Wikipedia:Peer review/Formation and evolution of the Solar System/archive1

Formation and evolution of the Solar System

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to know what is still needed before it can be nominated for an FA. Thanks, Serendi ^pod ous 10:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: An interesting article, quite well done and nicely illustrated. My suggestions for improvement and mostly nit-picks:

In the lead I would add the word "nebula" to this The nebular hypothesis maintains that 4.6 billion years ago, the Sun and its planetary system formed from the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud[, or nebula]. to make clear why it is called the nebular hypothesis.
The last sentence in the lead is too short to be its own paragraph - could it be expanded or combined with the third paragraph?
Article needs more references in a few places - for example the last two paragraphs in History need cites. See WP:CITE and WP:V
Refs usually come after punctuation and often are at the end of the sentence
Explain abbreviations when first using them - for example AU (if this is astronomy style, using AU without expalining it, ignore this) I see this as avoiding or explaining jargon (see WP:JARGON) and provide context for the reader (WP:PCR)
From reading Kelvin, I believe that reaching only a thousand kelvins at their hottest.[10] should use "kelvin" and not "kelvins"
Having read the article, my rule of thumb is that every header should be mentioned in some way in the lead - so the Moons and Rings and Glactic evolution do not seem to be in the lead.

Not much else for now - this is pretty close to FA in my opinion, but I am not an astronomer. You may want to ask for another review at WP:PRV. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed most of your issues. The "kelvin" article doesn't make it very explicit, but it should be "kelvins". I don't really like crowding refs at the end of sentences unless necessary, but that's just me. Serendi ^pod ous 09:40, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More from Ruhrfisch - OK, the Kelvin article is not super clear on this, so I will defer to your judgment on this.

I know the style for scientific articles is sometimes different so I am not sure if this article needs to provide English untis as well as metric.
The semi-automated peer review (above) has several minor MOS issues - non-breaking spaces and such mostly.
Except for the lead image and Image:Lhborbits.png I would set all the other image sizes at thumb per WP:MOS#Images. The upright parameter can be used to make portraits smaller if desired.
The nebular hypothesis is described as being out of favor for some time in the History section - perhaps some other theories / hypotheses should be given briefly there too.

That's it from me, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 11:16, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Science only ever uses metric, so I wouldn't change the units. I've gone through and found as many of the MOS issues listed by the automated peer review as I can.Serendi ^pod ous 11:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RJH

I haven't read all the way through the article yet, but here are a few observations:

For some reason I'm not particularly fond of the first paragraph in the lead. It doesn't really tell me anything about the actual subject.
I also have an issue with the third paragraph in the History section. I'd prefer some term like "evolve" rather than "die"; the latter implies the Sun is alive. Also the generation of heavy elements needs to be tied back to the Solar System. I.e. that is how the material was provided to create the planets.
"(known as ice giants because their cores are believed to be made mostly of ices such as water, ammonia and methane)" seems irrelevant to the text.
This sentence seems confused: "Jupiter's gravity accelerated material ahead and behind it, causing them to speed up and move away from the planet and creating a gap in the protoplanetary disc." I'd expect the gravity to attract matter toward Jupiter, rather than repelling it. Perhaps it meant matter in smaller and larger orbits?

Thanks.—RJH (talk) 19:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, here's the quote from the SciAm article, maybe you can make better sense of it than I could.

The planet [ie Jupiter] stabilises when it becomes massive enough to turn type I migration on its head. Instead of the disc shifting the orbit of the planet, the planet shifts the orbit of of gas in the disc. Gas interior to the planet's orbit revolves faster than the planet, so the planet's gravity tends to hold it back, causing it to fall toward the star—that is, away from the planet. Gas exterior to the planet's orbit revolves slower, so the planet tends to speed it up, causing it to move outward—again, away from the planet. Thus the planet opens up a gap in the disc and cuts off the supply of raw material. The gas tries to repopulate the gap, but computer simulations indicate that the planet wins the struggle if its mass exceeds about one Jupiter mass at 5 AU.

