Talk:Star

There is a conflict between the definition of star at the head of the article and the linked article on white dwarf. The definition here (which makes nuclear fusion a prerequisite) would deny a white dwarf the status of being a star, but the linked article states unequivocally that a white dwarf is a star. The balance of this article seems to take care to avoid contradicting its own definition.

This is a tricky one to resolve. One way might be to adopt the historical approach:

Historically, the word star (or a word of which it is a translation) meant a fixed star - any one of the large number of point-like light sources visible in the night sky and sharing a single common daily apparent motion. The science of astronomy has revealed that all such stars are ...

As astronomical discoveries have been made the precise boundaries of the catgegory of stars have come into dispute, on the basis of the inferred history and the current state of particular objects. -- Alan Peakall 13:56 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

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The definition is too technical. I imagine a third-grader researching about stars would find all the physics terms confusing. Is there a way to get a kid-friendly (or even a high-school-friendly) definition that is still accurate? —seav 11:46 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Stars appear, upon the celestial sphere, as twinkling points of light.

is as simple as I could go

Okay, I tried a more general introduction. Comment and edit as needed. :) —seav 23:24 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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I think that the section 'Nuclear fusion reaction pathways' deserve it's own article looxix 19:26 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

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The opening paragraph links to both disc and outer space, which don't seem to be very relevant. Could someone make a more relevant article on disc ("the sun appears as a disc")? Also, I'm sure that outer space can also have its own article, and not just a redirect to space science. I seem to recall that outer space is defined as the region above an imaginary boundary several kilometers from the surface of the earth. Below that is the inner space/atmosphere? —seav 08:15 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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In answer to AstroNomer's question, I remarked the other day that Mars was the brightest "star" in the sky, causing no confusion or disagreement among my audience. (Instead we started talking about the relative apparent magnitude of various planets, ultimately looking things up on Wikipedia. ^_^) I also regularly refer to meteors as "falling stars", which seems so much more romantic. Of course, I recognise the imprecision of such language (which I don't use when discussing astronomy); naturally this deserves nothing more in the article that a mention in passing of colloquial usage -- which is what it has. -- Toby Bartels 04:32, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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The article also refers to stars as "gaseous", whereas astronomers and astrophysicists frequently refer to various things as "stars" that are in states of matter rather more exotic than what we usually consider gaseous (neutron stars, hypothetical strange-matter stars, etc.) These days astronomers seem to avoid referring to brown dwarfs (which never quite make it to initiating fusion) as stars, but most things that used to be main-sequence stars seem to retain honorary star status... though I'm not so sure about black holes. I'm not sure how to be both precise and comprehensible here, given that the definition of a star, like the definition of a planet, is a somewhat arbitrary extension from pre-telescopic tradition. --Matt McIrvin 15:20, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Heterosexual POV

In the history of this article, there was something called a "Heterosexual POV". What does this mean?? 66.32.244.71 00:46, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Some of the more common classifications are O,B,A,F,G,K,M, and can perhaps be more easily remembered using the mnemonic "Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me", invented by Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941). (Variant; if you're a girl; change "girl" to "guy".)

became

Some of the more common classifications are O,B,A,F,G,K,M, and can perhaps be more easily remembered using the mnemonic "Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me", invented by Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941). (Variant; change "girl" to "guy".) --Tothebarricades.tk 01:53, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Numbers

This article uses billion, trillion, sextillion, etc. freely. It should be noted that this is using the short scale variant of these words, becuase they do have more than one meaning. Anyone mind if I add 10⁹ to billion, etc, to clarify? Thanks, Ian Cairns 01:18, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

space travel?

I think it would be more relevant to describe the length of time it would take to get to Proxima Centauri using the fastest means currently available to humans (i.e. rocket, space shuttle, whatever.) You wouldn't take the TGV to the moon, either. Being that I am neither an astronomer nor a physicist, I will leave this in someone else's capable hands to decide.

I totally agree. I looked at this, and my first thought was, who on earth (so to speak) would take a train to Proxima Centauri, let alone stop accelerating at a mere 500 kph? The use of slow static speed, enabling big numbers (and exclamation marks) for 'wow factor', seems unnecessary. But maybe I'm just on another obsessive encyclopedic-style crusade of mine. ;) -- Wisq 18:44, 2005 May 17 (UTC)