Talk:Sun

Is a tennis ball "a near perfect sphere"? A Class A ball bearing has an oblateness of under 3 ppm. The Sun's oblateness is nearly 3 times worse than that. And that's assuming the only thing we're concerned about is its GROSS physical dimensions (i.e. the major and minor axes). This is real life, not a 3D geometry exercise. Characterizing is as "near perfect" is totally vacuous. It serves no purpose and is wrong by many measures. Turns out, who knew?, that texture matters. The Photosphere can vary by 100's of km (according to the article) Do the math: 100 ÷ 7000 = 0.014 or 1.4% This isn't even reasonably near what could be made in the early 18th Century, let alone the 21st. That description should be removed. (And of course, anyone who claims that its surface is "near perfect" hasn't seen a Solar Prominence or a Coronal Mass Ejection. And never mind the fact that the heliopause not even close to spherical and varies by orders of magnitude more than the Sun's radius. (But the article does -sorta- qualify that it's talking about the visible surface of the Sun, i.e. the Photosphere, so it could be worse.)40.142.176.185 (talk) 09:09, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

:It matters because it is related to the Sun's internal rotation, which is discussed in the very next subsection. Perhaps that connection could be made more explicit. Remsense ‥ 论 09:21, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

::I rewrote that paragraph, please review. I did not make the connection to rotation but the Gough ref could be used to do so. Johnjbarton (talk) 20:07, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

A sphere is a surface, maybe or not the sun's surface is a nearly perfect sphere. The sun itself maybe is a nearly perfect ball, see sphere#Enclosed volume. --Himbeerbläuling (talk) 14:27, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:This concerns me. In the everyday English meaning of sphere, it's ok to mean by "sphere" the ball that the mathematical sphere is the surface of, and is also a part of. Probably because of the high prestige of mathematics and science, the mathematical meaning of sphere as a surface has begun to be claimed as the only correct meaning of sphere. But, the link in the first sentence of the article is to a mathematical sphere, which is incorrect. The sun certainly isn't a surface. The article is using the everyday English meaning of sphere, which probably isn't incorrect usage, but the link is incorrect.Rich (talk) 19:53, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::I deleted the incorrect wikilink. --Himbeerbläuling (talk) 22:45, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

{{edit semi-protected|Sun|answered=yes}}

In the "Development of scientific understanding" section, third paragraph, second sentence, change "directly" to "direct". MJG6452 (talk) 00:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

:{{done}}, thanks. Good find. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:44, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Why do we call "The Sun" and not just simply called "Sun", like other stars names (Spica, Arcturus, Vega, etc) that don't have "The" word accompanying them?

Bigep65259 (talk) 22:45, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

:Because the word has historically used the direct article in English, reflecting the historical understanding of it as a particular, unique physical entity, not one named object in a class. Remsense ‥ 论 23:14, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

{{Edit semi-protected|Sun|answered=yes}}

Making edit for astronomical History of how the sun was created 2601:644:681:B4B0:E825:440B:C07:264D (talk) 22:47, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

:{{not done}}: see Star formation Remsense ‥ 论 22:48, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

::See {{slink|Sun#Life_phases}}. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:31, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

The current version of the H-R diagram seems to indicates that the final point in the Sun's life has very high luminence. This isn't correct, as the Sun will end as a very dim object. Perhaps the diagram just needs to be completed.

Ordinary Person (talk) 14:30, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

:File:Evolution of the Sun 2 EN.svg from the main sequence to the white dwarf stage|300x300px|alt=See caption]]The caption does state that it does not cover the entire life of the sun. We can consider replacing it with this image which has been extended to to the white dwarf stage. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:17, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

::Yeah, I like this better. WP:BOLDly updated. :) Double sharp (talk) 10:34, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=6530515 This article used] to be in British English. When and why did it change? John (talk) 07:33, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&diff=prev&oldid=912724039 This edit], August 2019. The article wasn't explicitly in British English before that, but many (most? all?) spellings were Britih English. The change is described as "per WP:ENGVAR", but in the absence of a considerable mix of spellings or some other compelling reason, MOS:RETAIN explicitly forbids a wholesale switch of style. Lithopsian (talk) 14:19, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::So it passed FAC in UK English, then passed FAR in American English, and nobody ever noticed or queried the change? Oy vey. John (talk) 15:56, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::I've restored Commonwealth English. As you say, MOS:RETAIN should have prevented such a change from taking place, and I would have thought one of the rounds of peer review this article has (supposedly) had should have caught the error. Never mind. John (talk) 20:06, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Seems to be contradicted by: {{tq|"Scientists using NASA’s RHESSI spacecraft have measured the roundness of the sun with unprecedented precision. They find that it is not a perfect sphere. During years of high solar activity the sun develops a thin “cantaloupe skin” that significantly increases its apparent oblateness: the sun’s equatorial radius becomes slightly larger than its polar radius."}} https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081005192607.htm TurboSuperA+ (☏) 11:00, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:[https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025arXiv250110821R/abstract Published paper]. The oblateness varied between approximately 70 and 110 ppm. So not constant, but still pretty tiny. Lithopsian (talk) 14:23, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::It sounds tiny to us, but according to the source above: {{tq|"“That may sound like a very small angle, but it is in fact significant,” says Alexei Pevtsov, RHESSI Program Scientist at NASA Headquarters. Tiny departures from perfect roundness can, for example, affect the sun’s gravitational pull on Mercury and skew tests of Einstein’s theory of relativity that depend on careful measurements of the inner planet’s orbit."}} TurboSuperA+ (☏) 14:29, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