And what do you think the first paragraph should say?Serendi ^pod ous 21:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well the paragraph speaks of gas "interior to the planet's orbit" and "exterior to the planet's orbit", rather than ahead of and behind the planet. (The later a reader might tend to think of as co-orbital.) So I think the text should reflect the orbital radius instead.—RJH (talk) 18:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to agree that the first paragraph doesn't get to the point. I've restructured the intro (diff) so it gets to the essence of the nebular hypothesis in the second sentence rather than the second paragraph. This meant getting rid of the clause "interweave various scientific disciplines including astronomy, physics, geology, and planetary science", which I rather liked, but I don't see how it fits. ASHill (talk) 02:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

delldot

Overall a beautifully done article. Some comments, mostly very minor:

You can tighten up your wording by eliminating words that don't add meaning. like 'both' in "has been both challenged and refined." See this for more.
I would expand on "near collision hypothesis or the capture hypothesis", just giving a byline on what each one is.
I would switch the second and third paragraphs under #History, since the second one deals with modern theories.
Avoid wording like "recent studies" per WP:DATED.
You have "between 1.001 and 1.1 solar masses". Could these be brought to the same number of significant figures? Like "between 1.001 and 1.100"? Of course, you can only do it if you have a reference for it.
Whenever you have a statistic, you should have a citation. For example, "Hydrogen and helium... formed about 98% of the mass. The remaining 2% of the mass consisted of heavier elements..." should have a citation.
I think images are not supposed to be on the left at the beginning of sections or subsections.
"The inner Solar System was too warm for volatile molecules like water and methane to condense, so the planetesimals which formed there were relatively small..." not clear how the small size follows from that.
"Farther out, beyond the frost line, the point where the Sun's rays are weak enough for volatile icy compounds to remain solid, Jupiter and Saturn were able to gather more material than the terrestrial planets, as those compounds were more common." I think this sentence has some redundancy and could use some clarification: "Jupiter and Saturn were able to gather more of this material than the terrestrial planets." Surely the fact that they were more common results from the fact that they're beyond the frost line, so you don't have to repeat it. An example of one type of volatile icy compound might help clarify.
You have 'eighteenth century' and '20th century', you should pick either numerals or spelled out numbers. I think WP:MOSNUM suggests numerals.
Semicolons should only be used to separate two independent clauses. I corrected those that I noticed.
"This would have eventually stabilised the terrestrial planets' orbits." Could there be maybe one more sentence explaining why this would be the case?
Article titles do not need capitalization except for proper nouns, the first word, and words after punctuation like a colon.
This sentence is long and awkward: "For Earth and most other solid Solar System bodies, collisions appear to be the main creator of moons (though Mars's two small moons, Deimos and Phobos, are believed to be captured asteroids), with a percentage of the material kicked up by the collision ending up in orbit and coalescing into one or more moons." Maybe it should be split into two sentences.

More to follow in a bit. delldot talk 18:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: explaining the earlier theories. I really would rather find a way to shorten the history section rather than lengthen it; I split off the history sub article in the first place so I wouldn't have to deal with it. This article was started by a guy who wanted to illustrate the other previous theories, presumably because he didn't think the current theory was solid. However, I'm not of the opinion that keeping the material in the article is useful; any more than I would want a discussion of phrenology in an article on modern psychiatry. However, the more I try to shift the material away, the people seem to want those earlier theories illustrated. I can't win this. Serendi ^pod ous 19:24, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No need for a whole lot of detail, I'm just saying that when you introduce a term your average reader is not going to know, you should explain it or at the very least wikilink it. Just a parenthetical thing after each one would work. delldot talk 19:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd suggest just killing the explicit mention of alternative theories, so that sentence would read "Alternative hypotheses were suggested, but none could adequately explain the features of the Solar System." The alternative theories are explained in History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses and I agree; they aren't really relevant to an article primarily about the modern scientific understanding of this topic. ASHill (talk) 19:32, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very reasonable. delldot talk 19:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: awkward sentence about moons: It's also not really correct; the Earth-Moon system and Charon-Pluto system are the only two systems that are likely created by collisions, according to the reference. Oops. I'll fix it. ASHill (talk) 20:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More

What does this sentence mean? "A moon will raise a bulge in its primary due to its own gravity."
Make sure there are non breaking spaces between all your numbers and units, many were missing.
This sentence is long and confusing: "Saturn's rings are far more massive than those of the other gas giants, and this excess mass is now believed to have preserved Saturn's rings since Saturn first formed 4.5 billion years ago, and are likely to preserve them for billions of years to come."
"This causes the outer layers of the star to expand greatly, and enter into a phase of its life called a red giant." Is the phase called a red giant, or is the star called that? If the latter, reword.
"the Sun will shrink abruptly to 11 times its original radius" -- confusing: wouldn't 11 times its original radius be an expanding, not shrinking?
Good job adding the format=pdf to most of your refs that are in pdf format, but some are missing. You should go through and add them to any that are.

Overall a beautifully done article, excellent work. delldot talk 19:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: 'moon will raise a bulge': I tried to clarify it, but it may or may not be clear enough.

I've also taken care of the other three substantive points here, but not nbsps and format=pdf. ASHill (talk) 23:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what a "main sequence radius" is either, though maybe I would if I'd read the article more carefully.

Nice work on the bulge sentence and the Saturn's rings sentence. delldot on a public computer talk 04:36, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]