Talk:Comet

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 August 2019 and 6 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Loken97.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:06, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Comet Nuclei

the Word nuclei and the Nucleus should have a disambiguation as this will cause confusion 122.53.185.85 (talk) 21:02, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

"☄️" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect ☄️ has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 November 25 § ☄️ until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 18:46, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Gravitationally unbound?

I’m not smart enough to know if this is accurate or not. However, the problem is that this isn’t cited or otherwise referenced. The idea that there are any particles(non-quantum) unaffected by gravity contradicts every physics course I’ve taken. Can someone explain this better in the article? 71.235.216.2 (talk) 03:36, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Gas + particles often exceed escape velocity when leaving a comet. A fart could escape most comets. -- Kheider (talk) 12:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Gallery

The gallery for this article has come into dispute, with editor @CactiStaccingCrane: commenting, "Per our policy in image galleries, we do not encourage indiscriminate galleries with no inherent value. This is the same reason why don't we have galleries of dogs or cats or asteroids on our articles. It would be much better if we can integrate these pictures into the articles somehow", and @Randy Kryn: saying, "Commons is not Wikipedia, they are not joined at the hip but Commons augments Wikipedia, please don't use the reasoning that there are images on Commons so do not show them on Wikipedia (doesn't make sense actually, one of the main purposes of Commons is to provide these images to Wikipedia". Thoughts? Praemonitus (talk) 22:01, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

• My experience has been that large numbers of images can clutter up and disrupt an article, so I wouldn't be in favor of distributing the gallery images in that manner. Then again, a gallery should add something of value to the article, so typical comet images should be culled. Frankly, I don't see many of the gallery images that need saving. Perhaps the X-ray image and the active asteroid shots. The McNaught shot would be useful for scale. Praemonitus (talk) 22:01, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

  Many readers just read the lead, and then maybe look at the pictures. Galleries educate readers who do that. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:19, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

  Could you give a concrete example where this might happen? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

  Sidewalk. Or the pages of many visual artists, museum collections, space exploration pages, the page about the recent eclipse, etc. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:40, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to propose removing the following images from the gallery:

• Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE – too faint and it adds no new information
• Great Comet 1861 – redundant with the image in the Great comets section
• Comet Siding Spring – shows little additional detail
• Mosaic of 20 comets discovered by the WISE space telescope – multiple tiny images add nothing
• NEOWISE – first four years of data starting in December 2013 – what is this even showing?
• C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) heads towards the Sun – poor quality
• View from the impactor in its last moments before hitting Comet Tempel 1 during the Deep Impact mission – no value
• NASA is developing a comet harpoon for returning samples to Earth – value unclear
• Comet Encke loses its tail – value unclear

Praemonitus (talk) 14:48, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

They all seem fine, and your suggestion would remove 10 of 13 images. Have just quickly looked at the gallery again after your request and all 13 seem to impart information which causal readers will not be exposed to otherwise. Nothing broken here, the gallery is of interest, and keeping it fulfills encyclopedic knowledge while removing it would not maintain this knowledge. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:55, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

If that is true, then perhaps you won't mind clarifying the new information in the captions? Praemonitus (talk) 15:11, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Praemonitus, but not sure what you mean. What new information is needed? Randy Kryn (talk) 23:56, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Took another look and edited some of the captions (check out the video where the comet loses its tail, pretty unique, never imagined something like that). Thanks Praemonitus, good suggestion. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:25, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

If this is done, I suggest replacing some of them with other comet images. Perhaps a Philae image of Churry's surface, since the article apparently hasn't that. ArkHyena (talk) 16:45, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree, many of the current images are uninspiring and less than informative. Praemonitus (talk) 14:05, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Some possible changes that could be made:

• Replace the infobox image with the gallery image of Comet McNaught; I'd argue it's more eye-catching and conveys the scale of a cometary tail significantly more effectively whilst still showing both its dust and gas tail.
• Delete the gallery images of Comet Neowise, historical observations of comets (one of these may be moved up to an appropriate section), the animation of the NEOWISE survey, and the harpoon video at least. These don't really supplement the text.
• Possible replacement images include Candidate Landing Site J[1] (shows the textured surface of a comet nucleus up close); Comet 67P Activity[2] (Shows how jets which feed the coma form from a cometary nucleus); NAVCAM top 10 and 10 km[3] (image of a comet's landscape from its surface)
• Adding all comets explored and well-documented by spacecraft, especially images of their nuclei, could help illustrate the diversity of cometary nuclei.

Randy Kryn courtesy ping for your opinion ArkHyena (talk) 17:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

The light emitted by comets

Here I say light is "emitted" from something regardless of why it is emitted. For example, stars emit light that they generate, and the Moon emits sunlight that it reflects.

I am surprised that the first paragraph makes no explicit mention of the light emitted by comets, or the cause of that light.

