk) 10:36, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Nxavar, it's not even five according to the IAU. In 2006 they said that there were likely dozens or even a hundred DPs. It's just that they weren't convinced of any one candidate apart from the five listed. (There's also the problem that our knowledge has grown since then but the IAU hasn't made any more pronouncements. This isn't a problem scientifically, but has been fodder for editors such as Ckatz who insist on following bureaucratic rather than scientific principals for planetary astronomy.) — kwami (talk) 16:29, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Give it a rest, Kwami. --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:52, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

How many times does this need to be repeated, Kwami? WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A SCIENCE JOURNAL. It is not our job to be right, wrong, or anything in between. It is our job to report what others say. And right now, for better or worse, the others are saying pretty overwhelmingly that there are 5 dwarf planets. Arguing for more than five remains a minority view. Serendi^podous 20:35, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we report what others say, which is why I find it so difficult to believe that anyone is still pushing this nonsense. No-one says that there are five DPs. The IAU (2006) says there are at least dozens, others that there are likely to be thousands.

And, of course, we should not contradict ourselves. This is such an elementary point that I can't believe I need to actually repeat it. — kwami (talk) 22:36, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Ckatz, everyone here accepts the edits but you. You have also not given any rational reason the footnotes and infobox should contradict the text. — kwami (talk) 16:26, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Who is "everyone"? I see four participants in this talk page discussion to date, and two (Ckatz and serendipodous) disagree with you while two (Kwami and Nxavar) agree. I've refrained from commenting every time you ask for consensus; the absence of editors wasting their time with this minor debate is not evidence of consensus in your favour. Of course, this whole debate illustrates the fact that dwarf planets are a poorly defined class of objects that are really just a subset of a much larger set of objects, defined in order to not hurt people's feelings about Pluto. I would either just state the 5 dwarf planets (as Ckatz and others prefer) or drop the mention of dwarf planets from the infobox (at least) all together, as they're not an important class of objects. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 23:47, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

If you'll read the time stamps, you'll notice that Serendipodous had not commented when I said "everyone", and that Tbayboy and JorisvS also agreed. Silence is considered to be consent per WP guidelines: If s.t. is not important enough for the many people who read an article to object to, then it is accepted that there is no significant objection. Yes, this is tiresome, but once Ckatz gives up on defending an item, it turns no-one else ever objects to it other than relatively minor changes in wording or emphasis, and this include Serendipodous, despite his statement above. Ckatz's insistence that we get consensus for every single mention of the point, when we've already achieved consensus on many other mentions of the same point, is irrational and disruptive. — kwami (talk) 02:22, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I've modified the lede not to say explicitly that there are 5 "known", "identified", "confirmed", "accepted", or whatever dwarf planets, just listing five as examples. Listing only two (Ceres and Pluto) in the lede would be just fine too. This article isn't about dwarf planets; there a minor piece of the Solar System anyway and only interesting (scientifically) as the largest examples of their various physically meaningful classes of objects. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 00:11, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I think several notable astronomers would disagree with you about HE not being scientifically interesting, but your change to the lead is an improvement. — kwami (talk) 02:22, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I wholy agree with ASHill that this minor piece of Solar System should be given more prominence than it deserves. Ruslik_Zero 17:46, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

As Voyager approaches the edge of the Solar System (November 2012)

Here is a NASA image of what Voyager I is getting into as it approaches the outer edge of the Solar system:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/710036main_Stone-3pia16482_full.jpg

It is of course public domain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbrower2a (talk • contribs) 10:23, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Possible cause of misalignment of plantary orbits to solar equator

A recent article in Nature, 491, 418–420 (15 November 2012), suggests that one possible cause of the misalignment of planetary orbits to the solar equator was the presence of a binary companion to the sun early in the solar systems history. Would a brief note mentioning this possibility be an appropriate addition to the Formation section? EJM Missouri (talk) 18:39, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

No. That article refers to misalignment of orbits of extrasolar planets, and says nothing about the Solar System (in which the planetary orbits are aligned, by the way.) --Roentgenium111 (talk) 20:30, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually the article does make specific mention of the solar system, and the planetary orbits are misaligned by a few degrees (from 3.38 degrees for Mercury to 7.155 degrees for Earth) from the solar equator. The oribit for Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune are misaligned by 5.5 to 6.5 degrees. EJM Missouri (talk) 22:32, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Image

Visual summary makes the article very slow to load, and probably also the article unreadable for slow computers with little RAM and/or slow internet. I think the Visual summary is a very bad idea – I would like to have that section separate from the article, which already have too many images as it is. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 12:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd take it down if Fotaun doesn't object. It's funny actually; the one thing everyone keeps asking on the feedback page is for more images. Serendi^podous 12:13, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah, yes. A link to the Template:SolarSummary would perhaps be enough. Examining the Policies and Guide lines Wikipedia:Images about image usage, it very nearly constitutes a gallery (discouraged per Wikipedia:NOTGALLERY) ... but then I was flying away in fantasies about what happens to the server load, if we write smaller overview articles and let people find exactly what they need... By the way: I like the gallery (as a separate item), but the article is somewhat bloated as it is. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 12:29, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

It was designed to give a visual summary in a concise way. Perhaps a smaller version? Fotaun (talk) 18:27, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Solar System Summary

File:TheSun.png
Sun	Jupiter	Saturn	Uranus	Neptune	Earth	Venus
Mars	Ganymede	Titan	Mercury	Callisto	Io	Moon
Europa	Triton	Titania	Rhea	Oberon	Iapetus	Umbriel
File:Color Image of Ariel as seen from Voyager 2.jpg
Ariel	Dione	Tethys	Vesta	Enceladus	Miranda	Proteus
Mimas	Hyperion	Phoebe	Janus	Amalthea	Epimetheus	Prometheus

Infobox image not representative

The image in the infobox used to represent the solar system is not representative of what the solar system is. It focuses on the planets (and dwarf planets) as its defining characteristic. Even the sun is shown in just a slice to give meaning to the sizes of the planets. Furthermore, the dwarf planets have no more reason to be displayed than non-dwarf planet kuiper belt, scattered disc, and oort cloud objects. I don't know how best to get all the important information into a single image, but perhaps someone has some ideas? Lexicon (talk) 06:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're talking about. Serendi^podous 09:36, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

