Talk:Moon/Archive 8

This is an archive of past discussions about Moon. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

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Edit Protect

There is a high volume of edits of vandalism on this page. Why hasn't it been protected? Laaabaseball 21:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Moon capitalization

It should be mentioned that in American English, moon is generally considered to be a common noun and thus not capitalized. Webster's definition of moon: "1. the heavenly body that revolves around the earth from west to east once in c. 27 1/3 days with reference to the stars or once in c. 29 1/2 days with reference to the sun, and that accompanies the earth in its yearly revolution about the sun, reflecting the sun's light: the moon's diameter is is c. 2,160 miles, its mean distance from the earth is c. 238,857 miles, its mean density is c. 3/5 of the earth, its mass is c. 1/81, and its volume c. 1/49 2. this body as it appears during a particular lunar month or period of time, or at a particular time of the month: see NEW MOON, HALF-MOON, FULL MOON, OLD MOON, FIST QUARTER, LAST QUARTER 3. a month; esp., a lunar month 4. same as MOONLIGHT 5. anything shaped like the moon (i.e., an orb or crescent) 6. any satellite of a planet." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.107.191.119 (talk) 01:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

In American English, either is acceptable: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=moon We could mention that.--Father Goose 08:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedians engage in rampant over-capitalization. Science terms, political titles, and animal terms are all capitalized in Wikipedia, despite being common nouns. --Tysto 16:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

IAU Website: Spelling of Names of Astronomical Objects --Ckatz^chat _spy 05:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

My opinion (which I one day believed to be the general scientific view, but I got lost along the way) is the following: a non-manmade object that revolves around a planet is called a natural satellite. Planet Earth (capitalised, since there is only one) has one natural satellite: (the) Moon. Stricltly speaking, there is no other object in the universe called Moon or moon. However, many people choose to use moon as a synonym for natural satellite. Nick Mks 07:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The orientation of the Moon

The orientation of the moon relative to the vertical depends on the latitude that it is observed from.

Thus observed from UK latitudes (~50-60 deg N) in the evening, the almost full moon somewhat resembles a face or a skull, hence "The man in the Moon". Seen from southern Australia (~30-40 deg S) in the evening, the full moon seems to be "the wrong way up" and does not resemble a face. (The latter is a personal observation, no known citation.)

It does not appear that the effect of latitude on the moon's appearance is mentioned in the Moon or The Man in the moon articles. I suggest that the latitude effect be mentioned, and that diagram(s) illustrating the effect be added. GilesW 20:40, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I suggest amending the title of the first photo (Image:Full_Moon_Luc_Viatour.jpg) e.g.: "The Moon as seen from northern mid-latitudes", or whatever, assuming this to be the case. GilesW 11:07, 15 September 2007 (UTC).

The author states that the photo was taken in Belgium. GilesW 19:41, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Another image of the moon titled "The 3 March 2007 lunar eclipse" is either rotated 90 deg or taken from the southern hemisphere. GilesW 17:24, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that WP guidelines or template for moon & planet images, and lunar eclipses in particular, should include latitude, longitude, date and time taken, and have the "top" indicated discretely within the image, in addition to the info about the optical instrument & camera used. GilesW 17:20, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the effect of latitude on the Moon's appearance warrants mention in the article. Even at a single location, the Moon's orientation is going to change throughout the night as it crosses the sky. And if it happens to pass directly over head, then who's to say which side is the "top"? Spiel496 04:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Co-incidental size of moon and sun as viewed from the Earth

No mention seems ot be made of the extrordinary phenomenon of the earth-moon-sun relationship that places the apparant diameter of moon and sun the same as viewed from earth.

