Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Gamma ray burst

Gamma ray burst

 * Reason:High resolution, eye-catching, very well-made and encyclopaedic.
 * Proposed caption:Drawing of a massive star collapsing to form a black hole. Energy released as jets along the axis of rotation forms a gamma ray burst. It had be theorised that such an event would disrupt the biosphere on Earth by wiping out half of the ozone layer, creating nitrogen dioxide and potentially cause a mass extinction.
 * Proposed caption (B): Drawing of a massive star collapsing to form a black hole. Energy released as jets along the axis of rotation forms a gamma ray burst that lasts from a few milliseconds to minutes. Such an event within several thousand light years of Earth could disrupt the biosphere by wiping out half of the ozone layer, creating nitrogen dioxide and potentially cause a mass extinction.
 * Articles this image appears in:Gamma ray burst
 * Creator:Nicolle Rager Fuller/NSF


 * Support as nominator antilivedT 23:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Support, but... It's a lovely image, but I really would like to have the year it was made put on its information page. Any image of this sort is going to eventually be out of date, from better understanding arising. Knowing how old it is is thus an important part of the information it provides, even if the core ideas are unlikely to change. Adam Cuerden talk 23:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The image was attached to an article and a press release dated September 12, 2005. It was created before that, but at least it was considered accurate as of that date. - Jehochman  Talk 02:07, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment I added the information template to the image description page, but I'm not sure that it is a public domain image. According to the NSF Copyright and Reuse of Graphics and Text policy: With the exception of NSF logos, permission to use NSF graphics is granted on a case by case basis. Some are public domain, some are created by NSF contractors, and some are used by NSF with specific permission granted by the owner. Therefore, with the exception of the NSF logos provided, photos and illustrations found on the NSF web site should not be reused without permission.   Cacophony 00:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Credit info is at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=104440&org=NSF . Does anyone want to file a deletion request on Commons? MER-C 02:02, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Hang on. This is in fact a public domain image. I have added details to Image talk:Gamma ray burst.jpg showing the email I sent to request permission, and a summary of the response I received. If there is a better place to put the information, please let me know.  I was the one who uploaded the image. - Jehochman  Talk 02:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. MER-C 10:18, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Pretty, but.. what is it? I see a sphere with increasing numbers of layers, which are apparently described at the end of the chain; and then it explodes and becomes a black hole. I assume there are gamma rays being expelled in one of the frames here. Based on the image and what I already know about the solar cycle, I'm guessing this is showing the life cycle of a star; however, the image is worthless unless someone knows that. Even with the current description, it doesn't explain the lifecycle of the star before it collapses; that part is unexplained and will likely confuse the average viewer. I know I was confused at first. Also, do black holes usually have bright lines perpendicular to them? This might be featured material with a better description, but as it is, it's just confusing. --Golbez 02:09, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Proposed description, version B': "Drawing of a massive star collapsing to form a black hole. Energy released as jets along the axis of rotation forms a gamma ray burst that lasts from a few milliseconds to minutes. It had be theorised that such an event within several thousand light years of Earch could disrupt the biosphere by wiping out half of the ozone layer, creating nitrogen dioxide and potentially cause a mass extinction."  This has been added to the image on commons. - Jehochman  Talk 02:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * B still lacks an explanation that it's showing the entire life cycle; I'm guessing it's showing the stellar life cycle by showing the elements at play, and then it finally hits the iron roadblock and begins its rapid demise? --Golbez 19:54, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Those perpendicular lines would be polar jets or relativistic jets, depending on how massive the hole is. And yes, we do need a better caption for those not familiar with the subject (a mention of Stellar evolution would be good). MER-C 10:18, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose, poor color choice (makes it look scifi), poor flow through series of event, poor background (its very flat and undynamic).D-rew 21:52, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with looking like sci-fi? And what would be a dynamic, appropriate background for this picture? AFAIK starry nights are very flat by itself, so you want to put it on a background of something dynamic like mating insects flying in mid air? Please DO be more constructive with your criticisms. --antilivedT 03:26, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Lord, some people. The problem with the colors is that they are grating and far too neon.  I'm all for cool and bright coloring, but these pop but in all the wrong ways and end up being irritating.  The background is not only undynamic it is unappealing. And for the record I think mating flies in the background would make this picture much more interesting. Here are non-flat starry nights D-rew 04:16, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You do know that those pictures are taken with extremely high magnifications don't you? And would youput a SEM image as a background to say an ant? Having backgrounds like that is hugely inappropriate as it is simply not something you would see at this scale. This is an encyclopaedia, not a sci-fi book (which is ironic as you complained about the sci-fi aspect of this image). --antilivedT 05:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I am not one for too much bickering on these boards since it won't really add anything, so I won't respond again unless semi-necessary. Anyways, not that it matters but after searching for almost an hour I can find no astronomy picture (that is not a computer diagram) that has a background as boring as this one.  Almost all give a sense of depth and richness to the stars that this one is missing.   Upon looking at so many pictures I realized that the reason that the background looks so bad is that it is missing the little things.  Its the dynamism of the dim stars vs. the bright stars that sells a starfield like the one this background to be.  For that reason I'd prefer it to be black over this (obviously I would prefer a real-looking starfield most).D-rew 06:03, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes that's something I agree on, that the stars are unrealistic and could be better with a plain black background or something. You see, that is a much, much, much more helpful criticism than what you've said in your first comment, and even though I'm not the creator of this picture and thus I cannot fix anything more than trivial, constructive criticism is nonetheless helpful in these situations to point out where the actual shortcoming is, instead of vague statements "poor xxx, undynamic background". --antilivedT 07:47, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This isn't a board and whoever had the flash of insight to call forums of internet interaction "e- bulletin boards" was a blithering idiot. -- ⁪ffroth 01:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Support. This nice image persuades me to read the related articles -Taranet 14:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

-- Chris.B |  talk  15:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Insane hippie colors.. you do realize that this is in false color and that it can be colored any way right? And that the entire content of this image is 6 copies of the same circle, with different coloring, and an unshown mysterous trasformation to a tiny black dot? And then whimsical, totally photoshop-drawn spirals of LSD-inspired colors? Come on, this picture is a joke- the starfield background made me guffaw out loud irl because it's so preposterous to try to place the happenings of this diagram in real space- as if 9 stars in various advanced stages of collapse would be right next to each other in a nice aesthetic arc. And the cutaway effect on the first 6 stars looks like some giant sheet of glass is in the middle of cutting the stars in half, not providing a friendly window into their inner workings, especially since the other face seems willing to ignore the laws of gravitation and stay behind its arbitrary little boundary. My final beef is the two-motion-blurred-overexposures-superimposed-in-photoshop look of the final stage, and the cel-shaded tongues of plasmatic flamage licking out from the top in bottom, with their outragous sharp outline against the stars behind. -- ⁪ffroth 01:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)