An infobox image needs to have a moderate aspect ratio and is very likely to be diagrammatic if you are to be able to see much other than the sun. This image does rather illustrate the membership of the solar system and perhaps you are searching for something more relating to its nature. The present image is from commons:Category:Planets of the Solar System. Perhaps there is something in commons:Category:Solar System (though I suspect there is not!). However, considering all the images in the article, I think they are rather a good selection. Thincat (talk) 09:47, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the Solar System's "nature" is supposed to be. 99.9 percent of the Solar System is the Sun. 99 percent of the rest are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. If we really wanted to represent the Solar System's "nature", we'd leave Earth out. Serendi^podous 09:57, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Huh? Leave Earth out? What I mean is that the solar system is not just a "collection of balls of matter". It is a complex and dynamic system. A slice of the sun and a row of planets shows so little about the dynamics of the system and the variety of its constituents. Heck, it doesn't even convey the fact that those "balls" orbit the sun! However, as I said, I'm not sure what the best way to display all the relevant information would be. The problem, of course, is that to really display what the solar system is would require a larger canvas than can reasonably be put in an infobox. Perhaps maybe a few smaller images arranged in a mosaic; in one you'd show the sun with the planetary plane around it, noting the main plain, as well as the asteroid belt, kuiper belt, oort cloud, etc., in another you'd show a "close-up" of the planetary plane with the orbits of the planets displayed, another would show another aspect, etc. The image as it is right now is really a display of the planets and dwarf planets, and nothing more. And that, in my eyes, is a total fail for a representation of the solar system as we know it. Here's an image from NASA that tries to show a little more information such as orbits, asteroid belt, and comets. Here's another one, on commons. Here's one that, using cut-outs, tries to show it all. All of them do a much better job at showing what the solar system is than what we have now. I do realize that an infobox is small and so the image can't show everything, but I think we can do much better than what we have now. Lexicon (talk) 21:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Of the images you've suggested, only the first is of any use, for while it is wildly imaginative in many ways (what is that, a galaxy right outside the Solar System?) it at least gives the right impression of what is in the Solar System; the second makes a big deal of the asteroid belt but neglects the far larger Kuiper belt, and the last is completely useless, for it lacks any kind of key for names and scale. Besides this, the current image has one trump over all the others you've suggested: it is accurate. It shows the relative sizes of the Sun, planets and dwarf planets, something none of the other images do. It is, in essence, a scientific diagram, whereas the others are merely artistic impressions, and mistaken ones at that. It is images like the ones above that bedevil schoolchildren to this day, by giving them the impression that all planets are roughly the same size. People tend to ignore the fact that much of what we consider "the Solar System" is an afterthought. All the solid bodies within it, from Earth, Mars and the moons of Jupiter to the smallest dust particle, amount to less than 1 percent of the material orbiting the Sun. The Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and debris. That is the Solar System's "nature", and why I quipped that to reveal it we should leave Earth out. Serendi^podous 21:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

First off, I wasn't suggesting we use those images, I was simply using them to illustrate that there are other ways to go about displaying the solar system that might be taken into account. The goal would be to create an original image that incorporates aspects of the solar system other than the planets. Secondly, I do not agree that the solar system's nature is that of what makes up most of its mass. The solar system is a bedazzlingly beautiful complex system of bodies of all sizes, compositions, and types, gravitationally bound to the sun and one another. The word "system" in its name even cries out the interconnectedness of the bodies as the real defining characteristic.

BTW, your argument that the current image is "accurate" where the others are not is kind of disingenuous. The current image has accurate relative sizes of the bodies presented, but the distances, however, aren't accurate. It's true that one can't show size-to-distance to scale, but one could show both size and distance to scale. And the fact that these bodies orbit the sun might be a useful thing to include, maybe?

I also find the inclusion of the dwarf planets to be completely unnecessary (improper, really). The number of objects that fit the definition of "dwarf planet" is far greater than the number of declared dwarf planets, and the idea that dwarf planets are anything more significant than the other rocks flying round out there is laughable. Any intelligent bloke can see the category was really only created to try to make the demotion of Pluto a little easier for the public to take. The fact is, something is either a planet, or it's not. And dwarf planets are not planets. Furthermore, if you're talking about mass being a reason to include something in the image, then in an image where Mercury is basically a pixel in size, the dwarf planets should be so inconsequential as to be invisible (and, indeed, even the over-sized Ceres isn't visible at the image's size as it's shown in the infobox). Lexicon (talk) 00:11, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

That makes me consider the 19 planetary-mass satellites. Where are they in the picture? --JorisvS (talk) 00:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. At this scale, we should only have the Sun and eight planets, and maybe the 6 or 7 largest moons. I doubt anything else would be visible. Even if we can see Pluto and Ceres at this scale, or increase the scale until we can see them, we shouldn't present them as the Kuiper and asteroid belts.

I have to agree with Serendipodous, though, on the quality of the other images. The NASA splash-planets.jpg is probably the best, but even if we removed the galaxy, the stately precession of asteroids and KBOs is ridiculous - and it sure doesn't look like Earth and Mars have cleared their orbits. The best thing for now would probably be to delete the DPs from the existing image, then see if maybe we can add the larger moons and at least some indication of the belts. — kwami (talk) 01:17, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Changed the img to the Sun and planets. — kwami (talk) 08:02, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Bodies to scale in size and distance

Darklich14 added a picture of the system's bodies to scale in size and distance. This is a good idea and a nice first try. But the names are unreadably small in the page. You may want to make them much bigger (and correct the spelling "Juputer"). At the same time that would make it easier to find the items, as they fly by very fast when moving the scroll bar. −Woodstone (talk) 06:39, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

The scale was also off by a factor of ten. It takes a long time to travel between planets, even with a scroll bar. — kwami (talk) 08:00, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

The new version still says "Juputer" and the current way it is in the article makes it unusable (too small to see anything). --JorisvS (talk) 10:45, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

It's at the limit of what {{wide image}} can handle. — kwami (talk) 02:13, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I applaud that effort to show the solar system to scale in size and distance. I've taken a different approach with the latest change by showing sizes to scale alongside distances shown to scale. Please see comments in the 'Main image' section below.--Tdadamemd (talk) 11:08, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

is it true that the most of the mass of the solar system is the mass of the sun itself?

Sorry if this is a stupid question but according to some physicists like Lawrence Krauss the space (or the dark matter) has also a mass and in the text it states that the most of the mass of the solar system is the sun. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8070:215:ED00:ED71:6F29:13A8:CF06 (talk) 17:02, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Dark matter (whatever it is) does not register at Solar System level. It is only "visible" (for lack of a better term) at galaxy level. Serendi^podous 17:08, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually one can assert that there is not any dark matter within the solar system since the local gravitational movement of its bodies can be fully accounted by local regular matter. Nxavar (talk) 13:14, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Main image

The image at the top of the table, I mean. I seem to remember when I last checked this page a few months ago, it also included the 5 known dwarf planets. Why have we switched to an image omitting them? 134340Goat (talk) 23:33, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

See the very recent discussion above: Talk:Solar System#Infobox image not representative. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 23:42, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Hm... I disagree with the choice. I believe that it would be more technically representative of the system in whole if it were to include every planet. 134340Goat (talk) 01:18, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

All the planets are represented. The previous image represented five (of the as many as nine confirmed, depending upon who you ask/which citation you choose) known dwarf planets in addition, but at a scale that was much larger than it would be if to scale. In fact, the dwarf planets could be on the current image, to scale, and you wouldn't see them! —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 01:56, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Our latest (gu)estimate is that there are 10,000 dwarf planets. We gave no indication of that in the img, so it was seriously misleading. They are also smaller than several moons, so that was odd too. — kwami (talk) 03:09, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

As per the IAU's definition, that is. And it seems hypocritical to go by the definition as your logic for only showing 8 planets, when by the exact same logic, only five objects are known to be dwarf planets for certain, though I understand your rationale to keep everything to scale. When I was making my Solar System model, I had to make Jupiter a good 70 plus inches wide just so Ceres could be a quarter of an inch! 134340Goat (talk) 03:23, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

No, per the IAU definition, 9 objects are known to be dwarf planets (Brown), or 12 (Tancredi), or 20 (Stern), with dozens more very likely. There's an indefinite number, not five. Planets, on the other hand, are eight. Just eight. No-one expects to find more planets in the SS. — kwami (talk) 04:38, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