Is this really co-incidence, are there any good theories? Do similar known planets/moons have similar relationships? Rufty 20:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Definitely coincidence, but worth mentioning, and nothing like it in the solar system. Mars has tiny moons, much smaller than the sun's apparent size. Pluto has a huge moon, many times larger apparent size than the distant sun. Well, observing from any of the 4 big moons of Jupiter, they can be of larger or smaller apparent size than the sun depending on their orbital timing, AND so will total solar eclipses will occur at times. Tom Ruen 20:05, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

RaP> Please leave that out of the main page. The precise eclipse effect, the fact that all formation theories have more or less serious problems together with the near ecliptical inclination and the droplet shape (59% facing...) only lead users in the direction of "somebody put it there" or "somebody used it for space travel". This does not contribute to a serious article and wakes more associations to Star Wars and the Death Star than to solid science. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.149.106.249 (talk) 05:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Atmospheric density

Currently, this is given in the infobox in terms of particles per cm³. However, these infoboxes are meant to be a useful way to provide numbers for a comparison between different solar system bodies. No other body has atmosphere given in these units — all the others use pascals, and so should the Moon. Furthermore, rather than using the "surface_pressure" parameter in Template:Infobox Planet, the moon is the only body to use instead the "atmosphere_density" parameter.

The quantities currently given as (10⁷ particles cm⁻³ (day) and 10⁵ particles cm⁻³ (night) ) can be easily converted to Pascals using the Ideal gas law, Avogadro's number to get the number of moles per cm³, and using the surface temperatures given in the present moon article. Since these are order-of-magnitude estimates anyway, it doesn't matter whether we use equatorial or polar temperature. Let's say equatorial: 390 K (day) and 100 K (night). This leads to 5×10⁻⁸ Pa (day) and 1.4×10⁻¹⁰ Pa (night). Since it's an order of magnitude estimate anyway, 10^-7 (day) and 10^-10 (night) can be used. Deuar 11:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

"Metric moon" section

Is an entire section devoted to this issue necessary? It was a minor mixup, and even though it was significant, we don't devote sections here to things like Apollo 13... Figured I'd put a note on the talk page instead of removing it altogether. Rompe 05:36, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Well I originally put the information under the Legal Status section and it just didn't look right. I couldn't find anywhere else to put it - and since it is actually quite a major step forward in international relations I ended up creating it's own section. However, reading it back I do take your point. Maybe it should go back under Legal Status - maybe a subheading? Jim77742 00:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it should go back under Legal status, but without the box: only the first two sentences, use a ref for the rest. Nick Mks 07:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I've put Metric Moon back under Legal Status, but retained a sub heading and the quote box. I'm personally happy with this. Other opinions? Jim77742 04:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why this is here at all. Shouldn't this piece of trivia be under Nasa? Should it be mentioned that all american scientists use the metric system? and that only the engineers don't? This is really not important... Lunokhod 01:21, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

It should be moved to Exploration of the Moon or somewhere like that. It is not of comparable importance to most of the rest of the things in the article. Deuar 10:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Imperial Units

I notice that imperial units have found their way into this scientific article. All other solar system bodies are metric only and I'm proposing that the moon be no different. I also think endless conversion clutter in an article makes it much less readable.

Putting in conversions like this: 159,265 km (98,963 mi) really are a waste of time because we either need to convey some essence of the number (it's big) OR you may need to use the number in a scientific calculation - and in that case you will always use the metric unit.

I'm proposing the removal of all imperial units from this article. Even NASA and the US have agreed that the moon is metric (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/08jan_metricmoon.htm) so why not do it here as well? Jim77742 05:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I concur. Nick Mks 07:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Metric should definitely be first, no question about that. I would like to see Imperial in parentheses but I'm not strongly attached to it. thx1138 07:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it's not rocket science to divide by 1.6 and get miles, etc. By the way, what about Earth? Deuar 12:49, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

No is not rocket science, but it is a pain to do it every time. The moon and the Earth are general enough articles to include imperial units in the main text. If you hate imperial units, like Jim77742 does, than just skip over them when reading the article. Skipping over something in parenthesis does not require one to be a rocket scientist either. —MJCdetroit 16:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

For once I do agree with MJCdetroit. It would be a complete pain to divide by 1.6 each time. But what you should do is NOT convert. If you see 159,265 km you think "a long way". Even I (who went from imperial to metric 33 years ago) cannot picture in my head exactly how big that is (except maybe 320,000 par 5 golf holes!). And anyone reading 98,963 miles is also not going to be able to do that. The km figure is there for a sense of size and an exact figure if anyone needs to do some calculations. The mile figure doesn't add anything useful except clutter.

