Talk:RCW 36

Suggestions/comments

Hi @OtterAM: Following from the DYK review above, I have some more detailed suggestions/comments about the article:

• The current infobox is fine, but if you want, you could use the {{Infobox astronomical object}} template, and use Wikidata to manage the infobox content (at d:Q19321949). (Migrating infoboxes to Wikidata is something I've been working on recently, hence this suggestion, but it's not necessary if you don't want.)

Done. OtterAM (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• In the infobox, the distance and apparent size need uncertainties adding.

Unfortunately, the reference does not provide (or estimate) uncertainties. OtterAM (talk) 10:06, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• I'm not sure whether it's "a Hii region" or "an Hii region". The former sounds better to me...

It should be pronounced "an aitch-two region". OtterAM (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• "RCW 36 is one of the nearest sites of massive-star formation in the Milky Way." - nearest to what? ;-)

Clarified. OtterAM (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• The structure of the "Natal molecular cloud and H II region" section looks a bit odd to me, due to the mix of general background content and specific content on RCW36. Perhaps the background could be spun off into a new section, or perhaps the specific information about RCW36 could be given first, followed by the general explanation of what that means / why it's relevant.

I've spun this section off to be a separate section as suggested. This section comes before the sections on the interstellar medium and on the star cluster because the background information is necessary for a reader unfamiliar on this topic to make sense of the later sections. OtterAM (talk) 10:35, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• "A cluster like the RCW 36 cluster forms when a molecular-cloud clump becomes unstable to collapse." - needs a reference.

Reference added to a book on star formation. OtterAM (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• "mass equal to 44,000 Solar masses" - needs to specify the uncertainty

Unfortunately the reference doesn't provide uncertainties. OtterAM (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• Can a reference be added to the NANTEN discussion to the original paper, in addition to the book summarising the results?

The reference to the publication in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan is included. OtterAM (talk) 12:38, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• It might be worth having a "cluster contents" section or similar, as at the moment the mentions of the UCHII object, HH objects, etc. are scattered throughout the article.

Adding a new section like this that contains detailes about individual objects in the cluster is a possible idea for future expansion of the article. At the moment, I've tried to clarify they different types of objects as much as possible. OtterAM (talk) 12:46, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• Can the name of the "balloon born telescope" be given / linked to?

It is the "TIFR 100-cm balloon-born telescope". OtterAM (talk) 10:16, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• Phrases like "More recently" are dangerous, as they can easily become outdated over time. It's better to specify the years instead (and it's probably worth specifying years throughout the discussions of the observations).

The phrase has been changed to the specific time period. OtterAM (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• "A catalog of 384 probable young stellar members of RCW 36 was produced by this project" - perhaps specify the catalog/survey name here?

It has been clarified that this refers to the MYStIX catalog from the previous sentence. OtterAM (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• "has been noted" - by whom? Or just remove this caveat and be more definite.

Noted by the Baba et al. which was referred to earlier. It's important to include who claimed this, because the adjective "higher" is qualitative. OtterAM (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• "Modeling of the brightnesses of stars at various infrared wavelengths" - I think this is the Infrared excess?

This has added. OtterAM (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• "3000 stars per square parsec" - presumably this is cubic parsec? Ditto "10,000 stars per square parsec".

Square parsecs is correct. This has been clarified in the text. OtterAM (talk) 10:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• Would it be worth using the SIMBAD link as a reference rather than an external link?

Added a reference to Simbad for region names. OtterAM (talk) 12:38, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• A few other useful references might be:
  • H2CO and OH observations of a molecular cloud near RCW 36
  • CO (J = 2-1) observations of molecular clouds associated with H II regions from the southern hemisphere
  • Filaments and ridges in Vela C revealed by Herschel: from low-mass to high-mass star-forming sites
  • Resolving the Vela C ridge with P-ArTéMiS and Herschel
  • Ionisation impact of high-mass stars on interstellar filaments. A Herschel study of the RCW 36 bipolar nebula in Vela C

These have all been added. OtterAM (talk) 12:38, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:25, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mike Peel:@OtterAM:Sorry. I have immediately made a number of necessary edits to this article to remove just the truly obvious mistakes. The article is far too technical for the average reader, and there is more explanation than explaining about RCW 36. The quagmire here is obvious, where the more technical the text becomes, the more need there is to explain what the technical text means. I happen to have a technical background in astronomy, and even I had issues reading understanding the article's text. Much of the bulk of the article looks to me like personal research, and fails dreadfully because much of it is not WP:Notable (especially against WP:GNG & WP:SIGCOV.) There is also a distinct lack of secondary sources.

Quite notably here, the Introduction is supposed to be a summary of the whole article text. The words used are need to be precise, use basic terms, and more easily readable to the average person. I.e. RCW 36 is firstly a nebula / emission nebula not just an HII region which is actually a specialised sub-type of nebula. Frankly, this RCW 36 article is more detailed than the specific article on H II region, which is a significant drawback, because the reader cannot explore enough to understand what the RCW 36 text means.

Had I earlier known about the DYK review I would have responded sooner. In my opinion, the article size needs to be immediately halved. Sections 'Star formation in RCW 36' & 'Molecular cloud and H II region' needs to be merged, 'Open Cluster' (Its open star cluster, actually.) paragraphs 1 & 2 are unnecessary and esoterically irrelevant, while Paragraph 3 needs a shorter summary.