The dwarf planets are not significant to the system, which is why they are dwarfs and not planets. Why should Ceres be shown and not Ganymede? The belts (main and trans-nep, as singular entities) might be nice to have included. Tbayboy (talk) 04:54, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Quaoar, Orcus, Sedna, and 2007OR10 are not said to have their shape determined with certainty, so it would be going against their own definition were they to classify them as such. Pluto and Ceres have been directly imaged, Eris is more massive than Pluto, Makemake has its V-Band going on for it, and Haumea's ellipsoidal shape. I argue that the 5 known (For certain) dwarf planets should be shown, rather than the large moons, as they orbit the Sun directly rather than merely orbiting another Sun-orbiting object. Perhaps some kind of poll should be erected? One on the side of the "Show the moons" argument could say that 2 known moons (Ganymede and Titan) are larger than even Mercury, so why should it be shown and not the larger moons? Perhaps a better alternative would be simply to show all bodies known for sure to be in equilibrium... Though that could get pretty messy... 134340Goat (talk) 05:27, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

There are no known DPs. The IAU accepted 5 several years ago, others have accepted more since, but none of them are actually known to be in HE. The people talking about HE in the definition of DPs assumed that 19 moons would qualify if they weren't satellites, including 7 of Saturn's. Now it turns out that only 2 of those, Titan and Rhea, are actually in HE. So this whole idea of "known" DPs is bogus: Dione looks just as ellipsoid in our images as Ceres and Pluto. And Brown, who probably knows as much about this as anyone, places Quaoar, Orcus, etc. in the same 'nearly certainly' category as Pluto and Ceres, while Tancredi, who the IAU enlisted to help with this, accepts 12 bodies as demonstrated DPs, so there's no reason to stick to an outdated IAU list. What we have are the Sun, the terrestrial planets, an asteroid belt, the gas giants, and a Kuiper belt, plus a bunch of scattered stuff and god-knows-what out there with Sedna, an absolutely huge cosmos incognitus and then, presumably, the Oort cloud. That's the Solar System as we know it. — kwami (talk) 06:00, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

If the Saturnian moons have since been proven not to be in HE, then why are they still listed as such on Wikipedia? Furthermore, why does the dwarf planet page mention only the 5 I mentioned if, providing you're correct, the IAU has accepted the other four? 134340Goat (talk) 06:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Because we haven't updated the page. Or maybe because the definition is vague. What does "is" mean? If they will return to HE in 100 million years, does that count?

Because the IAU hasn't accepted the other four.

Saying there are known 5 DPs because that's what's on the IAU list is like saying there are 605,767 known minor planets because that's what's on the MPC list. In reality, there are twice as many known MPs; 605,767 is just the number that have been assigned numbers. You wouldn't get that from the infobox on this page, but that's because there are several editors who place bureaucratic niceties above science. — kwami (talk) 06:25, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Ok, enough of those colons. Anyway, I'd like to see a source confirming that the Saturnian moons are not in HE, I assume that this new data comes from the Cassini probe? 134340Goat (talk) 06:48, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes. It's referenced on one of our articles somewhere. I think it came out just a month or so ago. But that's one of the problems with the idea of DP: the planets are easy, but the dividing line between DPs and SSSBs is blurry. — kwami (talk) 06:50, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

See [5]. I was able to download the pdf (free, from another source) after googling around a bit, but I no longer have the URL. The punch-line is that the author (P.C. Thomas) considers Iapetus to not be in hydrostatic equilibrium (and not because of the ridge), but that Rhea is H-E. It illustrates that H-E is not a clear line separating classes of bodies, but an ideal that they only approach. At some point you have to draw your own arbitrary line to say whether or not a body is H-E, and Thomas is using one that is stricter than most have been considering for dwarf planets. The IAU hasn't directly indicated "how round is round", although their list could be taken as prototypes. I.e., however close to ideal H-E they are is, by fiat, within what the IAU means by H-E. Tbayboy (talk) 16:24, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

What Thomas said in 2010 was not new at that time. It had been known for a few years before 2010 that the shape of Iapetus does not match its current slow rotation. As to other satellites, their shapes are still not known with a precision sufficient to make reliable predictions regarding their internal structure. And all conclusions about HE or lack thereof depend on what is inside them. Ruslik_Zero 17:01, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

There are three current sections of this Talk page that have been discussing deficiencies in previous images of the solar system and how we need to have a better primary image that can portray the solar system more accurately. This was discussed nearly a year ago (see Archive 6) and probably a bunch of times before as well.

My proposed improvement (see latest change) is to address this deficiency by adding better information, not by taking away good info (as was done last month here). I think it helps a lot of people to comprehend the essence of the solar system when we communicate it in terms that people can relate to on a human scale. One excellent choice of scale is the 100 yards of an American football field (which is close to the length of a "soccer"/football field). And it gives an instant grasp of the scale of the solar system to let people know that the Sun would be two-thirds the diameter of a golf ball placed at one goal line, with the four gas giants stretching across all the way to the other goal line, each being smaller than a BB pellet. All other objects found in the solar system, including the Earth are much smaller still.

I hope you all like this change and see it as an improvement to a lot of the concerns raised here over the past couple of months.--Tdadamemd (talk) 11:00, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

The spirit of the change could be good, but I can see several problems now. How do you have read the distances vs. the sizes (which is not very intuitive)? The 100-yard stuff is only useful to some people who will come here (and I think such scaled distances only detract people anyway). Of all the dwarf planets, only five are shown. These are incorrectly shown to be neatly ordered in distance (like the planets), or rather it appears that way. Moreover, where are the 19 round moons, some of which are far more significant than (some of) the dwarf planets? --JorisvS (talk) 11:15, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for putting that together, but I'm afraid I think that image is a significant step down. It's cluttered, illegible at the resolution at which it's displayed in the article, and just requires too much explanation to convey it's point. Thus, it actually conveys less information at a glance than the previous information because it's so overwhelming (in my opinion). I generally think of infobox images as quickly conveying the essential features in a visually appealing way. The previous image did that; the new one does not. I'm also skeptical that the football field analogy is useful in this context. Most obviously, non-Americans don't have experience with those silly lines and hash marks. More substantively, if the relative numbers don't make things clear, why would relative numbers on a football field suddenly make it clear?

Maybe a similar image could be useful if at a scale at which it's legible much further down in the article. However, keep in mind WP:NOTTEXTBOOK; our job is to convey the information clearly and accurately to a lay audience, not teach to an audience that doesn't understand numbers. "The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to teach subject matter."

I've reverted the change; if others want to see it, here is the version as Tdadamemd edited it. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 11:20, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed that it was too cluttered. Planets do not play American football. -- Kheider (talk) 14:30, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Agree with above. Suggestion: Lose the field, dwarf planets, and all numbers. I.e., just have the lines from the planets currently pointing into the football field, unnumbered. The visuals show the relative distances well enough all by themselves. Tbayboy (talk) 20:16, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Reposting the new image here as reference for this discussion...