My argument breaks down say where we may be talking about, say, maximum temperatures of US cities. Of course the Fahrenheit figure provides a useful comparison for US residents when reading it. But scientific articles are different. For example what is the point in listing the sun's density in pounds per US gallon?

So yes skipping over something in parenthesis is easy, but when you have scientific articles with LOTS of figures in the text and every one of those has imperial units in parenthesis it becomes very ugly to read. This is also not new. I've been reading astrophysics papers from mid last century and everything is in metric. No conversions to miles (or other imperial units) anywhere. It would be unthinkable to do that.

In summary my arguments are based on readability. I say that conversions after every number clutter text badly - especially in scientific articles with lots of figures. And I also say that those imperial figures do not actually help anyone. Jim77742 00:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Then why not just say the moon is "a long way" away instead of giving a figure? It maybe unthinkable for a astrophysics paper, but not for an encyclopedia; none of the other major online encyclopedias are metric-only (encarta & britannica).—MJCdetroit 03:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Your web links are to the US sites. My paper copy of Britannica does not mention imperial units in most articles. I would guess other countries (apart from US, Burma and Liberia) Britannicas are the same. Is it a requirement that WP do what the US Britannica does? No.

Do you agree, MJCdetroit, that imperial conversions in parenthesis after every figure (especially in a scientific article which will have lots of numbers) reads poorly?

Should, for example, the density of the Sun be specified in pounds/US Gallon after the metric measure?

Does the content of the parenthesis: "a temperature of 100,000 K (90,700 C, 180,000 F) is reached..." actually have any use? (And yes the Celsius measure shouldn't be there either)

What I'm talking about here is endless useless conversions in parenthesis. It is hard to read. In astronomy articles, the only useful ones are, for example: "The mass of Jupiter is 1.8986×10²⁷ kg (317.8 Earths)". The content of the parenthesis provide extra information that helps the reader get the idea of how big 10²⁷ kg is. Having 4.1857×10²⁷ lb is ridiculous. The parenthesis should provide extra information that the reader may find useful, not information that should only be read by certain people in certain countries.

And if the reader genuinely has no idea sense how long a kilometre is, they can click the link and find out it is 0.62 miles.

The trick here is to learn to think in the units used in the field. Don't convert. For example studying some radio astronomy papers I came across the unit Jansky. Not a strict SI unit and one I'd not heard of. Do I do the conversion to an SI based, watts per square metre per hertz by multiplying by 10^-26 every time I read a figure of, say, 30 Jy? No. You start thinking in Janskys because that's what radio astronomers do.

In science, the units are metric and have been for a long time. The world over. Jim77742 04:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

With one objection and the rest support I will remove imperial units to match other solar system bodies. Jim77742 10:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

As this article is written in english, it is appropriate to give imperial units in parentheses. Most english speaking people are not scientists, and therefore we should give the units that most people are familiar with. I remind you that this is not a scientific article. Lunokhod 01:26, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

First, this article and all other articles on bodies of the solar system are most definitely scientific articles. Second, only three countries, 4% of the world's population and 16% of the english speaking population come from countries that use imperial units. So if your argument is that we use what "most" people use - then we are doing that with metric units. As I've said it all comes down to readability. If every single figure is going to have an imperial conversion in brackets after it will read like a dog's breakfast. Generally scientific articles have lots of numbers in their text. And every number with a conversion looks just awful. And where do you draw the line? Density of the sun in lb/US Gallon??? Jim77742 11:43, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

At least 84% of native english speakers use imperial units (see english language). Therefore this audience should be served in this encyclopedia article, irregardless of your opinion of these units (which I am in agreement with). As a guide, you should ask yourself: Would a native english speaker use imperial or SI units for this number? Many would use imperial units for things like the Earth-Moon separation and radius of the Moon. In contrast, for the density of the Sun the majority of people who would want to know this number would probably be scientists (Personally, I would just use something like specific gravity).

