Talk:Solar System

Distance conversions?

In some spots, distances in AU are presented without conversion, while others convert it to miles and km. It's inconsistent. The size of an AU is well defined at the start of the "Distances and scales" section. Do you think we can use AU thereafter without the intermittent conversions? An example is the Asteroid belt section, where the inner and outer radius from the Sun is converted, then AU is used for orbital distances without conversion. The benefit of the AU in this context is that it provides a convenient scale. There shouldn't be a need to keep converting it; that just adds clutter. Praemonitus (talk) 18:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

agree, AUs should be enough. there is no way anyone can imagine what (15 billion km; 9.3 billion mi) is, 100 AU does the same job and is more concise. Artem.G (talk) 19:12, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Support removing conversions. The distances in kilometers are simply too large, astronomical units are more appropriate to such large scales. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 01:02, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

As a note, a lot of other prominent astronomy articles employ this too (e.g. Pluto); should we remove conversions there as well? ArkHyena (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Well the pluto article just jumps in and starts using AU without defining it, so I'm not sure. Perhaps that's a more general discussion for WP:AST? If there's a consensus, it could go in the astronomy style guide. Praemonitus (talk) 03:26, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Why do we need a Spaceflight section?

I'm unclear why this section is needed. It discusses spaceflight maneuvering, rather than the properties of the Solar System. The previous section already mentions the history of exploration via spacecraft. This discussion can be better handled via a link in the "See also" section. Praemonitus (talk) 13:31, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I support removing most of the content; some of the info relevant to major missions could also be merged w/ the above subsection. ArkHyena (talk) 18:47, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

bow shock

A factual issue: this article states the Solar System creates a bow shock within the surrounding ISM, whereas the Heliosphere#Bow_shock article-section states this has been determined to be not the case. The Heliosphere page's applicable reference is more recent than that of this article. 98.1.3.105 (talk) 17:48, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. However, I don't think a bow shock has been completely ruled out.[1][2] Praemonitus (talk) 23:27, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion to change the first section

Hello, I'm new to Wikipedia! I find that the first section right now only focus on individual objects and didn't talk about the Solar System as a whole. I don't know if this first section is suitable for Wikipedia, so please give me feedback if you are a wikipedia veteran.

The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, like planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, moons and comets. It is home to many astronomical objects that can be seen in the night sky.

At the center of the Solar System is the Sun. The Sun is a main-sequence star that fuse hydrogen into helium at its core, releasing this energy from its outer photosphere. The Solar System can be divided into three regions. The inner Solar System is the closest to the Sun, containing four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) and the asteroids, which includes the asteroid belt between Mars's and Jupiter's orbit. The outer Solar System contains two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune), and the Kuiper belt just outside of Neptune's orbit. The trans-Neptunian region is still largely unexplored, theorized to contain dwarf planets and many more smaller icy bodies. Going further away, the gravitational influence and solar wind effect from the Sun gradually fade, eventually becoming indistinguishable from interstellar space. However, many objects by their nature do not strictly belong into one region, such as comets.

In the 16th century, Copernican heliocentrism proposed that the Sun is motionless and revolved around by celestial objects. Over centuries of astronomy and decades of spaceflight, this model evolved into a modern understanding of the Solar System. It is now known that the Solar System is one of many planetary systems with their own gravitational spheres of influence and motion around the Milky Way galaxy. Empirical evidence suggests that the Solar System formed about 4.6 billion years ago, when a region of a molecular cloud collapsed into the early Sun and a protoplanetary disk. As subfields of astronomy, planetary science and space weather heavily depend on the study of the Solar System Logusmonkey (talk) 22:41, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your input. Per WP:LEAD, the lead section is intended as a summary of the article as a whole, so yes there is a heavy focus on the individual components. The "Discovery and exploration" section only forms a small part of that. But yes, a brief mention would be appropriate. Praemonitus (talk) 04:40, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

References