Scaled to a football field, the Sun is two-thirds the diameter of a golf ball at one goal line and the Gas Giants are each smaller than a BB pellet, with Neptune located at the opposite goal line. [edit: Image is now significantly cleaned up, per most of Tbayboy's suggestions]

A much more cluttered version of this image was discussed here nearly a year ago. I thought that I had cleaned it up last night to the point of being useful, but obviously it is not being taken as an improvement again. Yes, planets don't play American football. But Americans are very familiar with football, and the rest of the world is very familiar with soccer (football). It still holds that on an Association football field the Sun is smaller than a golf ball and the gas giants are smaller than four BB pellets. The division of the field length into 100 units (yards) makes for a very convenient scale to use, and soccer players can be made to relate by simply informing them that the field is close to the same length as a soccer field. Almost everyone has an outrageously distorted understanding of the scale of the solar system because that is how it has always been shown to them. This image presented by Lexicon (in the 'Infobox' section above) is particularly atrocious. I like this one much better, as split-scales are very helpful if not necessary.

Just look at the distortions conveyed in the current image. It shows the terrestrial planets being roasted by the Sun's corona, where flares would easily destroy the Earth. This is why I suggest that a split-scale is necessary. When it is scaled to a playing field and people are told that the Sun is on one end with the other stuff stretched out and the largest other objects are all smaller than a BB pellet, then the vast distances become immediately clear - clearly communicating that solar flares won't so much as reach Mercury at one yard away.

Another way to communicate the vast distances is with Darklich14's excellent effort from last month:

The Sun and planets Mercury through Neptune drawn to scale in both size and distance.

...but this takes a lot of effort from the reader to interact with. I will also propose here that Darklich's image be moved up to the end of the 'Structure and composition' section where it would be a great companion to the graph. This article is in major need on doing a better job of communicating the vast distances of the solar system. Lexicon's one image and Darklich's interactive image are huge steps toward improvement, and if the image I added this morning is seen to be too cluttered, I will see if I can get it cleaned up a lot more. Or maybe others here might have suggestions on how the football field image can be made workable for leading this article. I personally think that the sports-scaled approach can be very useful. Some of you may have seen the recent efforts added to Wikipedia where a basketball court is used for scale within the inner solar system (like this).--Tdadamemd (talk) 20:09, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think an analogy to a sports field of any kind is a useful concept: the idea doesn't need to be tweaked, it needs to be abandoned. I hadn't noticed the to scale image before; I think it's also unhelpful. It doesn't show up at all in one browser (iPad) and is just a black field with some smudges going by if I look very carefully in a desktop browser. I suppose that's the point, but it doesn't help convey anything. I don't understand the purported need to show distance and scale in one image; I think they're better shown separately, as the article currently does (with the exception of this image). Again, we're here to convey facts clearly, not teach. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 21:35, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, please don't use a Football field. A quick look at the different sizes shown on that disambiguation page will how silly it is. Basketball courts might be a little more consistent, but this is science, not sport. And I never watch basketball. HiLo48 (talk) 23:54, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

That page says that an association football field is 105 meters. That's roughly 115 yards, compared to the 100 yards of American football. I've stated that this is close enough for what the image is trying to convey. And yes this is science. Do you know what some of the best scientists say when they're trying to convey the vast distances within an atom? They compare it to a football stadium, with the tiny nucleus at the center of the field and the electrons buzzing around out to the periphery of the stadium. I see that to be excellent science. HERE is an encyclopedia article about the atom, and the very first section is titled "FOOTBALL STADIUM".--Tdadamemd (talk) 06:07, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm Australian. Do have another look at Football field taking that fact into account. HiLo48 (talk) 06:17, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm USian, and I've watched a heck of a lot of Aussie Rules Football, thanks to the advent of ESPN back in the 1970's when that's what they forced us to watch for some reason. Ha! So is your point that you don't know what a "soccer" ball is and have never ran on or watched a game played on a field the length of Association Football? According to this article, there are soccer fields available in just about every country. Actually I am willing to go out on a limb and assert that they are in absolutely every country in the world. Is your point that you prefer Aussie Football over soccer? Well it is still the same order of magnitude that we would be talking. Scaled to your 150 meter field, the Sun is not 2/3 the size of a golf ball, but instead just about the same size as a golf ball - so that actually works better. And two of the gas giants would exceed the size of a BB pellet. Now I am expecting you to tell me that you don't know what a golf ball is because you've never played that sport. (Why am I feeling dirty right now having referred to golf as a "sport"? - Ha.)--Tdadamemd (talk) 14:47, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Read this carefully. The term "soccer field" is never used in this imagery. It's always "football field". To half the people in Australia that means a much larger ground than the one most non-Australian science writers mean when they write "football field". It would simply be better to avoid the term football field" completely. Find another analogy. Or say that you don't care about those Australian readers. HiLo48 (talk) 21:54, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I am willing to invert the image for y'all!

Ok, seriously, do you think that anyone will look at the "10-20-...-50-...-10" on that field and mistake it for a "football" field of their local variety? In all of my ESPN watching, I don't recall any such markings in Aussie Rules Football. And the point made previously is that the order of magnitude still works, whether you are talking soccer, US football or Aussie football. I make an effort to avoid US-centrism arrogance, and I did my best to explain that my only reason for picking this peculiar sport was because of how convenient the 0-100 hash marks work out. I did not pick it with intent to alienate anyone, and once again if anyone has suggestions for improvement, I'm all ears. I've suggested skyscraper and long ship kind of alternatives. But surely someone would be offended with whatever building or ship was selected.--Tdadamemd (talk) 03:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not "offended". Simply pointing out that half the kids in Australia, surely still part of our target audience, will misunderstand your analogy. I was confused as a kid. Although eventually I guess it helped me learn that there was more than one kind of football out there. That's what I'd like every other tunnel-visioned editor here to realise now! The word "football" makes for crappy analogies. HiLo48 (talk) 22:12, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

...which is why I very carefully described in the article edits as well as on the image description itself that field as not just a football field, but an "American football" field, and in the image description I went so far as to explain the length difference between an Association football field versus an American football field. Yet you persist in talking to me in this thread as though I have tunnel vision or am ignorant about Aussie football.

And if the problem is people not knowing about the different lengths of different kinds of football fields, then the standard Wikipedia solution to such ignorance is to make it a clickable link where people can educate themselves. That's what Wikipedia does all the time, and it does it very well. Every kid goes through the confusion about the different kinds of football. Now that they have Wikipedia, that period of confusion can be very short.--Tdadamemd (talk) 04:04, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Qualitatively the same as using a sports field to help give a sense of scale of the solar system.

"we're here to convey facts clearly"

This was the exact point that I was trying to make. All of the other images portraying the solar system fail. The vocal consensus here seems to be ok with that, but there are some of us who are not. If editors here don't like using sports-scale comparisons, I am totally fine with using something that would work better. But sporting arenas tend to be at the upper end of what a person can take in at a single glance and relate to its scale. Say you wanted to use a 1 kilometer road stretch as an alternative. This is nearly impossible to relate to for a human standing in one position - it must be traveled, and then because of that [added complexity of a time dimension] it loses its utility. This is similar to how Darklich's image loses utility because of the need to scroll through it. Does anyone have an accurate sense of scale as to how far they've scrolled versus the size of the planet they've scrolled to? I know that I don't. [edit for clarity--Tdadamemd (talk) 15:37, 30 March 2013 (UTC)]

I just now thought of an alternative that might work better: a skyscraper. This is something that you can stand at the bottom of and look up to the top, or stand at the top of and look down to the bottom. There are some that are about 100 stories tall, so that makes for a good percentage-distance comparison. The question is whether this would be better than a sports field. Most people have direct experience with the scale of a large field, but do people have an accurate sense of scale of a skyscraper? Maybe a long ship might work, but this again leads me to wonder what the problem with the sports field really is.

