Talk:GRB 970508/GA1

GA Review

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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.

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Hi, I'll be reviewing the article. Wronkiew (talk) 05:03, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Images

• One of the GA criteria is that the article be illustrated, if possible. The article contains no images, but I found two free Hubble images of the event, and uploaded them to Commons:
  • File:StisI.gif Added to Observations.
  • File:GRB 970508 STIS August 1998.gif

Major aspects

• No mention of the host galaxy, as described in "Optical observations of GRB afterglows: GRB 970508 and GRB 980326 revisited". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

More later. Wronkiew (talk) 01:43, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Prose

• The article generally makes no allowance for the speed of light in talking about the order of events. No distinction is made between the explosion and the detection, resulting in awkward phrases like "significantly expanded in the time that had passed since the burst actually occurred". Is this saying that the radio source expanded in the time it took for the light to reach Earth? Or that it expanded in the time between the initial detection and the radio observations? According to the article on GRBs, the term refers to the emission, not the detection. That makes the first sentence in this article inaccurate, for it says that GRB 970508 occurred in 1997. Reworded.

Lead section

• The lead should either avoid or fully explain technical jargon. Several terms are introduced without being fully explained.
  • Gamma rays Added a sentence.
  • BeppoSAX Added a brief description.
  • Redshift
  • RF afterglow
• The lead should be self-contained; readers should not have to click on wikilinks to get a full explanation.
  • The debate over the distance of GRBs is hinted at but not adequately explained. Expanded.
  • Several of the technical terms above are wikilinked instead of introduced in the lead.
• "6 billion light-years from Earth" is a lot more meaningful to most readers than "z ≥ 0.835". Reworded to include lightyears.
• The lead should summarize all the important aspects of the article. One aspect that is missing is the "relativistically expanding fireball" bit. Added.

That's going to be all for a day or two. I'll write up the other criteria when I get back. Wronkiew (talk) 06:27, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Alrighty. I'll try to address these issues this weekend, either today or tomorrow evening. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:15, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

References

• I am very concerned by the reliance this article places on the reliability of Flash!. Three sections of this article reference only that single source. A requirement to cite more than one source is not spelled out in WP:WIAGA, but it is hinted at in the scientific citation guidelines. The description of the expanding energy source at the end is in particular need of verification. Added a new ref.
• What is your criteria for placing a citation in the notes section vs. the references section? Resorted.
• "Bibliography" is not a standard name for the references section according to the MoS. Changed.
• These sentences need inline citations:
  • "After 24 hours, the 3.5 cm signal had gotten significantly stronger, and the source also became visible at wavelengths of 6 cm and 21 cm." Added.
  • "On Thursday May 8, 1997, at 21:42 UTC, the Gamma Ray Burst Monitor on board the Dutch-Italian BeppoSAX satellite registered a gamma-ray burst lasting approximately 15 seconds." Covered with new ref.

Jargon

• Some terms need to be explained or linked on first use for readers unfamiliar with astrophysics:
  • Error box Linked to Measurement uncertainty.
  • Spectral lines Linked.

Prose

• What is the significance of the wavelengths between 6 and 21 cm? Does this correspond to a particular radio band?

  Are you asking why I mentioned those wavelengths or are you asking why Frail made observations at those wavelengths? In the first case, I mentioned them because 3.5, 6, and 21 cm were the only three wavelengths mentioned in Flash!. In the second case, I have no idea. Schilling chose not to elaborate on Frail's choice of wavelengths. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:41, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

  According to http://www.vla.nrao.edu/genpub/overview/ 3.6, 6, and 20 cm correspond to the VLA receivers for the X, C, and L bands. Wronkiew (talk) 01:30, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

  Hrm. Those two sets of wavelengths are awfully close for it to merely be a coincidence, but the fact that they are not exactly the same is somewhat puzzling. I'll see if I can contact some experts on the subject to shed some light on this. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:18, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

  Aha! I sent an email to one of the addresses listed in the "Contact Us" bit on the VLA website. This is the response I got: "The 20 cm observing band of the VLA is actually tunable in a frequency range that covers 18cm to 21cm wavelength. The difference between the 'Flash' article and the web page is just semantics.." This would certainly explain the discrepancy! I realize this is bordering on WP:OR, but I'll try to reword that section to make note of the X / C / L bands. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:39, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

  Cool. I thought it odd that the VLA page listed a range of frequencies, but they only gave a single number for the wavelength. Don't worry if you can't fit it into the article. Wronkiew (talk) 06:30, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

That completes my review. I'm sure a week will be plenty of time to address the above minor issues. Great work! Wronkiew (talk) 04:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

One last thing, I was reading through the source material, and I found an error in your article. The scintillations of radio waves are caused by "the thin material between the stars in the Milky Way", not by the atmosphere of the Earth. Wronkiew (talk) 04:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to finish this up soon. For the issues listed above, can you either fix them or indicate why you don't think they need to be addressed? I read over the article again, and I think the area needing the most work is the jargon in the lead section. In particular, I think that phrases like "calculated the redshift to be z ≥ 0.835" and "rate at which the radio afterglow scintillated" will confuse most readers. Scintillation is explained well later in the article, but readers shouldn't have to read the whole article or click on wikilinks just to understand the concepts introduced in the lead section. If it can't be explained briefly, and the scintillation of its radio signal isn't a critical concept in terms of the article subject, just cut it from the lead. Same goes for the redshift calculations, though that concept is not explained as thoroughly later in the article. Now that I've reread the Redshift section, I noticed that it essentially repeats the same information twice to explain what should be a simple concept. You should only have to use the 0.835 and the 6 billion numbers once each in that paragraph. Wronkiew (talk) 06:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I've reworded the sections you've mentioned. The redshift in the lead presents somewhat of an dilemma: To explain redshift, one must mention spectra and spectral lines, which should arguably be explained as well. On the other hand, we can't simply cut out the bit about the redshift because it's the most notable aspect of the subject! Take a look at what I've come up with and see what you think.

The redshift section is much better now, and the scintillation stuff in the lead is cleaned up. I think the redshift explanation in the lead still needs some work. You've introduced several new technical terms dealing with shifting spectra, and that won't clear things up for most people. Also, I disagree that the redshift itself is the notable aspect of this GRB. I think the notable aspect is the measurement of its distance, no matter how that measurement was taken. The details of that measurement will only be relevant and understandable to astronomers and well-educated enthusiasts, a minority of your potential readers. I'm willing to consider other options, though. Wronkiew (talk) 17:37, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

There, I've rewritten it to avoid the redshift altogether. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 20:05, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

GRB 970508 meets all the criteria and passes this review. Wronkiew (talk) 05:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

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.