Talk:Sun

Room for improvement
Why does this article have content that bespeaks an evolutionistic perspective? I propose a major rewrite, at least to say that figures for the age of the sun of "4.5 billion years" are a matter of opinion (and probably cribbed from the uniformitarian age of the Earth), and that creationists believe otherwise.

But rather than do this unilaterally, I'd like at least to give a chance to anybody to contribute.

BTW: note the presence of the Infobox. I have references to substantiate the numbers shown, and am working on where to embed them or whether to list them under "Related Links." I would like to get a figure for the Sun's orbital inclination from the galactic plane.--TemlakosTalk 16:57, 17 January 2008 (EST)
 * Personally I think embedding them would be the better way to present references for the data. --Tony Sommer 03:05, 18 January 2008 (EST)
 * That would be fine, except that tags contained in a template do not process. I tried it one time--thought I could include the tags in Template:Bible ref. Result: no references to any of my Bible verse citations.
 * In order to embed the references for the data in the template, I would have to write a sentence like this: "The data appearing in the box to the right come from a variety of sources.     " I personally find that unattractive.
 * Actually, I'm planning quite an expansion of the article. I'm also considering adding a section to the template, called "Rotational characteristics," in which I might include some properties like sidereal day, solar day, axial inclination, and angular velocity. For that matter, I might want to include the g constant in the Physical characteristics section--and maybe standardize it to earth so that a man might figure out how much he'd weigh on the surface of any given celestial body--assuming that he could stand on it.--TemlakosTalk 07:08, 18 January 2008 (EST)
 * Yes, this needs to be done. I dont know who created this article, but the descriptions and years are based on uniformitarianism. I focus mostly on biology, so I am not going to touch this, but make sure you inlcude the major problems with the sun in regards to uniformitarianism. --Tylerdemerchant 13:56, 23 January 2008 (EST)
 * Thanks for sending that in, and especially the header link to the WP article. So we have three theoretical problems with the model of the Sun: the electron neutrino deficit problem (which they believe is solved), the hot corona problem (how do you get from 6000 K to 106 K through turbulence alone?), and the young-sun paradox. Well, how 'bout it? Any would-be astronomers out there?--TemlakosTalk 14:25, 23 January 2008 (EST)

Satellites Table
I'm deliberately annotating the eight planets with as many statistics as I can gather, so that they'll show up on the Satellites table. That table is an inline query and will be the standard for tables of moons of the planets as we create articles for them (Phobos, Deimos, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Titan, Rhea, etc.). What I'd like everybody to do is:


 * 1) Take a good look at the table as it grows, and particularly its columns.
 * 2) Follow the links to the planet articles and note the statistics available there.
 * 3) Post here what sort of comparative statistics are most appealing to you.

Then I can modify my inline-query template to pull those properties from every article having a common primary.--TemlakosTalk 15:49, 20 January 2008 (EST)

First draft of revision to remove uniformitarian bias
Well, I've put up my first draft of a proposed revision of the article. I've already found one big problem for uniformitarianism: the sun gets brighter all the time, and if the sun really were 4.5 billion years old, then it would be 40% brighter--and hotter--today than it was before. We ought to see evidence of tremendous cold in the Precambrian layers, with gradual warming as one comes less deep in the fossil column. But the Encyclopedia Britannica admits that no such effect is observed. They then propose that the greenhouse effect must be compensating for the higher brightness! Hmmm--is that the same "greenhouse effect" that threatens to turn our world into a killer steam bath? Comments, please.--TemlakosTalk 09:07, 5 March 2008 (PST)


 * Looks great to me, I say keep your revisions! --Tony 11:33, 5 March 2008 (PST)

Final draft
Everyone, herewith the final draft of this article. Notice my use of the new math functions to reproduce the accepted energy-production equations. Notice also the litany of problems for uniformitarian theories that Spike Psarris and others have remarked upon--including one astronomer who frankly admitted that he would not be able to reject Ussher's date out-of-hand if we had observational data to suggest that date up-front. (Though what evidence would convince him, my source does not quote him as specifying.)--TemlakosTalk 07:50, 6 March 2008 (PST)

"Known to the ancients"
A minor point, but I think it's a little silly having that in the info box. --Zephyr Axiom 14:06, 6 March 2008 (PST)
 * Believe it or not, that is standard boilerplate for any celestial body whose date of first observation has been lost in antiquity. This applies to the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, Mercury (planet), Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Everything else in space has a date of discovery.--TemlakosTalk 19:13, 6 March 2008 (PST)
 * It's not all that bad if it stays. I was just humored 'cause, well, how could anyone miss the sun (as opposed to the relative specks Mercury or Saturn)?  --Zephyr Axiom 14:04, 7 March 2008 (PST)
 * True enough. But we have to say something about the Sun, or any other object that has always been naked-eye visible. And as I say, even NASA uses that designation to fill in the box labeled "Name of discoverer" for such objects.--TemlakosTalk 14:59, 7 March 2008 (PST)

Sunspots
I recognize that one-sentence paragraphs might not look nice. But each paragraph discusses the work of a different astronomer. Combining paragraphs would make the prose look awkward.--TemlakosTalk 20:42, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thats fine, i actually thought it made it flow better. Sorry if my change wasn't needed. --Tony 20:45, 18 August 2008 (UTC)