This criticism that we're not here to teach needs to be checked. I see the football field image above as being qualitatively the same as all the images on Wikipedia that show objects next to a ruler to show how large they are, like the fruit image to the right.

Until this article will present an image that can convey this accurate sense of scale, then we are saying that we are ok with persisting in presenting badly distorted images of the solar system. If there are those who don't like the sports field, ok - but it is clear to me that we need to do something.--Tdadamemd (talk) 05:37, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Tdademd, one thing I don't get about your argument: what exactly is wrong with the TWO OTHER IMAGES that convey the planets' orbits to scale? Serendi^podous 08:34, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

In the article as it stands now, the first two images do an excellent job of showing the planets' relative sizes to scale, but they give absolutely no feel for the distances between them. On the contrary, that first image gives a grossly distorted impression of the distances. The next three images convey the orbit distances, but none of those three give any sense of body sizes. Scroll down to the image in the 'Outer planets' section and you get another grossly distorted impression that there is some way to see all four gas giants packed together, and this image doesn't so much as give a note that distances are grossly distorted.

Now go to the image I posted with the football field. Once you are presented with the info that the Sun is two-thirds the size of a golf ball at one goal line with all eight planets smaller than a BB pellet (four being much smaller) all the way to Neptune found at the other goal line, then you get an accurate sense of how sizes and distances relate in the solar system. The only image in the article that comes close to giving that accurate feel of size and distance is the extremely long one that requires scrolling. Everything else is badly distorted, and that is how just about everyone believes the solar system to be, and they are all badly mistaken.--Tdadamemd (talk) 14:32, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

...and there is one more problem with the main image. Notice how all of the planets are shifted away from the ecliptic. I could go into the history of how this happened, but notice that I fixed this in my football field image.--Tdadamemd (talk) 14:55, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that the image is too busy (too complicated) for the lead paragraph of an introductory article on the Solar System. There are a lot of metric abbreviations and fine print. In the lead, we really should use an image designed for the average idiot. -- Kheider (talk) 15:08, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

There is no way to present the information you request without creating an image that is too cluttered to be clear to the layman. Serendi^podous 15:18, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I've just now given it my best effort. Please have a look everyone.--Tdadamemd (talk) 17:59, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Post it here. Serendi^podous 18:32, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I note that this model is included in Solar System model, where it belongs, and referred to in this article. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 23:31, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

That is precisely the consensus attitude I was cautioning against - paraphrase: "We are totally ok with this primary, basic article on the solar system giving people a grossly skewed impression of the extreme distances of space between the planets and the Sun's tiny size in comparison to the radius of the solar system."

This is a common problem. People have grown up with these misrepresentations, so they find a certain comfort with them even after learning the reality of the exact scale of the solar system. I do not expect such attitudes to change overnight, but let's not lose sight of the fact that it is well within our power to do so. Many thanks to Darklich because as the article stands now, that one image may be the first that many people will learn of this fact.--Tdadamemd (talk) 03:04, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood my point, which I apparently made too briefly. Wikipedia's purpose (by policy) is to present the facts, something that I think this article as it currently stands does quite well. The image caption states very clearly that the distances are not to scale; adding an analogy to the image just confuses the issue. The facts of the Solar System do not include a football field (or pitch) of any variety. We have an article, Solar System models, which presents ways in which people model the Solar System; describing such models is appropriate in that context but not in describing the Solar System itself. When I'm teaching Americans, I sometimes do use analogies like a gridiron pitch, but that's because I'm a) teaching, not presenting information and b) know my audience better than I can on Wikipedia. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 10:35, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

We are agreed that the solar system facts do not necessarily include a football field. But notice how those two fruit have very little to do with that ruler, yet the ruler is in the photo. It is in the photo for a very good reason - because people who don't have any sense of scale about those two fruit now do, because they have a sense of scale about the ruler. That fruit image is not teaching. It is presenting straight facts about how large the fruit is.

When you have a solar system article that presents plenty of images with grossly distorted impressions of scale, then it does the exact opposite of presenting facts. It is presenting erroneous data. If this forum decides to not include an image with an accurate sense of scale, then readers will continue leaving this article with that distorted image of the solar system.

The article on Solar System Models should strictly be about places where people can go to see scale models of the solar system. It is not the place to banish straight facts about the accurate scale of the solar system. Such basic info belongs here in this article.--Tdadamemd (talk) 04:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Even though I have never seen a football match, I can imagine the size of a football field, but I have never even heard of a BB pellet. This metaphore does not convey any information to me. −Woodstone (talk) 17:10, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

...which is why we have Google, or more simply we can easily make BB pellet a clickable link. The basic point is that the four gas giants are very tiny when scaled to a large field. If you think that there is some other item that people can relate to more easily, like couscous or whatever, then it would be a very simple change to make. When scientists talk about the atom being scaled to a large stadium, I often hear them say that the nucleus at the center of the stadium is about the size of a pea. A pea is too large for the gas giants on a football field, so I picked something smaller. But if you were to ask people how large they thought Jupiter & Saturn would be on a football field, they'd probably say something like a beachball or maybe something much larger. That's how grossly distorted people's understanding is of the solar system, and it is all because of these images that are fed to them. To simple say "distances not to scale" does not fix the problem. It just tells people to take their best guess as to what the actual scale is. The power of the football field image (or something like it that serves the same purpose) is that it gives people a very clear and accurate understanding of scale.

Absolutly nothing else in the article does that. And if we don't add such an image, then people will continue with their gross misperceptions. ...but there will be a few who will do the several extra clicks that it takes to view that one scrollable image. These people will get a much better sense of the VAST distances of empty space involved. But they won't be able to quantify that. The football field image does that at a single glance, along with the few words about the golf ball and BB pellets. If we decide that we don't like football or BB's or whatever then we can switch that up, but this article is in need of something to communicate that very basic info about the solar system.--Tdadamemd (talk) 04:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

It wouldn't matter if everyone on Earth knew what an American football-field was: football is irrelevant to the topic. Any half-way serious presentation would simply have a scale of from 0 to whatever. — kwami (talk) 04:47, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Yep, drop the football analogies. They have always confused somebody. What's wrong with numbers? HiLo48 (talk) 05:00, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Numbers have always confused somebody too!

I could see the sports metaphors, just not in the main image. We could have a chart: If you pick a Aussie football field, then the Sun would be the size of a golf ball, if you pick ... etc. Even for those who are comfortable w numbers, a visual comparison can be enlightening. — kwami (talk) 05:06, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

What's the thing about different field sizes? There's no more difference between versions of football than there is within them. Union, League, Association, American, Canadian: they're all 100–110m between goalposts. Take it as 105m av. and just call it a "football" field. Ice hockey is half that, and basketball a quarter of that, so it's easy to scale down to those sports. — kwami (talk) 05:35, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Need for an image that accurately communicates scale

Ok, the above discussion has gotten wrapped around the axle regarding some people who object to using an American football field to communicate an accurate sense of scale of the Solar System, and others objecting to the use of BB pellets as the Gas Giants. A much more basic issue of consensus needs to be established here, so I am starting this new section as an effort to get a clean start. The question is this:

Do we recognize a need for this article to present an image that can accurately communicate the scale of the Sun and planets in the solar system, or do we feel that this is better left to the Solar System Model article and not to communicate that info here in this basic solar system article?

