Talk:Water on terrestrial planets of the Solar System

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2020 and 15 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Racineswick.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:43, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WEG?

What does the phrase "WEG" mean or stand for? It's mentioned several times, but I don't see any explanation of what it means. Can someone please clarify? --Hibernian (talk) 03:11, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I provided its basic definition right at the start: "...Water Equivalent to a Global layer (WEG)..." The method of calculation is to first assume that the planet in question is a sphere with a radius equal to the average radius. Then you compute the thickness of the shell if all the water on (and of) the planet were to cover the surface. This is always a first-order calculation, since it doesn't account for topography. Sometimes, it is refined by considering the gravitational equipotential surface of the planet instead of the average radius (but usually, the resulting increase in accuracy is too small to justify the major increase in computation). It is a very commonly used first order estimate, and is the basis when researchers make statements like "if the water were a global ocean...would cover the planet to ... depth" User: Suniti Karunatillake 10:06 EDT, 26 Aug 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.58.155.227 (talk) 14:09, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, but now the next step is to put this (or a better) explanation of that into the article. Because as it currently is the article is almost unreadable and almost certainly not understandable to anyone not involved in the field. i.e. I'm sure it's all very technically correct, but the average Wiki reader is not going to understand 90% of the content of this page. It needs to be made seriously easier to understand for the layman. For example in the first section it states "A significant amount of surficial H has been observed globally...", now I'm sure this is correct technical terminology, but it's likely to be incomprehensible to anybody who doesn't have a scientific background. For instance instead of using the symbol "H", used the word "Hydrogen", I know what you're refereeing to when you say H, but many people wont. The rest of the article suffers from something similar, in being too full of technical jargon that isn't explained in the text. The information in the article is good, but it needs some serious improvement in presentation. --Hibernian (talk) 04:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rename to evolution of water on the Terrestrial Planets

I agree that the article is technically very good, but it is difficult for someone coming new to the subject to understand it, and that is what an encyclopedia is for!

The question it should be answering is "Why does the Earth have so much water, when the other terrestrial planets; Mercury, Venus and Mars, and the Moon do not?" The article already covers those except Venus. As it is Earth's twin, its lack of water is probably more significant.

Also, since there is already an article on Water on Mars then I propose that the section titled "Evolution of Mars's water inventory" be moved there, where it can be verified by Martian experts. A B McDonald (talk) 12:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Water on moon

Recent observation made by a number of spacecrafts confirmed large amounts of Lunar water. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shamzu (talk • contribs) 03:58, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rename article

Why is this titled "evolution of…"? I think that using the term evolution is unnecessary. Why can’t it be “origin of water on mars and earth”, or “origin of water on the terrestrial planets”? Most lay people consider the term evolution to be about biology, or in the creationist’s case, religion and morality. There is already the article origin of water on earth, why do we even have another one with earth in the title? Maybe it should just be about the “origin of water on mars”? Suggestions? Andrew Colvin • Talk 00:20, 11 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As you can see, i renamed to Water on terrestrial planets. Now we can have sections on each, with links to main articles, and when we have info on new such bodies, no name change is required.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 04:40, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mercury, Moon, Earth

Are you getting 1.67×10^10 kg of water in Earth's hydrosphere by adding 0.21×10^10 kg to 1.46×10^21 kg? You need the check the numbers if that is the case. 10^21 seems to be the correct order of magnitude to me. 63.230.121.101 (talk) 19:59, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As I read this again, I think all the exponents in this paragraph need to be changed from 10 to 21. 63.230.121.101 (talk) 20:07, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Incomplete

The article only lists the cases of the inner solar system. It shoould be expanded with info about the moons of Jupiter and Saturn that may also have water. Cambalachero (talk) 16:39, 27 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]