{{ref-list}}

It formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud, though this is just a conspiriacy theory. 2001:56A:FECA:1E00:9CC4:F7F7:D1B8:9CAC (talk) 13:25, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:@2001:56A:FECA:1E00:9CC4:F7F7:D1B8:9CAC

:this is the edit that added the half sentence in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&diff=1281450388&oldid=1281424016&variant=en

:obviously spam :( Janpipilip (talk) 13:35, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Current text: "From Earth, it is 1 astronomical unit (1.496×108 km) or about 8 light-minutes away."

Suggested improvement: "The distance from the Earth to the sun defines the astronomical unit, (1.496×108 km) or about 8 light-minutes."

The current text might lead the reader to think that the astronomical unit and the distance from the Earth to the Sun are coincidentally the same. Just a quibble. Wastrel Way (talk) 13:30, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Eric

:The astronomical unit is actually now formally defined as an arbitrary exact value in meters. Before, it was "approximately the average between Earth's perihelion and aphelion"; in other words "kinda the rough average Earth–Sun distance".

:So strictly speaking, that sentence in the lead has always been factually false. The Earth–Sun distance is not a fixed value, but constantly changing, because the Earth is in constant orbital motion around the Sun and orbits are ellipses, not perfect circles. Not touching it immediately myself because it's an FA that's just been TFA, but this needs attention as to a rewording. --Slowking Man (talk) 23:20, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Kind of in the same spirit as WP:COMMONNAME, I don't think many people think of that or would even consider that when searching for the sun.

That being said, from a scientific perspective,it's a very valuable image.

Should we add another image (or diagram or both even) of the sun to the infobox? DarmaniLink (talk) 14:32, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:Definitely ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:43, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:Yes, like [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&oldid=947711902 here]. mgiganteus1 (talk)

:That's easily done: {{emoji|theme=phantom|name=sun_with_face}}. Don't forget the giant pair of sunglasses! {{emoji raw|wink}} --Slowking Man (talk) 23:20, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::Are you insane? Why would you say this! TheFellaVB (talk) 23:44, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::[https://what-if.xkcd.com/129/] --Slowking Man (talk) 01:33, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

:No. ZergTwo (talk) 01:51, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

:Comment: the infobox previously had an image in AIA 304 Å (false color), but it was removed by {{u|CactiStaccingCrane}} with the following justification. {{tq|All images of Solar System bodies are in true color, on purpose. There's no reason why the Sun should have it's image changed to false color}}. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sun&diff=prev&oldid=1097191719 dif]) CoronalMassAffection (talk) 11:54, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

::My counterpoint to that is, because it's our sun and it's a notable exception as being a cultural icon of humanity since before antiquity DarmaniLink (talk) 12:02, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I disagree here. Simply because the Sun is frequently imagined as a yellow/incandescent orange object by the public does not mean it is the most helpful primary representation of it here{{mdash}}this is a very similar case to Neptune's exaggerated color image vs. its true color reprocessing (relevant discussion here). General consensus is that, wherever possible, the infobox image of astronomical objects should be shown as close to true color as possible, and for good reason. Exaggerated color or false color images as the primary representation can imply features or traits that the object does not hold in the reality (e.g. the Sun being orange). Even with appropriate disclaimers in the caption, it can reasonably be assumed that the average reader mentally gives greater weight to the infobox image since it's the first thing they see.

