Discovery Of Slowest-Spinning Pulsar In Astronomy

Overview of research project

The media article discusses the latest discovery by a team of researchers led by Chia Min Tan from the University of Manchester about the spinning rate of pulsars. The team has discovered the slowest-spinning pulsar at a record rate of one rotation every 23.5 seconds. This rate is approximately 3 times slower than the previous record. The team discovered this when searching for fascinating pulsars in the northern sky during the LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey (LOTAAS). A pulsar gets formed from jets of radiation and charged particles released from a massive start at the end of its nuclear-burning life. The pulsars usually rotate at high speeds because they get accelerated by the nearby charged particles resulting from the strong magnetic fields that generate powerful electric field. The jets released from the poles of the pulsar gradually take away energy from the star causing it to rotate slowly. But after approximately 10 to 100 years, the magnetic mechanism of the pulsars shut down meaning that no more jets can be released. This is when the pulsar is said to have reached its death line. In this latest study, the pulsar discovered is said to be beyond the traditional death line of a pulsar. The researchers said that their discovery was unexpected and are still shocked to find that a pulsar beyond the traditional death line can still produce radio pulses. This discovery has presented a new challenge and research opportunity and the team is going to continue analyzing the data with anticipation to discover more fascinating pulsars. They are also planning to explore the object further to discover more information about the origin, history and characteristics of pulsars.   

The scholarly article presents the discovery of a radio pulsar with a record rotation period of 23.5 seconds, becoming the slowest-rotating radio pulsar ever discovered in history. The pulsar was discovered during a survey that explores the entire Northern sky, known as LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey (LOTASA). The discovered was made by a team led by Chia Min Tan from the University of Manchester. The article discusses some background information about pulsars, analysis of observations made by the LOFAR, results obtained from the survey and discussions of the results. The team measured the pulsar’s spin-period derivative that was used to establish values of its surface magnetic field strength, spin-down luminosity and characteristic age. The pulsar discovered was extraordinary because it was beyond the conventional death line of a pulsar during which it is expected to have stopped emitting radiation. The team believes that this new discovery provides useful information for more research by astronomers especially in relation to the death line of pulsars and the behaviour of pulsars at different stages of their lifecycle. The team is also looking forward to explore the discovered pulsar further and also find other slower pulsars in the future.

Media Article vs. Research Article

The media article has been presented in a typical format of a news article. The article starts with three paragraphs providing information about the description of pulsars, discovery made from the study, the team of researchers behind the study and where the pulsar was discovered. The remaining part of the article is presented in sub-headings with no specific ending or conclusion as a sub-heading. On the other hand, the scholarly article is presented in a typical format of a journal article. The article is divided into the following sections: abstract, introduction, observations and analysis, results, discussion, and references.

The experimental results in the media article are presented in form of written description. The author has described most of the experiment results using text. However, a few actual numbers have also been reported in the article including the typical flash rate of pulsars, location of pulsars from the earth and the spinning rate of the pulsar discovered in the study.

The general conclusion of the media article is that the discovery of the slowest-spinning pulsar is very fascinating and the data collected from the study will be used to investigate the pulsar further and find more interesting facts about pulsars. On the other hand, the general conclusion of the scholarly article is that the discovery of the slowest-rotating pulsar has opened more research opportunities about spinning rates of pulsars and other behaviours and characteristics of pulsars. The team is going to use this data for further investigation about the discovered and other pulsars. Therefore these conclusions are similar because they all emphasize on the fact that the data collected from the study is very fascinating and it will be used to carry our further studies so as to discover more interesting facts about pulsars especially the spinning rate of radio pulsars.

The media article has not criticized its data or conclusions or provided alternate hypotheses or conclusions to explain the data. The article has just provided data and conclusions from the original study without criticizing any of them. However, the scholarly article has criticized the data and conclusions and also provided alternate hypothesis or conclusion to explain the data. The researchers have criticized that the pulsars in the study were detected using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)-based periodicity search, which is prone to reducing its sensitivity towards pulsars with longer periods because of lower flux and larger duty cycle. Therefore data collected may have been affected by the FFT-based periodicity searches’ shortcomings. The researchers therefore have recommended that the accuracy of data collected can be increased by searching the pulsars using Fast Folding Algorithm (FFA) instead of FFT-based periodicity searches (Tan, et al., 2018).

Background on slow-spinning pulsar discovery

Yes, the scholarly article has provided criticism and alternate viewpoints that the media article failed to mention. Every study has limitations and areas of improvement and therefore it is important to mention them. The authors of the scholarly article have mentioned that the FFT-based periodicity search used in searching the pulsar has some limitations that may have affected the accuracy of the data collected and also restricted the range of information that can be collected about the pulsar. For instance the authors have mentioned that FFT-based periodicity search may be less sensitive towards slow-spinning or long-period pulsars. As a result, the authors are recommending that FFA, which is more sensitive towards slow-spinning or long-period pulsars, should be used so as to collect more accurate data and discover more fascinating facts and characteristics of long-period pulsars.

Yes, the media article’s title accurately reflect the content presented in both the media article and the scholarly/research article. This is because the media title is: “How slow can you go? Astronomers find the most sluggish pulsar yet” (Parks, 2018). This title is a representation of the content presented in the media article and the research article because both articles are discussing about the recent discovery of the slowest-spinning pulsar by a team of astronomy researchers. In other words, the two articles are discussing about the latest discovery of how slow a pulsar can go.

This exercise has provided significant insights into the manner in which scientific research is done and reported, and also how the media covers this kind of research. The scientific research is done by selecting a topic of study, gathering background information about the topic so as to understand it better, collecting relevant data using a methodology selected by the researchers, organizing and analyzing the data collected, presenting the results, discussing the results, making conclusions, criticizing the conclusions and providing alternate hypotheses or areas of improvement for more accurate results in future studies. The scientific research also usually aims at proving or disproving a hypothesis. On the other hand, the media article basically presents key findings of the scientific research and further developments about the research. For this reason, the scientific research article is always longer than the media article. The scientific research article is also usually published in a scholarly journal while a media article is usually published in a news website or magazine. The exercise has also helped to learn about the format of presenting a media article and scientific/research article. Another important insight from this exercise is that the scientific article is written by the actual researchers of the study but the media article can be written by authors who are not the people who did the research. The exercise has also provided insights on how to find or search for media articles and scientific research articles from online and offline sources.

References

Parks, J. (2018, October 25). How slow can you go? Astronomers find the most sluggish pulsar yet. Retrieved from Astronomy: https://www.astronomy.com/news/2018/10/slowest-spinning-pulsar-found

Tan, C., Bassa, C., Cooper, S., Dijkema, T., Esposito, P., Hessels, J., . . . Weltevrede, P. (2018). LOFAR Discovery of a 23.5-Second Radio Pulsar . The Astrophysical Journal, 866(1), 1-16.