Talk:Milky Way

List of names for the Milky Way was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 27 March 2024 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Milky Way. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Milky Way article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6: 20 days

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Milky Way was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
June 18, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
July 14, 2009	Good article reassessment	Delisted
August 9, 2013	Good article nominee	Listed
January 4, 2025	Good article reassessment	Delisted
Current status: Delisted good article

Astronomy: Astronomical objects / Cosmology Top‑importance

	Astronomy portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Astronomy, which collaborates on articles related to Astronomy on Wikipedia.AstronomyWikipedia:WikiProject AstronomyTemplate:WikiProject AstronomyAstronomy
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Astronomical objects, which collaborates on articles related to astronomical objects.
	This article is supported by Cosmology task force.

Other talk page banners

This article was previously nominated for deletion. The result of the discussion was speedy keep.

There is a request, submitted by Catfurball, for an audio version of this article to be created. For further information, see WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.

The rationale behind the request is: "Important".

GA Reassessment

Milky Way

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: No major edits to the article since posted at GAR, no one has indicated that they want to make the necessary improvements Z1720 (talk) 16:48, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are some citation needed tags, unreliable source? tags in the article, The "Appearance" has had an orange "additional sources needed" banner and the "Satellite observations" has had an orange "update needed" banner. Real4jyy (talk) 03:22, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Milky Way mass

The article claims

> Estimates of the mass of the Milky Way vary, depending upon the method and data used. The low end of the estimate range is 5.8×1011 solar masses (M☉),

based on publications from 2012 and 2019. Yet a much more recent publication https://observatoiredeparis.psl.eu/the-revisited-mass-of-the.html revises these older estimates:

> The absolute upper mass limit for the Milky Way is 540 billion, meaning that the Milky Way is at least half as massive as we thought.

Should this be reflected in the article? 2001:1C00:3487:1B00:A4EB:8F22:33E1:CB66 (talk) 18:13, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I updated the content based on a recent review.

Bobylev, V.V., Baykova, A.T. Modern Estimates of the Mass of the Milky Way. Astron. Rep. 67, 812–823 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063772923080024

The Jiao paper linked from the press release you posted was discussed by

Hunt, J. A., & Vasiliev, E. (2025). Milky Way dynamics in light of Gaia. New Astronomy Reviews, 101721.

saying that they come up with a smaller number, for reasons as yet unknown. That is, this review does not consider this a breakthrough but just another of many measurements with slightly different values. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:28, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on April 2025

I'd like to correct the transcription of 天の川(Etymology > Common Names > River of Heaven). amanogawa is here appropriate. Nitro7cttu (talk) 18:09, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide a source. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:25, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I can (because I just have to provide a Japanese dictionary as a source), but I wonder if it might be a bit redundant to present a source for transcription of a common word. Nitro7cttu (talk) 19:17, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If the current content is not correct, then a source is not redundant but rather essential. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:41, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong Number of Stars

This wiki says 100 million stars, but the truth is 100 billion or more. Please fix someone thats registered.

src https://www.space.com/26078-how-many-stars-are-there.html 84.210.159.15 (talk) 00:26, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your claim is incorrect. Johnjbarton (talk) 00:30, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I see it correct now, thanks! :) 84.210.159.15 (talk) 13:32, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Galaxy rotation curve for the Milky Way

This figure seems outdated (2004-2007) compared with the data in Local standard of rest. Ra-raisch (talk) 21:43, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ra-raisch: You're free to update it with reliable sources, of course. - FlightTime (open channel) 21:48, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The probem is, that all authors deliver varying speeds. Just the curve seems outdated. So best I could do is to delete that. Ra-raisch (talk) 21:53, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a newer curve in Fig.3 https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.09466 I cannot say if it is correct but this paper is cited by CODATA as reference. Ra-raisch (talk) 21:59, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think the "most reliable" one would do, if not, someone will let you know. - FlightTime (open channel) 22:02, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If it was that easy I would have done this straight away ... I have no experience with grafics in wiki and do not want to copy that from arXiv without permission anyway. So I can only delete it and maybe revise some of the text. Ra-raisch (talk) 22:12, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Me neither, that's why I don't ask. - FlightTime (open channel) 22:16, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The link you posted goes to a paper published by AAS under the CC-BY 4.0 license as

Eilers, A. C., Hogg, D. W., Rix, H. W., & Ness, M. K. (2019). The circular velocity curve of the Milky Way from 5 to 25 kpc. The Astrophysical Journal, 871(1), 120.

The license requires that the reference accompany the image.

Johnjbarton (talk) 23:40, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By "this figure" I assume you mean this figure:

Johnjbarton (talk) 23:25, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Eilers, A. C., Hogg, D. W., Rix, H. W., & Ness, M. K. (2019). The circular velocity curve of the Milky Way from 5 to 25 kpc. The Astrophysical Journal, 871(1), 120.

[1] Eilers, A. C., Hogg, D. W., Rix, H. W., & Ness, M. K. (2019). The circular velocity curve of the Milky Way from 5 to 25 kpc. The Astrophysical Journal, 871(1), 120.

[1]