As to whether this is a "scientific article" or not, you might want to compare with something like Spherical harmonics. That article definitely has a restricted audience, whereas this article would interest grade school students, artists, and scientists alike. Indeed, in order to pass to feature article status, we had to make this article readable to the lay person. Lunokhod 14:25, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I reverted the addition of imperial units in parentheses in the article. This is a topic in science, even if not everyone accessing it is a scientist, and science world-wide is generally done in metric units. I did a quick perusal of websites aimed at school children looking up information about the moon and found that nearly all gave the information in metric units. At this point, nearly everyone is exposed to metric units in both math and science classes in school, so it is not unreasonable to use them here, imho. PhySusie (talk) 00:29, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

How about allowing imperial conversions ONLY in the stats table, but not in the text? And only for 2-3 of the most major figures (e.g. mean radius, circumference). These are the facts which "imperial thinkers" (and there are a lot of us...) really would appreciate being shown in both systems--"size of the world" numbers. I came to the Moon article specifically looking for the diameter in miles, and I was surprised that it wasn't included. Of course I can (and did) go find a converter via Google, but why should I have to do that? What are encyclopedias for? Emphasizing metric makes sense; totally eliminating *all trace* of imperial is fanatical and excludes a large constituency. Rep07 (talk) 22:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm strongly in favor of maintaining strict usage of SI units in scientific articles. If folks want to use other units, they can convert them easily with Google, etc. We don't need cubits or hogsheads in these articles, and anyone born in the US after 1965 has been taught SI in elementary school. X3210 (talk) 00:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess the real point is that the article isn't just for folks like you. As for cubits, etc., there's no issue as you know very well. In the USA everyone thinks and talks of distances in miles, since our road signs are presented that way. For the few figures I suggested, there is a large constituency (most of the U.S. population for sure) who would expect and appreciate parenthetical conversions at least in the margin tables. That would seem to be a controllable compromise. Rep07 (talk) 02:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Just piping up to throw in my support for SI-only, even though I was raised in the US with imperial units. --Patteroast (talk) 06:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't for grinding axes or waging jihad on behalf of the metric system, it's for providing people with useful information. For the vast majority of the audience, that means speaking to them in imperial units. The only logic for excluding imperial units is that it is somehow "purer" with metric only. Keep them both. --Beaker342 (talk) 07:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Although an advocate for the metric system, I do know that far too many people in the US and a few other places I've been to still use (and often only understand) SAE units of measure. While the article is about a scientific subject (observable, measurable, etc.), it doesn't really come across as a 'scientific' article, just as Lunokhod said using the example of Spherical harmonics. For those who advocate universal use of metric, I will say that having both units of measure side by side can help folks who don't 'get' metric to learn the system. I'd like to see SAE units remain so the article is more accessible to all.

A suggestion would be to set up the system to allow the individual user to select things like unit of measure in their preferences (much like layout, etc) and have the data in the article reflect the user's preferred presentation. This would be useful across the entire Wiki system. --averagejoe (talk) 14:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Now that is an AWESOME idea!! Except that you'd have to be registered... what about a way that would work for unregistered users too? An "English/Metric" button control as an available feature which writers could place in any marginal stats table? That's what my car has on the dashboard for the speedometer, lol. Click the button and it gets redisplayed to your preference. Internally the data could all be metric. Rep07 (talk) 20:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Pursuant to this I started a thread in the Infoboxes WikiProject: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Infoboxes#English.2FMetric_Conversion_Feature.3F Please add your thoughts or suggestions. Rep07 (talk) 21:28, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

