15-Year-Old Student Discovers New Pulsar

For the second time in as many years, a student has made a discovery while participating in the Pulsar Search Collaboratory (PSC), a joint program between the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and West Virginia University designed to get students and teachers involved in analyzing data from the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). This time it was high school sophomore Shay Bloxton, who discovered a brand new pulsar. "For Bloxton, the pulsar discovery may be only her first in a scientific career. 'Participating in the PSC has definitely encouraged me to pursue my dream of being an astrophysicist,' she said, adding that she hopes to attend West Virginia University to study astrophysics. Late last year, another West Virginia student, from South Harrison High School, Lucas Bolyard, discovered a pulsar-like object called a rotating radio transient. His discovery also came through participation in the PSC."

Comments

Slashdotter?

[mcgrew]

There's someone here whose sig is "I live in my mother's basement, but I'm only fifteen". I wonder if it's the same fifteen year old? At any rate, hooray for today's youth!

Re:Slashdotter?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems odd that they would mention this person's age. It shouldn't matter, nor should the person's "race" or gender matter.

Re:Slashdotter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could go back and tell my 15-year-old self not to study astrophysics. After four years of undergrad, me and about 98% of my graduating class realized that our job prospects were virtually nil. I went back for another two years to get my Masters degree, and finally another eight years for my PhD. By this time, I was fat and even less suited for the real world than I was after finishing my undergrad. There weren't any research or tenure-track positions available at the time, but a friend allowed me to work as a cameraman at his pornography production business. Three weeks into the job, one of the male stars blew his load onto my face while I was filming a close-up. I quit, and have since lived in my mother's basement, unemployed. I run errands for her, and she gives me spending cash. I'm 37 and with a PhD, but I live with my mother and I'm treated like I'm still 15.

Re:Slashdotter?

[nilbog]

Maybe not the same 15 year old, but I bet they're related - both being 15 and all.

Female...

[Anonymous Coward]

15 year old female discovers new pulsar. This will get bad in the discussions.

Re:Female...

[MichaelSmith]

Whats not to like? She is smart and she could be good looking one day...

Two Birds with One Stone

[PSandusky]

I keep thinking that looking for pulsars could've just as easily been something that someone with a hankering for SETI@home's animus could've farmed out to a grid. What's so beautiful about this is that the PSC gets work done for astrophysics at the same time that it adds something to science education. (Too bad more schools couldn't have access to these kinds of things. It may be educational natural selection, but it's still a downer.)

Looking at the photo.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, if she got some glasses that were a little more stylish, did something with her hair, ... she's got a lot going for her!

Now, before being accused of being a sexist pig, I'd point out that well, I am BUT there's nothing wrong in pointing out attractive women scientists to girls - such as Lisa Randall of Harvard.

I think many girls have this opinion that science isn't a "feminine" thing - at least that's an opinion of a female classmate had back in my undergrad physics days.

I think to encourage girls into science it should be pointed out that you can be a babe and be a scientist. Should we have to do that? Well, in an ideal World that short answer is 'no' but in a World were vapidness and looks dominate, I think it's a necessary evil.

Re:Looking at the photo.

[CeilingofStars]

You say you're a sexist pig, but do you understand WHY comments like this are not okay?

#1. She is a child. I shouldn't even have to say that.
#2. How somebody looks has nothing to do with their intelligence or capability. It's incredible that you say there's "nothing wrong in pointing out attractive women scientists to girls" when, in fact, there is everything wrong with it. 'Attractive' is almost exclusively a measure of how much effort a woman puts into modifying her physical appearance in order to make herself sexually inviting to men. I don't have a problem with this; what I have a problem with is men telling women (and girls!) that they have a responsibility to be attractive in order to be acceptable.
#3. Women shy away from male-dominated fields such as science, technology, and video games because men don't know how to act normally about them. If you read an article about a 15-year-old boy with glasses and plain hair, you would never make a comment that "he has so much going for him, if only he'd ditch the glasses and do something with his hair... ." If someone felt that the appropriate response to my scientific discovery was a comment about my physical attractiveness, I might just give up my scientific endeavors entirely, especially if I was a young teenager dealing with all the insecurity that comes along with that.

Something to think about.

Also, please stop acting like a sexist pig. Thank you.

How hard is that?