I will step back from this discussion for a time to see how other editors here feel. Please keep in mind that a final image that we go with would not need to have anything to do with football or sports or BBs.--Tdadamemd (talk) 05:10, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

HiLo just asked an important question, "What's wrong with numbers?", so before stepping back I will answer that here... The human mind has little ability to grasp vastly different orders of magnitude when communicated as straight numbers. I'll use the atom as an example. Here is the Wikipedia article that tries to communicate the relationship of the size of the nucleus with the size of the whole atom. Can you make any sense of that 100,000:1 size ratio? I say that it is impossible, using just pure numbers. But now have a look at this article that compares the atom to a football stadium. We know how big a pea is. And we know how big a stadium is. All of a sudden those numbers 100,000 and 1 take on a very clear meaning.

Ok, I will try to step back out of this topic again for now.--Tdadamemd (talk) 05:22, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Yawn. HiLo48 (talk) 05:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, the image excluding the dwarf planets was apparently removed because the scale was off, but now that the scale of the other 8 planets has come into question, I wonder if we should just not go back to the original image in the first place, while not mentioning the accurate size scale or lack thereof. 134340Goat (talk) 05:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

You mean the image at right? It's pretty, but very misleading.

I for one agree with Tdadamemd. We have several graphics to illustrate the relative sizes of the planets, but almost nothing to indicate the scale of the Solar System. That's a serious lacuna, enough for me to veto FA status. — kwami (talk) 05:40, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

WE HAVE TWO IMAGES INDICATING SCALE. I do not understand what the issue is here. Serendi^podous 07:06, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

We have no basic, easily accessible image. And we have none that combines the scale of the orbits with the scale of the planets themselves, unless you count the recently added scrolling gif, which is not prominent or accessible enough to do much good. — kwami (talk) 07:53, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

There is simply no way to convey both size and scale without being cluttered or overly complicated. What you people are asking for is not possible. Serendi^podous 08:23, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. In fact, Tdadamemd's image doesn't really show both "in one image" anyway; it shows the planets (to scale with each other) and a size ruler which shows their position to scale. They're completely different indicators of scale, so glomming them together into one image file is one of the many silly things about that image. If anyone can propose an image that somehow portrays scale and distance simultaneously, I'm all for it; I'm just essentially certain it can't be done. I think the two current images that show the distance between planets in the "Structure and Composition" section, as well as the images further down in the "Asteroid Belt" and "Kuiper Belt" sections, do reasonably well. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 10:00, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

We do have a scale img, and it's essentially unworkable. I like the sports-arena idea, just not in the infobox img, and as you say, not combined with the planets at a different scale. Enough people have attended a professional or official amateur football game of one kind or another (though I'm not one of them) that they have some concept of how big a professional field is; official Association fields span the 100–110m range of the other kinds of football/rugby, which means that any professional field is within 5% of a 105m median. That's certainly precise enough for illustrative purposes. Putting Neptune's orbit at the two goal posts and the Sun at mid-field, we could then give the proportional size of the Sun, Jupiter, where the orbits would be, etc. I think we could probably do that without relying on any one kind of football. Again, I don't have any good feel for the size of a football field myself, but an illustration like this would be more understandable than raw numbers to a large fraction of our audience. — kwami (talk) 17:42, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

So, enough people have attended..., eh? Do you care at all about those who haven't? Open your mind. HiLo48 (talk) 18:00, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Uh, did you bother to read what I just wrote? Why don't you refrain from commenting on things you can't be bothered to understand, and leave the conversation to people who are actually interested in improving the article. Also, if you're going to persist in being rude (as you were to Tdadamemd above), why not just graduate to Troll, so we can have a proper send-off? — kwami (talk) 19:52, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Of course I read it. Do you actually think it doesn't matter that you make things harder for people not from your culture or with no interest in sport? HiLo48 (talk) 23:07, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

What is wrong with the scale graphic we currently have (copied below)? I think it address all of the concerns of those who think the article somehow lacks an indication of distance without being wrong and without cluttering the infobox? —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 20:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

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.

I don't think it's all that accessible. In an article like this one here, there's a huge range of ages and education levels among our readers. And it provides no concept of how big the Solar system is compared to the bodies in it. How big is the Sun in this graphic? Jupiter? — kwami (talk) 00:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, but none of the other proposed graphics show how big any body is within the Solar System either! —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 01:41, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure, but we can give it in words. For an average football field with the goals at 105m, the Earth is 176cm from midfield, which is a common height for a person. (For the shorter 100m field, Earth would be 167cm away, which is just about the average human height world-wide.) The Sun is 16mm (5/8") in diameter (both common bolt sizes for anyone who's ever assembled or repaired a bike or car); an even easier-to-remember 1½cm on the shorter field), Jupiter 1.6mm in diam (1/16"), and Earth 0.15mm, the width of a fairly thick strand of hair. If we can compare sizes and distances to familiar objects, it will give people a better grasp of the distances involved. — kwami (talk) 01:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

We could (and perhaps should) do it in words on the existing graphic which shows scales, but in correct units instead of analogy units. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 02:13, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I did this. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 02:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Okay. I added the field comparison to the scale-model paragraph. — kwami (talk) 05:01, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I reverted this change. I see no consensus for including any sports analogy of any kind on the page; I certainly don't support it. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 05:57, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate you reverting yourself, and the ref does show that the estimates are correct (though we do not require refs in astronomy articles for simple arithmetic), but we really shouldn't be pushing an American POV here – that's what most of the fuss was about above. And since all football fields are within 5% worldwide, there's no real point to it. — kwami (talk) 06:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

My concern was never about an American POV. It was about using a very sloppy sports analogy. When I was young, Australian culture was dominated by British influences, so the football fields the science and other books mentioned would have been soccer fields, although I didn't realise that when I first saw the usage. I only knew of one kind of football field. Now the US has a much greater cultural influence, and it's a different (albeit similar) football field. Football fields are just a lousy choice for meaningful scaling. There has to be something better. HiLo48 (talk) 07:14, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Others objected to the American POV. Yes, if you can find something of a similarly convenient scale to illustrate this, please tell us. ≈100m is very convenient: small enough to grasp in its entirety, yet large enough that the Earth is still visible. I have never been to a professional football game, and never been on a professional field that I know of, so this isn't the greatest analogy for me. But I recognize that millions of people are familiar with them. And the different kinds of football are mostly irrelevant: Almost all professional fields—American, Canadian, Rugby League, Rugby Union, Association—are in the range of 100–110m. I hadn't realized Australian was different; I'd assumed it was some version of Rugby. That does complicate things. It doesn't look like Australian fields are of a standardized length, though, so I don't know how we'd address it. Maybe add a footnote that for an Australian field scale up by 50%, and for a basketball court scale down by 50%? If it were familiar to the rest of the world, Australian might be better, as Earth would be a slightly more manageable size at that scale. I can't think of anything else that would do better. Sometimes people scale to a Boeing 747, but apart from airplane mechanics, how many people have an intuitive understanding of how large one of those is? Everything else I can think of in this range is similarly parochial. — kwami (talk) 20:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you about 747s, but I still don't like football fields. Do it better with numbers. HiLo48 (talk) 04:02, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

