Astronomy Wiki
Register
Advertisement

If you want to contribute to the wiki, you've come to the right place! The astronomy wiki's goal is to have the largest, public-domain encyclopedia about objects in our universe, like stars, planets, galaxies, and much more!

Please note, fictional objects are not allowed on this fandom. You're free to write fictional objects and put them on your userpage or make a separate page on your userpage, however, but keep it separate from the main wiki.

Your first article[]

First of all, make sure your first article won't be deleted. Make sure we can document the object. Let's also make sure that the object isn't already documented. To make sure, type the name of the object into the search bar on the top right. If the object hasn't been created before, it should say that there was not anything found for the search. If the object has been created before, an article should pop up with information about the object. So double check and make sure you're not writing about an object already featured on this wiki!

Now we need an idea of what to write about. Here are a few suggestions for your first article:

Is your article about any of these things?

  • Stars (sun-like objects)
  • Terrestrial planets
  • Gas planets
  • Ice planets
  • Extrasolar Planet
  • Nebulae
  • Galaxies
  • Galaxy Clusters
  • Comets
  • Astronomists
  • Astronomic agencies (e.g. NASA)
  • Astronomical robots (e.g. Voyager 1, Rover)

Then it qualifies for an article here! Please note that these obviously aren't the only things you can write about on this wiki, and they are just suggestions for your first article until you get better and better!

Now let's get to writing it...

Writing your first article[]

Now, let's begin. Let's write our first article. First of all, each article has categories. If you click Visual, you should see Categories, and Add category... in the text box. Say for instance your article was about a giant-star. You'd type in: 'Giant-star' then press enter. Say your planet was inhabitable, or habitable. You'd either put in Inhabitable planets, or Habitable planets, respectively. 

Now, let's write our article!

Stars[]

Writing articles for Sun-like stars is easy, and fun! Firstly, our article should contain information about the Star (obviously). What it should contain is, what constellation it is in, how far away it is (if available), and what type of star it is. Is it bigger then our sun? Does it have more mass then our sun? Does it have the same amount of mass or less amount of mass and is it smaller then our sun?

Next, we need to write information about the Star. For instance, we would write

Star System[]

  • Mass: 5.33 ± 0.57 MJ
  • Semimajor Axis: 0.83
  • Orbital period: 185.84 ± 0.23
  • Eccentricity: 0

Right there, we indicated information about the star, including it's mass, semimajor axis, orbital period and eccentricity.

Next, let's add which planets orbit this star, if any. Usually, these planets have the name of the Star along with a letter at the end, e.g. HD 1024 a, and HD 1024 b.

Planets[]

Writing articles for Planets is also easy and fun! First we obviously need the Infobox for the planet. Note using this infobox automatically adds the Planet tag to the page. Here is the full code:

{{Planet-infobox
 | title         = 
 | image         = 
 | imagewidth    = 
 | imagecaption  = 
 | othernames    =
 | pronounced    =
 | adjective     =
 | aphelion      =
 | orbital       =
 | avgorbital    =
 | satellites    =
 | surfacearea   =
 | volume        =
 | mass          =
 | axial         =
 | minsurface    =
 | avgsurface    =
 | meansurface   =
 | maxsurface    =
 | surpressure   =
 | composition   =
 | habitable     =
}}

Copy and paste this, and we will teach you what all of these do.

| title         =

Write the name of the planet in the title. Say the planet's name was Earth, you would write..

| title         = Earth

Next.

| image         =

Have an image on the Wikia of the planet you're writing about? Type in the Image's name. For instance, if we had an image named earth.jpg on the Wikia, we'd put in..

| image         = earth.jpg

Next.

| imagewidth    =

Imagewidth isn't required. The default imagewidth is 210 pixels, but you can lower it down to 150 if you want to. Say we want to make the imagewidth 150, you'd put in...

| imagewidth    = 150

Next.

| imagecaption  =

Another thing that isn't required is an Image caption. These put text under the image. So, for instance, if we want to make a caption under the image, we'd put in..

| imagecaption  = Earth, the third planet from the Sun.

