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Further information

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Archived discussions (starting from September 2007) may be found at:

• WikiProject Deletion sorting/Astronomy/archive

2026 SpaceX lunar impact (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)

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Routine space event, we don't have articles for all the S-IVBs that crashed into the moon, why are we treating this as article worthy? It should be a section in the rocket's launch instead of standalone. Scuba 03:00, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply

• Comment: if it must be removed, I suggest a merge into a separate section of the Einstein (crater) article. Praemonitus (talk) 03:38, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply
• Keep - Notable. All the media coverage in international media does not remove any notability. ~2026-42278-84 (talk) 03:52, 6 August 2026 (UTC) ~2026-42278-84 (talk) 04:03, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply
• Comment - One of the largest pieces of man-made space-junk, that has made it to the Moon; possibly the largest. That does not remove any notability. ~2026-42278-84 (talk) 04:03, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply

• Note: this discussion has been included in the AfD sorting lists for the following topics: Events, Astronomy, and Spaceflight. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 07:43, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply
• Keep, a notable and well-covered sourced event. Have added it to the category '2026 on the Moon' (nom, please note that 'Moon' is uppercased on Wikipedia, thanks). Randy Kryn (talk) 11:10, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply

  Keep As per Randy Kryn. It's not a routine moon crash it is the second only impact of upper stage on the moon in 2020s and both the before Chinese Long March 3B/E upper stage moon impact and this are notable. Abdullah1099 (talk) 03:17, 8 August 2026 (UTC)reply

• Merge with Hakuto-R Mission 2 as this is directly connected to that mission. GreatCaesarsGhost 11:40, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply
• Strong Keep I find it amusing that an article can both be a candidate for In the News and deletion –seems oxymoronic. Anyway. This event has several notable aspects. It occurred in a new era of lunar exploration. It highlights space law, space junk (and sloppying handling thereof (by Elon Musk's SpaceX, as it happens)), and even space archaeology. It is an example serendipty in science –you can't whack the moon with 400 metric tonnes traveling at ~2,400 m/s and not get some science out of it. And their readership have all more than slightly doubled. If this doesn't serve Wikipedia's purpose, I don't know what does. https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=latest-30&pages=Space_law%7CSpace_archaeology%7CSpace_junk%7CSpaceX%7CElon_Musk%7CFalcon_9%7CRole_of_chance_in_scientific_discoveries kencf0618 (talk) 13:41, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Forgot about this (horn blown): https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=latest-30&pages=List_of_spacecraft_intentionally_crashed_into_extraterrestrial_bodies kencf0618 (talk) 13:53, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Strong keep per WP:GNG and WP:NABOB - routine events don't have nearly as notable sources as we do have = New York Times, Time, The Guardian, Space, CNN, NPR, Forbes, Discover, CBS, ABC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, CNBC, Florida Today, USA Today, Hawaii Today, etc. Plus, apparently orbiters are racing to look at the impact site which is likely to form a crater, and there's already studies on the event before it even made impact Jishara (please ping upon response) (talk) 14:38, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Good catch. Between Musk and the Chinese the science is racing to, well, science, some profound issues of space management have been put into play. This'll have an impact. kencf0618 (talk) 16:25, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply

• Strong keep Given the fact that this event will leave an everlasting crater/feature on the surface of the Moon I think that by itself makes it article worthy, perhaps to be merged in the future with the article for the crater itself. Coquimbo58 (talk) 15:29, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply

  Again, none the Saturn V 3rd stages that crashed into the moon got their own articles, and they also left craters. Scuba 17:50, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply

• Too, the context is slightly different. This is the New Space Race. Back in the day only the US & the USSR even had the lift capacity. The Apollo Program wound up in 1972, and after the Soviets landed the last lunar rover of their Lunokhod program in 1976 that was wound up. The Kessler syndrome was coined in 1971; Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. After a sixty-year gap in lunar-specific missions, the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), China National Space Administration (CNSA), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Italian Space Agency (ASI), Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA), the United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAESA), and Pakistan's Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) all have had missions to the Moon recently. Too, there is a plethora of corporate interests of which SpaceX and Blue Origin are only the best known; in 2023 there were some 70 private aerospace companies –many incorporated under the aegis of the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA). These consortia have a massive role in the New Space Race. Times have changed. kencf0618 (talk) 00:40, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply

  The Moon has a vast multitude of tiny craters, very few of which are currently notable. WP:GEOPURP applies here. Praemonitus (talk) 15:19, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Strong keep and speedy close, per kencf0618. Pondering my orb (talk) 00:18, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply

