Dear Judith,
Thanks for your detailed comments. We agree. I just sent a reply to Laura.
These stars (several high-mass -as opposed to massive!- ones) were finally
resolved as individual stars thanks to the optical ability of the VLT as
they appear very close together.
The stellar wind, mass loss, were not essential in this story. Intead, I
would have explained in general terms how stars acquire their masses
during formation and the relevance of 150 vs 300 solar masses.
I agree, The crucial link in the communication is the press officer, who
must choose the words very carefully.
This is very useful to people like me, that dedicate time to
public/school/teacher lectures and workshops, in a way like verbal press
officers. Please feel free to contact me off the list.
francisco
On Fri, 23 Jul 2010, Judith Bunting wrote:
>
First sentence looks ok to me, but agree the 'monsters' ref could be misleading,
sadly, also, even those of us with a science background may not understand that
mass is directly linked to luminosity. The bit about losing weight is far too
complicated for an opening para, but who was the target readership? How about:
Using a combination of instruments on ESO˙˙s Very Large Telescope, astronomers
have discovered the most massive stars to date, one weighing at birth more than
300 times the mass of the Sun, or twice as much as the currently accepted limit
of 150 solar masses. MASS LINKS DIRECTLY TO LUMINOSITY, AND THE NEW DISCOVERIES
(NAMES?) ARE millions of times more luminous than the Sun - THEY WERE ONLY
SPOTTED BECAUSE X, Y, Z (I'M ASSUMING HERE THEIR BRIGHTNESS HAD SOMETHING TO DO
WITH THEIR DISCOVERY). These HEAVY monsters ALSO provide A DIRECT CHALLENGE TO
CURRENT IDEAS ABOUT how massive star can be.
If the 'losing weight' part is key to the discovery, that should come in the
next line or two.
There's a real chain in the communication of ideas. The scientist must
express their discovery clearly to the press officer, The press officer
must use their language carefully and appropriately to communicate to the
target readership, then the target audience (science journalists in this
case), need to do the same again. If any one of us slips up, our
mistakes are all too easily amplified. Judith
Judith Bunting
07914 835 073
________________________________
From: Laura Goodall <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, 23 July, 2010 11:21:44
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] The most massive star ever detected is not a specially
giant star
Hi
If I may be blunt, but this press release isn't the best that's been written. I
am not an astrophysicist and the first paragraph of this press release is
confusing (and the first paragraph is sometimes the only paragraph people
read!). Things I noticed:
1) It doesn't directly tell me what 'massive' means in astrophysical terms but
only hints at it and expects me to make the connection between "massive" and
"weighing" - it could be interpreted as saying that the star is both big
(massive) and heavy.dense (weighing),
2) the word 'monsters' does indicate a size reference (as things tend to be
monsterously big, not monsterously heavy/dense).
3) I don't really understand the bit that says "millions of times more luminous
than the Sun, losing weight through very powerful winds" - does that mean that
the Sun is not as heavy/dense because it is always losing weight? How does that
fit into the story?
I've copied the original text here for reference:
"Using a combination of instruments on ESO˙˙s Very Large Telescope, astronomers
have discovered the most massive stars to date, one weighing at birth more than
300 times the mass of the Sun, or twice as much as the currently accepted limit
of 150 solar masses. The existence of these monsters ˙˙ millions of times more
luminous than the Sun, losing weight through very powerful winds ˙˙ may provide
an answer to the question 'how massive can stars be?' "
I would be interested in hearing if I am wrong on this...
Laura
________________________________
From: Francisco Diego <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, 22 July, 2010 19:06:30
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] The most massive star ever detected is not a specially
giant star
It is good that the story was given prominence and that the public responded.
However, the sources were clear about the relevance of mass in star formation,
which determines whether the object would be a star or a planet, if a star, it
would determine its luminosity and whether it will burn for a few million years
or for hundreds of thousands of millions of years. The point here was that star
formation at this previously unknown scale now needs further explanation, like
the idea of stellar merging for example.
The story appears here:
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=81650&CultureCode=en
Some media found more appealing to refer to size, saying the it was the largest
star ever detected and this is misleading, confusing, distracting from the main
point and, well, not true, so in this case, is was wrong to say so.
Does understanding the difference between mass and size require a crash course
in astrophysics?
In any case, it was great that pure, fundamental science made the headlines and
excited people's imagination.
regards
francisco
On Thu, 22 Jul 2010, Michael Kenward wrote:
> And how does this "misleading" information affect the story? Does it mean
> that all those reports are wrong? Or just using different terminology from
> the specialists?
>
> When this happens, it can be because the original sources were themselves
> hard to interpret or poorly explained.
>
> Remember, reporters do not have time or space to include quick crash courses
> in astrophysics.
>
> MK
>
> __________________________________
> Michael Kenward OBE
> Science Writer & Stuff
> My other computer is a slide rule
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Oli Usher
> Sent: 22 July 2010 15:01
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] The most massive star ever detected is not a
> specially giant star
>
> "Massive" is clearly a problematic word since it doesn't mean the same
> thing to specialists and non-specialists. But what's the alternative?
> Would "heavy" or something like that be better?
>
> Francisco Diego wrote:
>> This discovery has received a lot of media attention, but once again,
>> the information has been presented in a misleading way.
>>
>> I was on Sky News last night about R136b, the most massive and bright
>> star ever discovered, this time by the team led by Paul Crowther (ex
>> UCL). I said that the relevance of this star it its record mass,
>> around 300 solar masses, which makes it the brigthest star on record,
>> 10 million times more powerful than the sun. This discovery is
>> triggering new ideas about the formation of ultra massive stars, which
>> now will consider the possibility of smaller stars merging together,
>> as Paul Crowther proposes. During the interview, I tried to clarify
>> that R136b is not a specially large star, with a diameter only around
>> 40 times bigger than the sun's, while some red supergiant stars have
>> diameters around 2000 times bigger than the sun's. Here the media have
>> been misleading, confusing mass with diameter, even giving examples of
>> how long would a plane take to fly around the star, etc. Perhaps this
>> is a consequence of the way language is used (i.e. massive as 'big,
>> giant', but not as 'large mass, heavy'). Still a great story with wide
>> coverage and lot of public attention on a fundamental science topic.
>>
>> regards
>>
>> francisco
>>
>
>
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