Next.

| othernames    =

If the planet goes by another name as well as the current one, put that here. For example, Earth is also called 'Terra'. So, we'd put in..

| othernames    = Terra

Next.

| pronounced    =

Pronouncation also isn't really required but is recommended to help our foreign users learning english or just to some people who have trouble learning the name. Just type in how you say the word. For example, Earth is pronounced:

| pronounced    = 'erthf

Next.

| adjective     =

In case a planet does indeed have extraterrestrial life, sometimes, an Adjective is given to those planets. For instance, a person from Mars is called a Martian, and this was given as Mars was highly believed to have life living on it. This isn't common for most planets anymore, but if they do indeed have an Adjective given, you'd put in something like

| adjective     = Martian

Next.

| aphelion      =

The 'aphelion' is the point of an orbit where it is the farthest from the Sun measured in km. As these mostly only apply to planets in the Solar System, this isn't required to be put in articles except ones of planets in the Solar System. For instance Mercury's aphelion is 69,816,900 km, the farthest away it is from the Sun. So, we'd put in..

| aphelion      = 69,816,900 km

Next.

| orbital       =

Enter the known orbital period in this one. For instance, say the Orbital period was 87 earth days. You would write..

| orbital       = 87 earth days

Next.

| avgorbital    =

Enter the speed the planet is orbiting. These are measured in km/s, but you can convert it to mph and km/h very easily. So let's say the planet was 47 km/s, which is 107,082 mph, or 172,332 km/h. We would write..

| avgorbital    = 107,082.14 mph (47.87 km/s, 172,332 km/h)

Next.

| satellites    =

If the planet has any known moons, put the name of the Moon there (if it is named). Say there was a Moon named Titan. We would write...

| satellites    = Titan

Next.

| surfacearea   =

Surface area is the total area of the faces and curved surface of a solid figure. Or, the amount of size a planet is. Earth's size is 510,072,000 km, for example. So we would write.

| surfacearea   = 510,072,000 km

Next.

| axial         =

The axial tilt is the angle between a planet's rotational axis at its north pole and a line perpendicular to the orbital plane of the Planet. The axial tilt can cause seasons on Earth and other planets, like Summer and Winter. Earth's Axial tilt is 23°26'21".4119. So, we would write...

| axial         = 23°26'21".4119

Next.

| minsurface    =

This is the minimum surface temperature recorded on a planet. These will be measured in Kelvin, Celsius, and Fahrenheit. For instance, Earth's lowest temperature was 184 K (-89.2 °C, -128.56 °F), recorded at the Vostok station in Antarctica. So, we would write...

| minsurface    = 184 K (-89.2 °C, -128.56 °F)

Next.

| avgsurface    =

This is the average surface temperature of a planet. Again it will be measured in Kelvin, Celsius, and Fahrenheit. Earth's average surface temperature is 288 K (15 °C. 59 °F), so we would write...

| avgsurface    = 288 K (15 °C. 59 °F)

Next.

| meansurface   =

This is the mean surface temperature of a planet. As always it will be measured in Kelvin, Celsius, and Fahrenheit. Earth's mean temperature is the same as it's average temperature, so we would write..

| meansurface   = 288 K (15 °C. 59 °F)

Next.

| maxsurface    =

The maximum surface temperature ever recorded on a planet. Earth's highest ever recorded temperature is 330 K (56.7 °C, 134.02°F), recorded in Death Valley, California. So, we would write...

| maxsurface    = 330 K (56.7 °C, 134.02°F)

Next.

| surpressure   =

This will be the surface pressure known for a planet. Earth's surface temperature is 101.325 kPa, so we would write...

| surpressure   = 101.325 kPa

Next.

| composition   =

Composition is what the Planet's main atmosphere consists of. For Example, Earth's atmosphere is consisted of 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide. So we would write.

 | composition   = 78.08% nitrogen
20.95% oxygen 
0.93% argon 
0.039% carbon dioxide

Next.

| habitable     =

The final part. Is the planet Habitable? Could a Human or any other life form survive on the planet? Let's say it isn't. It's too hot. We would write..

| habitable     = No, too hot

But what if it IS habitable? Then, we would write...

| habitable     = Yes, habitable.

Make sure to always add a }} at the end or the whole code will break.

Then fill in all known information about the Planet. For example, is it in our Solar System? How many Light Years away is it? Does it orbit any type of star? If so, what star?

And really, that's all there is to making an article about a Planet. Looks very hard, but it is not. Give it a try if you have a planet that's not on this Wikia yet!

Advertisement