How? It's hard for most people to visualize numbers. — kwami (talk) 04:40, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Are you sure? Have we tried and been told it's incomprehensible? HiLo48 (talk) 09:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure. I know several human beings. You haven't answered the question: How do we do it better with numbers? — kwami (talk) 21:18, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

What works for me is scaling by the diameter of the Sun. For example equate that to 1 meter. Then the diameter of Earth is about 1 cm, Jupiter 10 cm. The distance of Earth is about 100 m (the football field), of Jupiter at 500 m, Neptune at 3 km. All sizes well within human experience. For the non-metric audience, the Sun might be equated to a foot or a yard. Similar tangible sizes appear. −Woodstone (talk) 05:01, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Raw data with each number rounded to 2 significant digits:

body	distance rounded	diameter rounded
Sun	0	1.0000
Mercury	42	0.0035
Venus	78	0.0087
Earth	110	0.0092
Mars	160	0.0049
Jupiter	560	0.1000
Saturn	1000	0.0870
Uranus	2100	0.0370
Neptune	3200	0.0360

−Woodstone (talk) 05:37, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure, but what about readers who do not have an intuitive grasp of numbers like that? Some people are more visual. — kwami (talk) 07:38, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

The numbers in the table are dimensionless, but we can equate the diameter of the Sun to 1 m. All the planet sizes are then very visible sizes, and all distances are very commonly experienced as well, with some well chosen words the connection could be made.

Another option might be to map to time, for example equating the diameter of the Sun to 1 day driving. Driving to Earth would take 3.6 months, to Jupiter 1.5 years, to Neptune 9 years. Driving past Earth would take 13 minutes, Jupiter 2.5 hours. Or make it a real journey, from the center of the Sun, reach the surface after 0.5 days, reach Earth after 3.6 months and pass it in 13 minutes, reach Jupiter after 1.5 years and pass it in 2.5 hours, reach Neptune after 9 years. Again all times are well within human experience. −Woodstone (talk) 09:28, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

See how it looks (scaled to 'radius of Sun is one day travel)

Equivalent size of planets corrected from "days" to "hours"−Woodstone (talk) 15:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

body	time to reach	time to pass
Sun	0	1 day
Mercury	2.8 months	10 min
Venus	5.2 months	25 min
Earth	7.2 months	26 min
Mars	11 months	14 min
Jupiter	3.1 years	4.9 hours
Saturn	5.6 years	4.2 hours
Uranus	11 years	1.8 hours
Neptune	18 years	1.7 hours

I can relate better to the numbers scaled to one meter (by trying to visualize it) than to these travel times, in part because these are times, not distances like what they are supposed to illustrate (and because the travel times are way too long to relate to). --JorisvS (talk) 10:54, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Why are Jupiter and Neptune bigger than the Sun? Serendi^podous 11:51, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry the numbers for large planets are in hours, now corrected.−Woodstone (talk) 15:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The conversion got messed up with the very first calculation. 42 days is not 2.8 months. The fact that you aren't seeing this would tend to lead us to a conclusion that distance-to-time conversions are making the situation more complex rather than serving the purpose of illuminating an accurate sense of scale.--Tdadamemd (talk) 12:03, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

The scale in the second table is to the radius (not diameter) of the Sun as one day.−Woodstone (talk) 15:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for setting me straight on that.--Tdadamemd (talk) 09:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Seeing as how your text had stated "diameter", you may want to change one or the other for consistency.--Tdadamemd (talk) 22:43, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

This has been some excellent discussion. I'm piping back in to voice the observation that a consensus has been built around the answer of 'YES' to the initial question. We do want some way of communicating an accurate sense of scale in both sizes and distances. At least one person says it cannot be done, but lots of people are believers that it can be communicated. So then the next step is figuring out the best way to do that. The initial suggestion was by using an image, but a creative alternative is being proposed at HiLo's urging to communicate this through straight numbers. But that effort is tending to the solution of scaling dimensionless numbers to something tangible that people can more easily relate to. I would point out that the next natural step after relating in terms of tangible numbers would be to create an image of that.

The scaling of the Sun–Neptune distance, so far, has seen suggestions between the ~50 meter to ~3 kilometer range. I can give my assessment of pro's & con's of either, but instead I'll step back again for a while to see what ideas others here may have.--Tdadamemd (talk) 11:54, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I think we should have a scale where someone can take in the entire SS at a glance, but where the Earth is large enough to be visible. 100m is about the low end for the latter; 3km is too great for the former. So I think we should be looking for s.t. in the 100–200m range, which a football field fits nicely. I say that as someone who could care less about football; I just can't think of anything in that range that would be more widely understood. Sports analogies often work because they're visual in addition to being familiar to many people, and, although I may be stereotyping here, there's a large overlap between people who find sports familiar and people who find raw numbers difficult, and those are the people we're aiming for. But people visualize and learn things in all sorts of ways, so it's better to present this in various ways so that it's accessible to as many people as possible. For Woodstone travel times do the trick; for JorisvS, comparisons to a meter do it, but neither will work well for others. — kwami (talk) 22:58, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe we should scale the Solar System to 100m and describe it like what worked for me above, and then make the comparison with the football field. This way it works for many more people. And I also think this a better way to introduce the football-field analogy. --JorisvS (talk) 08:04, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Mapping the whole system to a football field makes Earth too small for a good grasp. Why not then map Earth's orbit to it. Mars will be over the seating, Jupiter in the parking lot, the others outside the stadium, but still in walking distance (up to about just a mile). Earth's size is half a cm, about 3/8 inch.(See first table, and use halved values as meters.) −Woodstone (talk) 15:58, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

That would make it too large to take in together, but it would be good as a parallel illustration. (and half a cm is not 3/8 an inch.) — kwami (talk) 19:45, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

It is apparent to me that we are at a point where consensus has been established that the article is in need of an image that communicates accurate size/distance, but we are lacking consensus as to the best scale to use. What I propose is that we go ahead with the inclusion of the image that is scaled to a football field as a first step toward improvement, and then that can be refined over time when someone creates an image using a scale that people like better.

I will also propose that the football field image is clean enough to use as a replacement for the current infobox image. It is very similar - the improvement is actually akin to the way that fruit image ('Main image' section above) adds a ruler for scale. And the football field image also improves on the current infobox image by showing the planets in-line with the Sun, instead of being inaccurately displaced away from the ecliptic plane. Another improvement is how the labels for the inner planets are offset from the labels for the outer planets, as the first four are categorically different from the last four.

If people can live with this proposed change as the first step toward improvement, then this could close out this Talk section for now and the topic can be revisited when someone has an image that uses a better scale. I am certainly open to improvements that readers from all over the world might be better able to relate to. For the time being, this appears to be the best available. I do look forward to seeing what creative approaches that editors like Woodstone will be able to come up with.--Tdadamemd (talk) 22:53, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I see no consensus at all that the current images do not accurately and effectively communicate size and scale; particularly, I see a strong consensus that trying to show both concepts in one image is counterproductive. I do see several editors agree with you for some changes to the text to present scales. While I don't agree that presenting analogies in the text is necessary or clearly appropriate, I wouldn't object to it happening.