As for: "Observations from the Herschel Space Telescope show that the material within the cloud is organized into filaments and RCW 36 sits near the south end of a 10-parsec long filament"

(Notably too, such filamentary structures are seen in most nebulae! That is what Hill et al.'s article is about (Article's Ref. 15)

This should read something like: "The Hershel Space Telescope shows nebulous filamentary structures across this region, with the placement of RCW 36 lying near the southern end of a 10 parsec filament."

As for: "The H II region in RCW 36 has an hourglass morphology," is unexplained. This is clearly an example of a bipolar nebula, which is given as Ref.13 but is actually better discussed in Minier, et al. Ref 16 - bit isn't referenced!

Lastly, much of the text is given in terms of absolutes, when in fact they are really either suspected or only theorised. I.e. Nebulae distances are mostly very difficult to know, and rely heavily on various assumptions. Saying "RCW 36 is one of the sites of massive-star formation closest to our solar system[5], whose distance of approximately 700 parsecs (2300 light-years)." is not quite true. It should have the qualifier "RCW 36 is likely among the closest regions of massive-star formation to us, whose estimated distance is 700 parsecs (2300 light-years.)" Note: It is Solar System NOT solar system, and saying it is really not necessary. Also saying "one of the sites" means what exactly? (Imprecise actually.)

OtterAM has done a good job here, but the exacting detail is in this case too much. Please consider the readership and how the information relates to the subject. Thanks. Arianewiki1 (talk) 05:38, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

@Arianewiki1: I agree that the article can be made clearer, and your edits are a good start to that. Your point about absolutes is a very good one (this is why I was asking about uncertainties above). I disagree that the article should be shortened by removing information, though, it's better to explain it in more detail as needed. Note the "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article" section of WP:Notable. Also, the fact that articles like H II region don't contain as much information is a problem with *those* articles, not this one, which is better resolved by expanding those articles. Most of our astronomy articles are far too short / underdeveloped. :-( Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 12:45, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi Arianewiki1. I'm happy that you are interested in the article, and you are very much welcome to make edits here as Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia. I think that your description of your edits of correcting "truly obvious mistakes" is a bit strong, but the changes you made can certainly be considered legitimate *stylistic* improvements. This region is astrophysically an HII region, while it is also equally correct to call it an emission nebula. (One could also consider it to be a dark nebula due to the absorption from the cloud.)

Most of the information about RCW 36 appears in journal articles, so these make up most of the references. The consensus is that this is acceptable on Wikipedia. For example, Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources states:

"Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. However, some scholarly material may be outdated, in competition with alternative theories, or controversial within the relevant field. Try to cite present scholarly consensus when available, recognizing that this is often absent. Reliable non-academic sources may also be used in articles about scholarly issues, particularly material from high-quality mainstream publications. Deciding which sources are appropriate depends on context. Material should be attributed in-text where sources disagree."

Per these guidelines, in my edits I have made sure to follow the consensus among the various articles.

You write "'Open Cluster' (Its open star cluster, actually.)"

The correct term of art is "open cluster" not "open star cluster". E.g. the Wikipedia article entitled open cluster.

I'll incorporate the sentences you suggested you suggested if you like. A sentence emphasizing the uncertainty on some of the quantities would indeed be helpful.

OK, I see that you've already included them. Looks fine. OtterAM (talk) 13:51, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

OtterAM (talk) 13:28, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Not to disagree too much, but this article has serious problems only because it in mostly too complicated with both excessive technical jargon and verbosity. Frankly the 'style' is quite irrelevant, because the text has to be first understandable. (The specific example of nebula / emission nebula is precisely the point, because the definition a nebula is commonly known while an HII region requires some prior knowledge to know what it means. Heck, there is even a debate on this talk page if it is a/an Hii region, without realising it is donated as HII! HII regions are defined by radio observations nor visual ones.)

As for WP:Notable you miss the point. Not all available texts are at all necessary to add to an article. I.e. It is supposed to be a summary, not a complete astrophysics dissertation! The section on Young stellar objects (commonly abbreviated YSO), for example, has many problems, the most obvious it it is not linked to the page Young stellar object. Yet there is not explanation nor link between the Herbig-Haro objects mention or why they are YSO's, and the two specific examples that follow are so esoteric that the connection becomes vague and irrelevant. Frankly, there are six different terms for this one central YSO definition.

To show an example of what I mean on this point, I'd suggest you look at the updated text I've just written on RCW 88. Arianewiki1 (talk) 14:19, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I guess we have a difference of opinion. I'm more interested in the astronomical object itself than the history of its classification (or misclassification). But, in these Wikipedia articles, I think there's room for both types of information as long as the information comes from reliable sources. Technical terms like "HII region" or "molecular cloud" or "CO" are necessary to give a precise scientific picture of the object in question. It is, of course, best to make things as clear as possible! But, this should be done through careful writing and linking to pages that explain the topics, not avoiding these topics. Many Wikipedia articles quickly jump into less-familiar terminology – for example see Symmetric group or Brahmi script. I think astronomy articles can do the same. I don't see why astronomy articles should limit themselves only to the most basic visual appearance of objects without touching on the more interesting scientific issues. OtterAM (talk) 16:24, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I added two introductory sentences to the "young stellar objects" section to clarify what is included there. I also added a more thorough definition of young stellar objects to the section "star cluster". OtterAM (talk) 18:52, 25 February 2017 (UTC)