There doesn't appear to be an agreement to not have imperial units on this or similar articles. More or less it seems to be some editors' personal crusade/wishes. Even if there was some agreement to be metric only at some point, it will not hold and has not held because the moon is too general of an article (as demonstrated in the article and on the talk page here and below). This article is view by more than just scientists or nerdy acedemic types. It is not of the same specific scientific caliber of an article like the Hohmann transfer orbit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by WHATaintNOcountryIeverHEARDofDOtheySPEAKenglishINwhat (talk • contribs) 15:08, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Judging from your talk page and your recent edits, you appear to be one of those editors on a crusade - in your case, adding imperial units to scientific articles! By the way, SI is used by far more than merely scientists and nerds. It's the sole measurement system of most of the world. I'm not sure that establishing a test of scientific caliber for SI vs. imperial units is even possible. X3210 (talk) 17:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

After blundering around in the MediaWiki software development pages, I found the list of current bugs and feature requests (inside another system called Bugzilla). It turns out that "bug" (really request) number 235 for MediaWiki is for "auto conversion of units". The comments there have a discussion of possible markup syntax and challenges to implementing such a feature in the parser (precision, etc.). One of the comments notes that some version of "auto magic" unit conversion should someday be available as part of the "Semantic MediaWiki" extension to MediaWiki. Some related syntax is discussed in the SMW documentation, but it isn't clear to me whether it is currently implemented or only under consideration. A version of SMW was released in December, but apparently does NOT include this feature. And I don't know if/where SMW is deployed currently. But definitely something to watch. Rep07 (talk) 20:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

The Moon has an owner

Im actually amazed there is no mention of this in the page, but legaly, the moon has an owner (or at least had one), though a poetic one more than anything. It is the case of Chilean lawyer Jenaro Gajardo Vera, who went to inscribe the whole moon as his property in 1953. Legally, there was no reasson (as there were no treaties yet) that would prevent him from doing so, and although many hoaxers have tried to claim that they owned the moon, Jenaro Gajardo was the first to do so leagally. The reasson?, he was not allowed to enter an exclusive club in Chillan for not owning lands. Gajardo never really tried to profit with his new acquired land, for the Charles Whitman enthusiast he was, this had more of a poetic connotation. His story would had been forgotten and dismissed as the one of a hoaxer, with one little difference: President Nixon actually sent him a telepraph asking for his permission before the Apollo 11 could land on the moon. True story [1], Nixon actually wrote in his telegram "The Moon Belongs to you", Gajardo felt honored for this and very willingly to give his permission, even holding for a short while a series of letters with Nixon. From then on, Gajardo gained a short-lived celebrity status within latin america, he gaved interviews, he appeared on television, etc. Yet his story does not have the same connotation as the ones from hoaxers like Dennis Hope, Gajardo never tried to profit from it, though he became widely famous for it, at least for a while.Kessingler 14:53, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Do we need both to scale pictures?

Do we need both to scale pictures in section "Orbit and relationship to Earth", I think one is enough. Beast of traal T C _ 19:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal

Both are highly interesting in their own manner, portraying the light travel time, and the scale. I think they should stay. While the light-travel diagram also shows the scale, I think it is best to keep a separate representation of both for clarity. Deuar 09:18, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The Kona, Hawaii Conference of 1984, and the process of science

The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be, Dana Mackenzie, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2003, pages 166-167:

"Early in 1983, Bill Hartmann, Roger Phillips (director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston), and Jeff Taylor (a geologist at the University of Hawaii) decided to organize a conference devoted to the origin of the Moon. It would be held in the resort town of Kona. More than a decade had passed since the last Moon landing, and it was high time to face the biggest mystery left from the Apollo years. They sent out a challenge to their fellow researchers: You have eighteen months. Go back to your Apollo data, go back to your computer, do whatever you have to, but make up your mind. Don’t come to our conference unless you have something to say about the Moon’s birth.

