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

Formation and evolution of the Solar System

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

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 ^podous 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 ^podous 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 ^podous 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 ^podous 21:07, 1 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]