[timeOday]

This is not a knock on the student in question, since I'm much older than that and never discovered a pulsar.

But.

My impression, which may be very wrong, is that space is so huge, you can point a decent telescope in any direction and discover something, albeit only to a level of detail at which it is indistinguishable from a million other somethings. Thus the quest of astrophysics is not just to discover a new thing, but something new and novel.

(I have often wondered what the earth would look like if we could see every footprint ever planted by mankind. How many "first tracks" I have made?)

Re:How hard is that?

[Monkeedude1212]

You're right to some degree. Problem is that we don't have telescopes on Earth that can just point out to the sky and see all the amazing things that Hubble can. The light pollution is too high. So we are really cut back on how much of space we can actually see here.

Now, she didn't "just point" in the sky, in fact, she had nothing to do with the pointing at all. She took the Data and Analyzed it. She worked it out to be a Pulsar.

Pulsars are very rare. So they waited till the telescope came around to the right point again (a month later) and re-read the data, and re-analyzed it with professionals. She was correct.

HS is when it starts

[ghostlibrary]

I interviewed 4 random astronomers at an AAS meeting to ask 'why did you become an astronomer', and the answer was either "saw cool space stuff as a kid and was inspired" or "got to learn a bit of astronomy in high school and loved it". So she's right at the age for deciding. Unlike most majors, I think most astronomers choose their path early. (In February the podcast will be up at "365 Days of Astronomy", btw).

Sandy
http://projectcalliope.com/ "Music from Space"

A good thing...

[tkohler]

It seems like letting high schoolers have access to facilities like this is a good thing: http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2009/pulsarstudent/

Re:hot damn

[Foobar of Borg]

She's quite the cutie. I wonder if she'll be available in three years? ;D

She's in West Virginia. The age of consent there is 16, so you only need to wait a few months. Not that she'll have a pathetic dweeb like you, though.

Re:Pulsar

[fhuglegads]

Old School Nissan reference.. Very nice.

I don't think this girl was born when those were on the road.

Here's how it's done

[syousef]

http://sol.astro.virginia.edu/~rsl4v/PSC/

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BwFDuloZpz_BNWE1OTBmMjYtZTg5ZS00NDMxLTg0YzAtZjA3N2ZlYjBmNDdj&hl=en

Re:wow now do somthing useful for the world

[PopeRatzo]

i have almost as much respect ofr astronomers as actors

Right. If the Good Lord wanted us to see the stars he wouldn't have made them so fucking far away.

Re:Amateur research still strong

[Mr. Freeman]

No, actually, you're completely and absolutely wrong. This is going to sound trollish, but this telescope cost a fuckload of money and had absolutely nothing to do with the student. The people operating the telescope basically just give out the data to a bunch of schools. The schools then have the students punch in a few commands, the computer goes to work, and a while later the computer says "Hey, this data looks like it might not be garbage, might want to check it out". So then the professionals actually did some further analysis and found that yeah, it was a pulsar.

I hate every freaking one of these stories that claim "Young person does science usually done by people with advanced degrees!". She punched in some commands, she didn't do science. Christ. Any other 15 year old working their ass off in school to become a physicist or engineer gets no special recognition or help or any assistance doing science or research like this. But one student who just fucking happened to be in the seat when the computer came up with the result gets credit for doing something completely unremarkable.

She didn't point the telescope, she didn't actually gather any data, she didn't develop the algorythm used by the computer to actually analyze the signal. She read a fucking graph generated by someone else.
Look at this article from the same source about another kid who did the same thing: http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2009/pulsarstudent/
You can see the plots there. You look at a graph and if you see a blob you report it.

I mean, think about this for a little bit. Why on earth do people go to college and get degrees in science if it can be done by a 15 year old with exactly zero formal training in the area?

It probably sounds like I'm belittling these students' achievements. I'm really not. I'm simply pointing out what they actually did. It's the media that in their haste for a story trumps up this unremarkable junk into something amazing.

Re:hot damn

[PopeRatzo]

She's in West Virginia. The age of consent there is 16

Unless you're a member of the clergy, in which case you get a special dispenser or something.

Re:hot damn

[Foobar of Borg]

Unless you're a member of the clergy, in which case you get a special dispenser or something.

I think you mean "Dispensation" unless you are talking about some kind of creepy Pez-like dispenser they are issued.