:::Perhaps we could showcase the Sun's popular false-color image(s) vs. its approximate true color appearance in a side-by-side gallery, as on Neptune's article, but considering we already show the Sun in a variety of wavelengths in the main body I would lean against this. ArkHyena (they/any) 04:55, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:@DarmaniLink Do you have anything specific in mind? CoronalMassAffection (talk) 22:06, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

::m:File:The_Sun_by_the_Atmospheric_Imaging_Assembly_of_NASA's_Solar_Dynamics_Observatory_-_20100819.jpg

::could just add the old image back, I cant think of anything else other than an outright photo of the sun DarmaniLink (talk) 03:32, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:::@DarmaniLink The MOS:PERTINENCE of this image is unclear to me. The AIA 304-Å filter, which captures extreme-ultraviolet emission primarily from He II ions in the chromosphere and transition region [https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-011-9776-8], is not particularly notable, so there is no reason to use it over any other filter. CoronalMassAffection (talk) 13:20, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

::::When people think of our sun, they think of that image. That's what the pertinence is. There's more to the sun, on a general encyclopedia, than simply the last few hundred years of research DarmaniLink (talk) 19:15, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::Using an inaccurate photo as the lead image is not one. ZergTwo (talk) 23:32, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

::Are you planning on replacing the lead image with the proposed image? I prefer using Template:Switcher to alternate between true color and false color. ZergTwo (talk) 03:38, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

{{Edit semi-protected|Sun|answered=yes}}

Add: The Holy Trinity, On the fourth day of creation, created the sun

Pls remove the part about the sun materializing. It is very atheistic. 45.195.29.122 (talk) 02:23, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

:{{Not done}}: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ZergTwo (talk) 02:38, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

This article (and the Heliosphere article) treat the heliosphere as a layer of the solar atmosphere rather than as a region separate from the solar atmosphere, which I believe is a mistake. Most sources that I am aware of consider the solar atmosphere to consist of the photosphere, chromosphere, transition region, and corona and consider the overlying heliosphere to be separate from this atmosphere. (For example, see [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1008.0771], [https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.00861], or the Stellar corona and Alfvén surface articles and the references therein; the only source I can find that considers the heliosphere to be a layer of the solar atmosphere is [https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/components-of-heliosphere/ this popular science NASA article] referenced in the Stellar atmosphere article.) Therefore, I think that references to the heliosphere as a layer of the solar atmosphere should be removed and text covering the heliosphere should be moved out of the Atmosphere section. I would like to make this change myself, but I currently do not have the time. Would anyone be willing to address this in the meantime? And are there any objections to making this change? CoronalMassAffection (talk) 07:00, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

:I think the two refs you give are somewhat ambivalent:

:* [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1008.0771 3] starts: "The extended atmosphere of the Sun, known as the heliosphere"

:* [https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.00861 4] says in the abstract about magnetic effects: "...and beyond into the outer solar atmosphere and, finally, into the heliosphere."

:I guess the NASA article was trying to make (literally) a simple picture by using "atmosphere": its not wrong so much as simplified. I think the article should reflect this ambiguity. For example the unsourced claim about 5 layers could be altered to reflect these sources. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:54, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

::Perhaps those two were not the best sources to help prove my point. From how I read them, 3 refers to the heliosphere as the "extended atmosphere" because it is not a part of the atmosphere as it is usually defined (and as they assume the reader knows it to be defined), and 4 describes moving from the outer atmosphere to the heliosphere as if the heliosphere is not a part of the (outer) atmosphere.

::Regardless, I looked through some university-level textbooks that I have previously been assigned. Their descriptions of the solar atmosphere and heliosphere are as follows.

::* [https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511529467 Cravens 1997]:

::**"Solar physicists and astronomers have divided the solar atmosphere into four regions: (1) The photosphere [...] (2) The chromosphere [...] (3) The transition layer [...] (4) The solar corona" (p. 173)

::**"The region of space influenced by the Sun and solar wind is called the heliosphere." (p. 252)

::* [https://archive.org/details/sunearthneareart0000eddy Eddy 2009]: (via the glossary)

::**"solar atmosphere: the photosphere, chromosphere, and corona of the Sun" (p. 283)

::**"heliosphere: the vast region surrounding the Sun dominated by atomic particles and magnetic fields that are carried away from the Sun by the solar wind" (p. 271)

::* [https://archive.org/details/handbookofsolart0000unse Kamide and Chian 2007]:

::**"The solar atmosphere consists of three layers. The lowest level is the photosphere [...]. The chromosphere and the corona lie above the photosphere." (p. 4)

::**"The solar wind, then, sweeps out an enormous volume of space, called the heliosphere because the region is dominated by the Sun through the dynamical solar wind." (p. 114; chapter written by Eugene Parker)

::* [http://arxiv.org/abs/1910.14022 Schrijver et al 2024]:

::**"Table 2.3: Basic parameters for, and definitions of, domains in the solar atmosphere" and the column titled "Region" includes only the "Photosphere", "Chromosphere", "Transition region", and "Corona" (p. 18)