"Hartmann says he never thought that the giant impact model would come out on top in the debate, only that it would get some attention. But in the summer of 1984, he and Taylor got together to read the abstracts that other scientists were sending in, one- to two-page digests of the talks they were planning to give. It was like getting the first exit polls from an election. Hartmann and Taylor could tell then that a big upset was brewing, but no one else knew it until October."

—Preceding unsigned comment added by FriendlyRiverOtter (talk • contribs)

Is this just for our information, or are you trying to start a discussion about something? Cause I wouldn't know about what... Nick Mks 19:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I would be interested in starting a discussion. And in time, I would also like to help add more about the lines of evidence for giant impact and more about how the theory was developed and accepted. FriendlyRiverOtter 20:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Metric?

Ok so i have nothing against the metric system except i dont use it. How about if we add the US measurements equivalents, hun?Mace Windu 21:05, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

This was just discussed (see an above section) Saros136 22:01, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I totally agree. Someone removed the imperial units without adequate discussion here. I think that we should put the alternative unit in parenthesis (I don't care which is the primary). Even though I do not like imperial units, I remind everyone that 84% of native english speakers use Imperial units, and that this article is not a scientific article (even though it is about a scientific subject in some parts). Lunokhod 15:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Nope, it's 71% by my calculator, just in the ancestral anglophone countries and not counting native speakers in places such as India. In the US, young people are introduced in the school system to the measurements used by the rest of the world, so that they can communicate universally. Increasingly, imported television documentaries use metrics alone. US scientific publications tend to use metrics alone. WP does a favour to the 11-year-old school girl who consults this article by providing a link to the first use of each metric unit; US school children, not to mention adults, are advantaged by not being spoon-fed imperial units—think of it as exercising a skill that is taught at school. The conversions are really quite easy to conceptualise and remember, anyway. Halve kilometre and add a little, for example. Removing the constant conversion mantra also does a favour to all other readers by reducing the clutter and thus improving the readability of the text. I didn't remove the conversion clutter, but I do not favour its re-introduction into a scientific article. Although the rules say that if there's no consensus, the old imperial-unit conversions have to clutter again, I ask you all to think twice before pushing for this step. Tony (talk) 03:07, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

How do we get 71%? Even that seems way too high. Anyway, I'm opposed to restoring the Imperial units, per the above and per the discussion about this at Talk:Saturn#Imperial values of measurements. The consensus was to standardize the astronomy articles and bring them in line with the style guidelines for scientific articles. --Ckatz^chat _spy 05:02, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

How about using the Imperial units once, for each rough range? Although I think the physical comparisons are also a good step, making Imperial units less necessary. Saros136 06:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Question: Is the primary purpose of this page to serve practicing scientists? I would suspect that the widest audience is non-scientists interested in the Moon, especially with all the lunar missions that are going on. The majority of non-scientist native english speakers clearly use imperial units. Please look at english language. The chart shows that 84.1% of native english speakers are from the US and UK combined. Of course we can quibble about the details, but the point is that at least half of native speakers use imperial units (and probably more), so this demographic should be served. Lunokhod 19:14, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The death of the moon

Eventually the earth will loose the moon. I would like to know more about that if possible. Is it going to crash into Earth or be shot off into space? When is this predicted to occur? What will the side effects be to life on Earth?... Its all speculative science... but its good reading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.86.197 (talk) 10:00, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

No, the Earth will not lose the Moon. This gets mentioned in some of the above discussions, and in the article. Saros136 10:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Experts at NASA answer the question of "will the Moon leave Earth?" and many other questions related to the Moon and Earth. Jecowa (talk) 23:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Poor prose and non-compliance with MOS

A brief review of this article reveals that it does not meet the requirements of FA Criteria 1a and 2. Here is an example:

Moreover, the 18.6 year nodes cycle has also influence on it, as when the ascending node of the lunar orbit is in the vernal equinox, the lunar declination can go as far as 28° each month (which happened most recently in 2006). This results that the Moon can go overhead on latitudes till 28 degrees

I wonder whether the nominator for FAC and other contributors are in a position to organise for the article to be properly copy-edited. This could be done as part of the FAR/C process, or less formally to forestall such action.

