Talk:Solar System

Why do we need a Spaceflight section?

I'm unclear why this section is needed. It discusses spaceflight maneuvering, rather than the properties of the Solar System. The previous section already mentions the history of exploration via spacecraft. This discussion can be better handled via a link in the "See also" section. Praemonitus (talk) 13:31, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I support removing most of the content; some of the info relevant to major missions could also be merged w/ the above subsection. ArkHyena (talk) 18:47, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

bow shock

A factual issue: this article states the Solar System creates a bow shock within the surrounding ISM, whereas the Heliosphere#Bow_shock article-section states this has been determined to be not the case. The Heliosphere page's applicable reference is more recent than that of this article. 98.1.3.105 (talk) 17:48, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. However, I don't think a bow shock has been completely ruled out.[1][2] Praemonitus (talk) 23:27, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion to change the first section

Hello, I'm new to Wikipedia! I find that the first section right now only focus on individual objects and didn't talk about the Solar System as a whole. I don't know if this first section is suitable for Wikipedia, so please give me feedback if you are a wikipedia veteran.

The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, like planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, moons and comets. It is home to many astronomical objects that can be seen in the night sky.

At the center of the Solar System is the Sun. The Sun is a main-sequence star that fuse hydrogen into helium at its core, releasing this energy from its outer photosphere. The Solar System can be divided into three regions. The inner Solar System is the closest to the Sun, containing four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) and the asteroids, which includes the asteroid belt between Mars's and Jupiter's orbit. The outer Solar System contains two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune), and the Kuiper belt just outside of Neptune's orbit. The trans-Neptunian region is still largely unexplored, theorized to contain dwarf planets and many more smaller icy bodies. Going further away, the gravitational influence and solar wind effect from the Sun gradually fade, eventually becoming indistinguishable from interstellar space. However, many objects by their nature do not strictly belong into one region, such as comets.

In the 16th century, Copernican heliocentrism proposed that the Sun is motionless and revolved around by celestial objects. Over centuries of astronomy and decades of spaceflight, this model evolved into a modern understanding of the Solar System. It is now known that the Solar System is one of many planetary systems with their own gravitational spheres of influence and motion around the Milky Way galaxy. Empirical evidence suggests that the Solar System formed about 4.6 billion years ago, when a region of a molecular cloud collapsed into the early Sun and a protoplanetary disk. As subfields of astronomy, planetary science and space weather heavily depend on the study of the Solar System Logusmonkey (talk) 22:41, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your input. Per WP:LEAD, the lead section is intended as a summary of the article as a whole, so yes there is a heavy focus on the individual components. The "Discovery and exploration" section only forms a small part of that. But yes, a brief mention would be appropriate. Praemonitus (talk) 04:40, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

References

Edit request

For some reason, even though my account is autoconfirmed, I cannot initiate an edit. I was reading this sentence: "To save on fuel, some space missions make use of gravity assist maneuvers, such as the two Voyager probes accelerating when flyby planets in the outer Solar System and the Parker Solar Probe decelerating closer towards the Sun after flyby with Venus." The phrase "accelerating when flyby planets" does not sound correct. Perhaps "when flying by planets" would work better? Dogman15 (talk) 03:55, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Apparently, "flybying" is a word with precidence in journals, but the writer in me refuses to accept it. Serendi^podous 14:33, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

How about "...accelerating during their flyby of planets..." and "...after a flyby of Venus..."? Praemonitus (talk) 14:57, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

That sounds good. Dogman15 (talk) 19:37, 26 February 2025 (UTC)