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=enSome 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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*
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Dr Francisco Diego, FRAS
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553 Watford Way
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Senior Research Fellow * * *
The Mind of the Universe lectures
www.ucl.ac.uk/themindoftheuniverse *
*
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