Thanks. Tony (talk) 12:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I went through the article and did a few copy-edits. It does not appear to be that bad. Most vandalism (even the sneaky ones) seems to have been reverted correctly, and the rare bad sentence, in new sections, is probably accidental. I don't see many others of these, apart from the section you quoted. And thus I requested semi-protection again after all. Nick Mks (talk) 19:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Capitals

The Oxford English Dictionary gives "moon" in the sense in which we are using it here as a non-capitalized headword. All the samples of usage it gives after Shakespeare are written with a lower-case letter.

I did a search to see what the general usage is in published books. Of the first 100 hits for Project Gutenberg for "the moon" there were two types of cases where it was capitalized:

Book titles (duh)
Cases where the moon was personified, for example Aesop, or where Jules Verne refers to the moon as "she".

All the rest were lowercase. It looks ridiculous for an English article on a technical subject to capitalize "the Moon" and "the Earth" and "the Sun". Sure, when you say "I live on Earth", that's a capital. Not when you say "the distance from the moon to the earth is..."

With this background, I have been bold and changed the article. --Slashme (talk) 17:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I've restored the capital-m "Moon" per previous discussions on this subject, as well as the IAU's FAQ regarding capitalization here. --Ckatz^chat _spy 17:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, well, if the IAU says it shall be a capital, that's good enough for me. I'd love to see what prompted that decision by the IAU, though. As a quick trawl through English books shows, it flies in the face of centuries of use. --Slashme (talk) 22:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

To disambiguate it from all the other dozens of moons in the solar system/Solar System. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:44, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, let's see: "The probe landed on the moon" vs "the probe landed on Io" seems to be a good distinction. All the other moons have specific names. Ours doesn't. Anyway, seeing as "the moon" has historically been spelled with a lower case "m", it's not a very reliable disambiguation. But still, I feel strongly that once a standard has been set, it's better to adhere to it than to rail against it unless there's a very good reason, so I'm happy with capitals. --Slashme (talk) 06:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

More like, "Jupiter Probe landed on the moon" (which moon has to be discerned from context) and, "the probe landed on the Moon" (never anything but the 3476 km one around the Earth). Wow I've been around astronomy too long, I think moon looks weird.. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 08:49, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Blacklisted link

Any idea why the link below was removed by Hu12? How is it spam?

cite web | title = Numerous Moon Overlays for Google Earth| publisher = Google Earth Library | date = 2007 | www.gelib.com/moon-overlays.htm | accessdate = 2007-11-09

Thanks. --averagejoe (talk) 15:03, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Chemical composition section required

Gradually, I think all planets need to have this section added. But Im disappointed that even with the moons proximity to the earth, this section is absent.

I found this:

www.neiu.edu/~jmhemzac/images/moonsoil2.jpg

Perhaps that can help.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.107.2.194 (talk) 07:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

A Small Problem in a Number

Under orbital characteristics table, the number for the length of the semi-major axis is 384.399 km. The proper number is 384,399 km, because 384.399 means around 384 kilometers, while 384,399 km means around 384 thousand kilometers. Can someone, please, correct that? I can't, because I'm not autoconfirmed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stoko (talk • contribs) 21:24, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. Greggydude (talk) 18:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Pressure on the Surface of the Moon

people often thought that there were canals on the moons surface, but they were wrong. Why is the pressure on the surface of the moon not displayed? I see it in the parameter box when I go to edit it, but not on the displayed page. Why is this? How do I get the surface pressure to be displayed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by A19grey (talk • contribs) 17:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)