• Merge per WP:NOPAGE. cool event, but the event itself seems to be of minor importance. There is a lot of CRYSTALBALL of potential implications but nothing concrete. Information can be kept somewhere, but does not need its own article. Natg 19 (talk) 01:39, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply
• Merge to Hakuto-R Mission 2 per WP:NOPAGE. A routine event with no evidence of lasting significance. Quantity of the coverage in media doesn't translate to depth. PaulT2022 (talk) 03:33, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Keep. As others commented, the event is notable in several aspects, and tons of news and articles cover the topic, even before the impact. HallyTall (talk) 03:31, 8 August 2026 (UTC)reply

PuWe 1 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)

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Clearly fails WP:NASTRO and overall notability of this object is questionable Abdullah1099 (talk) 03:32, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply

• Note: this discussion has been included in the list of Astronomy-related AfD discussions. Abdullah1099 (talk) 03:32, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply
• Keep - For me, the two Astronomy articles about PuWe 1 - this one that's already in the article, and this one that isn't - together with the noirlab.edu source and the content about PuWe 1 in this scholarly article are sufficient coverage to establish notability of the subject. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 12:53, 6 August 2026 (UTC)reply

  Ok, that's good but also the might need expanding and rewriting Abdullah1099 (talk) 02:12, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Hypothetical star (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)

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I propose merging to Exotic star because there are zero reliable sources for "Hypothetical star" cited or on Google Scholar. Exotic star is marginal to be sure, but at most one of these is needed. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:15, 31 July 2026 (UTC)reply

• Note: this discussion has been included in the list of Astronomy-related AfD discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 03:02, 31 July 2026 (UTC)reply

Comment I think it'd make more sense the other way around - from Exotic star to Hypothetical star. Merging to Exotic star would not work in my opinion because Exotic star is only for stars made of exotic matter, and many of the hypothetical stars are made up of normal matter (ex blue dwarf, which is a hypothesized later stage of a red dwarf, and population III star, made of hydrogen and helium with very little metal) - therefore, it would become confusing to the reader. Jishara (talk) 03:22, 31 July 2026 (UTC)reply

Thanks, can you provide sources that define "hypothetical star"? I have not found one. Blue dwarf may be a hypothetical class of stars, but that does not make it a "hypothetical star". As far as I can tell, "hypothetical star" is a category created on Wikipedia, not a verifiable type of star. (It turns out that this is also true for "Exotic star", see Talk:Exotic star#Not the Common name). Johnjbarton (talk) 04:15, 31 July 2026 (UTC)reply

He means Blue dwarf (red-dwarf stage) Abdullah1099 (talk) 07:39, 31 July 2026 (UTC)reply

• Oppose. From what I can see an Exotic star is a subclass of this page. I don't think a merge in either direction is good, but the entries in Exotic star should be added here (if they are not already in). For context, checking the first 3 entries -- Blitzar, Blue dwarf and Black dwarf -- they all use the word "hypothetical". I also find plenty of entries in a Google search, some of which should probably be added to the lead. The only thing that I would be OK with is changing the name to "List of hypothetical stars", with the current name a redirect.Ldm1954 (talk) 11:19, 31 July 2026 (UTC)reply

  Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Moreover the three wikipedia entries for stars you mention are not themselves definitions of "hypothetical stars".

  This issue seems similar to but worse than articles like non-metals to me. Wikipedia editors are creating a class of objects based on an adjective that is not even always used in the sources given. We have no review or even a primary source that discusses "hypothetical stars". This collection is not a thing that sources discuss, it only appears on wikipedia: it is origin research. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:51, 31 July 2026 (UTC)reply

• Comment: it might help with clarity if the 'Hypothetical star' article were renamed to 'List of hypothetical stars'. Praemonitus (talk) 14:50, 2 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star Mississippi 13:32, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply

• Merge with Hypothetical astronomical object and rename that article List of hypothetical astronomical objects and ideally merge the resulting article with Hypothetical black hole (technically a questionable DAB) and List of hypothetical Solar System objects. It seems feasible for all of these to merged into one article. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 15:06, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply

?? How many hypothetical stars are there in the Solar System? Serendi^podous 15:43, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply

I suppose the suggestion is to have one article name List of hypothetical astronomical objects containing all the hypothetical objects. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:30, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply

That only works for the redirected-to lists, not the articles. Serendi^podous 17:11, 7 August 2026 (UTC)reply

• Seconding Maltazarian on merging hypothetical star, hypothetical astronomical object, hypothetical black hole, and list of hypothetical Solar System objects, then renaming the resulting article to list of hypothetical astronomical objects. All of these are lists, and relatively short ones; it makes sense for them to just be one list article with different sections. I wouldn't merge into exotic star because, although all exotic stars are hypothetical, not all hypothetical stars are exotic: Exotic stars are made of exotic matter, which per the article definition is any star not composed of protons, neutrons, electrons, or muons. Thorne-Zytkow objects and black dwarfs would both fall under the class of hypothetical stars, as none of them have been observed, but would not be considered exotic stars because they are made of normal matter. Shocksingularity (talk) 00:43, 8 August 2026 (UTC)reply

• None