Since that is such a prominent feature of comets — and what makes them visible! — I hope that someone will mention the emission oof light by comets in the first paragraph, and give a brief explanation.(Is something burning up in an atmosphere? Does a comet's light originate solely from reflected light from heavenlh bodies that generate light? Are comets little communities of nanostars?

Comet lead image

Two days ago (UTC), I changed the lead image to this photograph because it is better quality and has special assessments. About 18 hours later, @Remsense restored the original image, stating that photographs with special assessments alone are not strong reasons for inclusion as the lead image. That should not be the case as featured pictures on this wiki, like the replacement photograph, are selected by the community as the finest images on the site (said here) and hold significant educational value (explained here). Featured pictures are intended to be used in articles because they significantly increase the article's educational value compared to other photographs like the current lead image, which is blurry and low-res, with no assessments. Furthermore, the amount of better quality comet photos on Wikimedia Commons should warrant a new lead image. I'm asking Remsense and the community if the article needs a new lead image. ZergTwo (talk) 07:01, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Like I said in the edit summary, featured pictures are not automatically the best representatives for the lead image of any particular article. It is a wonderful photo of a comet, and certainly has some sort of place in more than a few articles—however, it is not the hands-down most representative photograph that should lead in introducing the very concept of a comet to a general readership. That should, as always, be the subject of consensus among the editors for any given article, not an outside process evaluating the images in and of themselves. This is a distinction I feel is pretty common-sensical, and I am very wary of anyone's editing programmatically to the contrary, especially across a large number of articles. Remsense ‥ 论 07:04, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Why isn't it the most representative photograph? The only visual difference is that the current lead image lacks a noticeable coma while the proposed photograph doesn't, which means the proposed image has more features than the current image. ZergTwo (talk) 07:21, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Hale–Bopp is, culturally and scientifically, what a comet looks like first and foremost. This is a minor case, but we should not endeavor to astonish readers with novel illustrations leading in our articles. Remsense ‥ 论 15:34, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Can I see some sources about the appearance of a comet? I am confident that it is not what all comets look like. Also, it is not a novel illustration. It is an authentic photograph of a comet with many notable features. The community should not use low-quality photos as the lead image if many other better-quality images are available. If the proposed photograph is not good enough, then I believe this photograph should be used as a backup. ZergTwo (talk) 15:57, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

The Hale-Bopp image is the more striking image of the two and it displays the separate tails of a fully-developed comet. I support maintaining that signature image for the lead infobox. Praemonitus (talk) 17:53, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

What about this image? Also, when did "striking" images become more important than its educational value? This is the English Wikipedia, not Wikimedia Commons. I'll refrain from posting further to prevent bludgeoning unless I'm proposing new images or clarification is needed. ZergTwo (talk) 18:08, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

One could pick any number of suitable images, but given the limited image scale, this one appears suitable. Clearly you dislike the current image for whatever reason. Good luck trying to get a consensus for a change. Praemonitus (talk) 18:57, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Which image are you referring to by "this one"? Also, don't get snarky. ZergTwo (talk) 19:00, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm fine with the Hale-Bopp image. Watch the abusive accusations. Praemonitus (talk) 19:15, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

I would prefer an image from the Halley Comet, the most notable and well-known comet. 21 Andromedae (talk) 23:42, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Surely people would make better arguments about content changes for vital articles, but it appears that I am wrong. Whoever closes this, please consider that this change focuses on educational value rather than aesthetics and that notability equating to superiority is not a solid argument. I sincerely apologize for the excessive posting, but this comment was necessary. ZergTwo (talk) 00:10, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

You have an unduly narrow sense of the scope of illustration. Articles cover a topic's cultural relevance in addition to its scientific properties. Remsense ‥ 论 00:28, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Please show me where in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines it says that the lead image should reflect both the cultural relevance and the scientific properties of a topic. Also, you did not answer my previous question. ZergTwo (talk) 00:34, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

MOS:IMAGELEAD, if we are attempting to address each recommendation there to the fullest extent—and I see no reason why we should not do so here.

If this article has something to say about the cultural dimension of comets (it should, and it does), then that is trivially part of the topic we're attempting to represent with the lead image. Remsense ‥ 论 00:41, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

To reiterate my point, on articles like these I will push back on what I perceive as attempts to astonish (rather than merely "educate") the reader by leading with an illustration deliberately distinct from what a comet is generally understood to look like, unless there's a risk of inaccuracy in going with the most natural, recognizable choices. I would support replacing one of the lower quality images in the first section with the proposal, but there are additional priorities when selecting the lead image. Remsense ‥ 论 00:47, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 February 2025

In the section "Nucleus", in the second sentence of the second paragraph it says "The nuclei contains (...)". Since "nuclei" is the plural form of "nucleus", I would suggest a change to either "The nucleus contains (...)" or "The nuclei contain (...)". Reisotto (talk) 08:46, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

 Done Remsense ‥ 论 15:45, 1 February 2025 (UTC)