Age Of Most Pulsars Is Now A Mystery 17
Guinnessy writes "A pulsar that has been viewed by the Very Large Array in New Mexico for the past ten years, is only 65,000 years old not 107,000 years as astronomers previously thought. The new results suggest that the main techniques that astronomers use for measuring the age of pulsars is completely wrong. There's a press release about it the NRAO's web site."
Wait a second... (Score:1, Offtopic)
you mean to tell me that scientists are having to revise their methods to get better results? This is a travesty of science, a despicable breach of the scientific method!
</sarcasm>
But really, is this news? Maybe you think I'm a troll, but we can't get better stuff to discuss than this?
Re:Wait a second... (Score:1)
Re:Wait a second... (Score:1)
It's interesting because it gives every psudoscientist out there a chance to say that mainstream science is wrong, and therefore there little theory is correct.
Re:Wait a second... (Score:1)
It's news to anyone who's interested in pulsars. There seem to be enough armchar (and non-armchair) astronomers here to justify it.
The only flaw that I see here is that this is filed under the "news" category instead of "space".
Scientists get it wrong shocker! (Score:1, Funny)
First we get 'global warming' then other scientists disagree, and say there will be another ice age. Then the NASA morons cannot even get a simple thing like a mars probe to land, then they launch that hubbard space telescope which didn't work.
Scientists these days are just stupid and lazy. I blame the terrible state of America's education system.
Re:Scientists get it wrong shocker! (Score:1)
People seem to get this idea that physicians, and scientists are reliable because of the nature of their jobs. They won't say that, but I'm sure that many do believe it. Physicians and doctors should be reliable because of the people occupying the scientific and medical jobs, not the nature of their jobs!
I will reply to your obvious troll. (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok if you haven't figured it out by now this is how it works. Scientists have Problem A, they make Theory A to explain Problem A. Later after experimentation and more data collection, they may learn that Theory A is incorrect because they didn't know so and so fact about said problem. Thus they come up with Theory B and so on and so forth. The majority of the American public kind of understands this philosophy without a problem.
First we get 'global warming' then other scientists disagree
Exactly the professionals who make it their daily work to understand how the ozone layer and other aspects the atmosphere have too little data to make a single theory. They're disagreement is about what theory most likely describes what is occurring in our atmosphere. Again this is under constant revision as understanding increases.
Then the NASA morons cannot even get a simple thing like a mars probe to land
If landing a mars probe is so easy then you do it.
they launch that hubbard space telescope which didn't work.
Have you been living under a rock? Fisrt, it is the HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE! It's named after Erwin Hubble who discovered the fudemental structure of galaxies and how they are moving away from each other. I have know idea who Hubbard is. The Hubble makes the cover of Newsweek at least twice a year with some beautiful astrophoto of something or the other. (The Eagle Nebula is my personal favorite.) The mirror was of by like
Scientists these days are just stupid and lazy. I blame the terrible state of America's education system.
Thank you for your wonderful and educated assessment of our education system. I am sure your schools produce brighter students then anywhere else, with little Einsteins in every other chair. If you would excuse me I have to reply to another troll who is bitching about how the said products of our flawed education system (Who happen to know the correct name of the space telescope by the way) seem to be on the way to economicly and militarily dominate the rest of the world. Have a nice day.
Re:I will reply to your obvious troll. (Score:1)
Not to be picky, but it's Edwin Hubble.
Cheers.
Re:Scientists get it wrong shocker! (Score:2)
After all, if you can't test or measure something, then clearly you just have to believe in it.
Quite a good estimate! (Score:1)
This method uses measurements of the rotation rate of the neutron star and the tiny amount by which that rotation slows over time to arrive at an estimate called the pulsar's "characteristic age."
Given that the characteristic age model only takes into account the current rotation period and it's derivative, a factor of two estimate is a pretty good guess to me!
Is there any pulsar astronomer out there in /. who can explain the "characteristic age" estimate?
Cheers,
Dr Fish
This isn't so shocking, really... (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't as if pulsar spin-down ages have ever been that trustworthy, anyway. As far as I know, no one is putting much faith in them, beyond a factor a few. This work indicates that the spin-down ages is off from the dynamic age by a factor of 2. For astrophysics, that's bang-on (as Carl Hansen likes to say).
Basically, the weaknesses of the spin-age are pretty obvious: you assume the pulsar started spinning infinitely fast (well, obviously not) and that the field isn't decaying in time. In fact, it is known that dynamic ages are smaller than spin-down ages for older pulsars (around a million years), possibly due to field decay. (Er, "dynamic ages" has previously been determined by how far the pulsars have moved above/below the galactic disk and how fast they are moving.)
I was also a little irked by the statment that this is the first pulsar were we've been able to find the supernova remenant it is moving out of. The wording seemed to me to imply that we've never been able to associate a pulsar with a SN remenant before, but both the Veil pulsar and the Crab pulsar are clearly associated with known SN remenants. However, I don't believe that either of them is moving. (Flip side, we know exactly how old the Crab pulsar is, since the Chinese recorded the SN in 1054 AD.)
That's enough from me, for now. Other than to say that I'm kind of impressed that they did this on the VLA. It really isn't the best instrument for pulsar work. (But there aren't many radio dishes far enough north to cover the northern sky.)
Scientists catching up with me..again (Score:1)
To me, Pulsar's ages have been a mistery since the first time I ever heard of them....