I absolutely do not support any of the proposals I've seen so far as a replacement (even in concept) for the infobox image. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 23:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I did not state, nor did I intend to imply that there was any consensus that people were in love with the proposed football field image. It was clear from discussion last month that there were aspects that people objected to. Since that time, there has been a consensus established that an image that communicates scale as well as distance as a goal. Two people voiced a belief that it could not be done, but one of those two (you) voiced support if it could be accomplished. We've seen a clear majority being supportive of the concept, if not the execution.

...which leads to the current proposal on the table. Imagine that we are discussing a fruit article, and it gets proposed that the infobox image of two fruit gets replaced with the one above featuring the exact same two fruit along with a ruler. Some people cry out, "the ruler doesn't help!" My point is that the ruler helps some - and really, is it hurting anyone by adding the ruler? Maybe it doesn't help the others. Maybe it doesn't help the majority. But I don't see how it harms. And if it does create some kind of psychological friction, I would assert that such "damage" is far outweighed by those other people that are helped, and helped greatly, by the addition of the ruler.

On top of that great help to some, there is the benefit to all that the proposed image improves on the current image in the two ways explained in my previous post (ecliptic alignment and planet class label grouping).

The proposal isn't being made with a selling point that "everyone is going to love this". It's being made as a step toward a final goal that people here are saying that we want. And I maintain that this is an increment that we can make without any need for anyone to freak out over. If anyone is bothered by the bottom part of the proposed image, it is very easy to simply ignore it. And we can keep in mind those who are helped by it.

One last point is that by going "live" with it now, we will be greatly expanding our crowdsourcing base for whoever might come up with an idea that we all might see as the best way to communicate size&distance together.--Tdadamemd (talk) 05:59, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I think we'd best phrase the football analogy something like "When the Sun–Neptune distance is scaled to 100 m, which is (approximately) the size of a football field, the Sun is [a ball] approximately 3.1 cm in diameter, ...". I think without the plain figures, the football field analogy is not as useful. I don't consider this image good for the infobox, because there are a few things that I think are too problematic about it. For one, it is not clear that the indicated ranges mean their orbits from perihelion to aphelion and not the objects' sizes. Furthermore, with the ruler, it gives a rather wrong impression of particularly the size of the Sun. --JorisvS (talk) 09:02, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with ASHill, in that it does not belong in the infobox. I've no objection to it in the Visual Summary section (replacing the long, somewhat useless one there now), or in the Structure and Composition section (replacing the bottom diagram there). Tbayboy (talk) 18:08, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Since this is a structure issue, I added it toward the end of the Structure & Composition section. I did not replace the 'timeline' diagram as I see that to be presenting some very useful info. I think the two compliment each other. In the caption, I spoke generally of a field the length of roughly 100 meters in terms of both football & soccer as this may have better global reach, in line with feedback posted here.

JorisvS, I am not sure what you mean by it giving the wrong impression of the Sun in particular. The current image has been stripped down so that the scaled down info is communicated in words. Across this long field, you have one golf ball, four BB's and four fleas. The Sun and eight planets are smaller than each of those nine objects. I think that is a powerful way to communicate the vast distances. And again, someone may come up with significant improvements. As for the brackets being misunderstood as the planet diameters, I would hope that would get cleared up immediately when the BB & flea thing is grasped. And a statement has been included in the caption to state explicitly what the brackets are indicating.--Tdadamemd (talk) 09:45, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

The description in words is good. My point basically was that those words are very much necessary to communicate the scale accurately. If people do not read it very carefully, the image could give them the wrong impression. If someone can come up with an image that can avoid this, that would of course be great, but else so be it. Hmm, I see the position of the Sun is indicated, but gets somewhat lost in its glare (and hence gave me to the impression of it looking like being a huge ball to the side of the football field again). --JorisvS (talk) 10:24, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I think that the description in words is good but agree with JorisvS that the image is no more helpful now than it was before (though it's better not in the infobox), for all the same reasons. I think it is best to put the words in the text of the article, which I will work on momentarily. (Again, my reading of the consensus -- to the extent there is one -- in this discussion is that some use of these analogies in the text would be helpful.)

If we do include a ruler in an image, it should be in real units (km or AU), not athletic fields of any sort. However, we already have such a graphic! —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 22:36, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

My understanding of the discussion above is that we had arrived at a consensus that full scale units, whether they be km or AU or whatever, are way too vast for anyone to comprehend in any sensible way. This was exactly the utility of the accurate size & distance scale comparison: get the "astronomical" nature of the solar system down to a comprehensible one. If this gets buried in the text, then it will only be a small fraction of the usefulness than if it was communicated in an image. Yes, there are some folk here who aren't crazy about the football field image, but it is the best we have available right now. I see this to be a major disservice to delete it. I myself did not like how it was largely repetitive of the infobox image. But what are we left with? Communicating with cumbersome buried words. I went ahead and added the scale text info to an early image of the planets. But I do not see this problem to be fixed by just using words alone. This issue is important enough that it needs to be communicated through an image. It is not sufficient to caveat the distorted images by saying "distances not to scale", or whatever. Think back to when you were a kid looking at your cereal box and you were lied to about the prize inside that didn't come anywhere close to matching the glamorous image. Well that is what we are doing here with our article: we are lying to all the kids out there, and telling them it's their fault for not reading the fine print.--Tdadamemd (talk) 05:40, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

We are not "lying to all the kids"; that's ludicrous. Please correct the factual errors in the article that are implied by the word "lying"; I don't think there are any. Does any reader think that the distances between the planets in File:Size planets comparison.jpg are to scale? They're sitting on a gray surface!

I added a section heading to draw attention to the text discussion of distances and scales, which includes the real units as well as the analogy units (even though I still think that doing so is questionable per WP:NOTTEXTBOOK). However, from a pedagogical point of view, I think trying to do to much with one image is always a bad idea, and this is doing that. Again, none of the images proposed communicate sizes and distances simultaneously, as you've agreed; it's the words text in the caption that communicate that. Apparently, you think these words are so important that they need to be duplicated in the caption of some image; I disagree. However, I'll refrain from reverting for now; someone else can. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 06:37, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok, lying is too strong a word. What I was trying to say is that the article is grossly misrepresenting the Solar System. This is a point that has been repeatedly stressed throughout this Talk page, to the point where one person went so far as to suggest that this shortcoming is cause for removing Featured Article status. I must say that I agree. My position is that we are doing a disservice by presenting these grossly misrepresentative images and then maintaining that we are fixing that by posting the words "distances not to scale". A reader has to look very closely and be very attentive in order to leave this article with an accurate understanding of the Solar System. This article is a bait & switch, and most readers will never even get to the switch.

I still believe that an accurate sense of scale can be communicated in a single image, without relying on words. I am working on an improved version that uses something besides a football field and takes into account lots of other feedback given throughout this discussion. This project may take me a very long time to complete, but I made a good start at it tonight. I hope others are working on this with the belief that this can be done. I will be very interested to see the different approaches that are used.

I should have also stated that my criticisms are not unique to Wikipedia. You can take just about any text book about the Solar System and every one I've seen has the same problem. But that doesn't mean that we should stop working toward a solution. I actually see the football field image to make a huge step toward curing this deficiency. My effort now is to honor the input given by everyone who sees that particular choice of scaling to be not helpful to them. I have an idea of what this can be switched to, but again if anyone has other suggestions I'd be very glad to see that.--Tdadamemd (talk) 10:20, 11 April 2013 (UTC)