::**"Table 1.2: [...] heliosphere: the extended region where the solar wind dominates over the interstellar medium" (p. 5)

::(In all of the quotations above, formatting was preserved.) I think that these are a much better indication of how the terms are typically used, and there is not much ambiguity regarding the exclusion of the heliosphere/solar wind. CoronalMassAffection (talk) 23:44, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Excellent work. I agree that the heliosphere be split off. Maybe in that section we say something near the end like "The heliosphere is sometimes described an extended layer of the solar atmosphere (nasa ref) but ..." Johnjbarton (talk) 01:33, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

::::That sounds good. And thanks. CoronalMassAffection (talk) 21:16, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::I made a quick fixup, please review. The whole section needs to be reread for flow. Johnjbarton (talk) 22:34, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::The new section structure looks good, but I think that flow can be improved in some places. For example, it may be better to introduce the outer limit of the corona, i.e., the Alfvén surface, in Sun#Corona rather than in Sun#Heliosphere. I should be able to address this and other flow issues when I have the time. CoronalMassAffection (talk) 03:30, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

This article currently lists the sun as being "Roughly three-quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen (~73%); the rest is mostly helium (~25%)", whereas other sources online including articles hosted at Nasa.gov say "primarily hydrogen (92.1%) and helium (7.9%)" (sometimes rounded to 92% and 8%). (All sources mention some degree of trace elements making up a remainder, though that Nasa article I quoted puts that at 0.1% rather than the 2% indicated here.)

I don't know enough about solar dynamics to know which figure is right, so I'll note this discrepancy and let folks who know enough to properly dive into the literature be the ones to decide whether or not a correction should be made. Good luck! 2604:3D08:3488:3A00:9317:3B09:FBAE:3C82 (talk) 07:20, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

:You're mixing up mass and volume. Remsense ‥ 论 07:27, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

:"Nasa.gov" is a web site, not a citation. I have no idea where you got those numbers. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:10, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Pinging @Eric Kvaalen—I didn't remove this material, but I thought this might precipitate a useful discourse without a flurry of further reverts. I agree {{xt|you don't need to protect people from things that don't interest you}}—but I'm pretty sure you are aware the issue is more that we potentially do need to protect the article from being 20,000 words long. It is presently around 18,500 words long: meaning that, even taking the massively ramified topic into account, it almost certainly still needs to be trimmed of thousands of words. too long. (cf. WP:ARTICLESIZE, our jumping-off point.)

The material in question generally seems much more central to articles like Solar System or Stellar kinematics. When articles are this ramified and this long, we start condensing and moving to subarticles or related articles. That is what non-parochial editing requires us to do. I am not convinced none of the material restored should be represented here, but I also don't think we can justify (among other material elsewhere) keeping it all. Remsense ‥ 论 12:24, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

:The situation the article is in now seems to be a problem, with paragraphs repeating the same information in the 'Location' and 'Motion' sections. Even if consensus were to keep the longer versions, surely keeping both the longer version and the shorter version at the same time is an error. MrOllie (talk) 12:37, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

:MrOllie, I don't see what you're talking about. What gets repeated? Remsense, perhaps we should put the material about the motion in a separate article, but not in Solar System or Stellar kinematics. The motion of the sun through the galaxy does not really belong in an article on the solar system, in my opinion. It does have something to do with stellar kinematics, but it's more specific. Maybe we could make a section of Stellar kinematics just talking about the sun, and put a link to that section here. But we should at least put a couple sentences about the way the sun moves in an ellipse around a point that goes around the galaxy. And the part about the barycentre doesn't belong in Stellar kinematics -- it's about how the planets move the sun around. (By the way, that paragraph has been deleted a couple times, I think, because someone objected to the fact that it cites an article, in Scientific Reports, that has been withdrawn. But the facts that are mentioned in our article are not the controversial claims for which the paper was withdrawn, and we even cite the withdrawal to say that this does not affect the distance between the sun and the earth.) Eric Kvaalen (talk) 16:00, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

::Yeah, I'm not sure other than this material should definitely be somewhere, we're in agreement on that much. Remsense ‥ 论 16:04, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

::The barycenter is a property of the Solar System, not a property of the Sun. It deserves one sentence in this article.

::(Many cases of article size are related to this kind of issue: a topic which is elaborated rather than being mentioned and linked). Johnjbarton (talk) 16:47, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

::At the time I made that comment, Paragraph 2 of the Solar System section was clearly a shortened form of the paragraph you pasted back into the end of that section. The opening and penultimate paragraphs of the Motion section were also clearly different versions of the same text. Remsense's subsequent edits have fixed that issue. MrOllie (talk) 01:43, 27 April 2025 (UTC)