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"Pulsar planets would be entirely incapable of supporting any form of life as we know it due to the colossal amounts of electromagnetic radiation emitted by pulsars." I think this line is poorly phrased: all radiation is electromagnetic radiation, including light, and pulsars put out a lot less total energy than, say, main-sequence stars. Perhaps the statements refers to very strong magnetic fields, or particles accelerated along those fields? --
Keflavich03:48, 23 May 2007 (UTC)reply
EM radiation isn't the only kind of radiation there is - the magnetically accelerated particles you're speaking of would be a good example of non-EM radiation. You are right, however, that the total energy output isn't the problem with pulsar planet habitability - it's the kinds of radiation emitted, such as x-rays and energetic subatomic particles, that are troublesome.
Orcoteuthis (
talk)
14:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)reply
I don't see a problem here. If a pulsar planet has an atmosphere dense enough, X-rays are absorbed in the upper layers of it and converted into light. This may give energy for a biosphere like ours. --
Inmodus (
talk)
14:42, 13 December 2016 (UTC)reply
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I'd generally consider NEA the better source of the two. In terms of pulsar planets, the main difference is that EPE includes many "black widow" systems (pulsars with former stellar companions eroded to substellar masses), with companion masses up to the brown dwarf range, while NEA only includes the two least massive such companions.
SevenSpheres (
talk)
15:38, 26 March 2023 (UTC)reply
GA nomination
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I'll be reviewing
Special:Permalink/1173461364. If I mention a reference number, it'll be as shown in that revision.
Lead section
Pulsar planets are planets that are found orbiting pulsars, or rapidly rotating neutron stars. Two comments here. First, delete "found"; they exist whether we've found them or not. Second, I'm confused about "or rapidly rotating neutron stars". Are you giving two alternatives to where they are found, or are you explaining what a pulsar is? I'm assuming the later, but
Pulsar says they have to be highly magnetized", which you don't mention here. My recommendation is to drop the explanation entirely. People can click the pulsar link to find out more.
Pulsars are extremely precise clocks. I get that they can be used as precise time standards, but looking around, I don't see any sources which refer to them as clocks. Lots of sources say you can use them to build clocks, but not that they are clocks.
In all three places in the main body (Habitability) where you talk about this, you say "electron-positron pairs", so you should do the same in the lead.
RoySmith(talk)13:46, 12 September 2023 (UTC)reply
MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE says, "Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative." I'm not convinced the three "Artist's concept" images here satisfy that. They are certainly pretty, but what information do they convey which helps the reader understand what a pulsar planet is?
The first one does show the appearance such a planet and its star pretty well, e.g the expected aurorae and the external luminosity of a pulsar, like around the Crab Pulsar
[1]. The other two are more decorative, though.
Jo-Jo Eumerus (
talk)
18:06, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
It is thought. Who thinks that? (
MOS:WEASEL) Should be something like "Martin et al argue that..."
Ah, this one's an example of a claim sourced to a particular paper, which however in turn refers to a whole stream of sources and doesn't enumate them all. It's not easy to attribute.
Jo-Jo Eumerus (
talk)
18:09, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
The source (ref 1) says, In addition, most planet formation scenarios require the presence of a “dead zone” in the protoplanetary disk, but you've made a stronger statement, asserting that it is always required, not just in "most ... scenarios". In fact, your "Second generation" example under Formation seems to describe a scenario where there is no such dead zone. So I think this needs more clarity about whether it's actually required, and who says so.
RoySmith(talk)14:04, 12 September 2023 (UTC)reply
That's because I'm an idiot who has not yet mastered copy-paste. What I meant to say was: the source spells it "magneto–rotational" (i.e. with a hyphen). I don't feel strongly about this, so do whatever you feel works best.
RoySmith(talk)20:34, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Rebecca G. Martin, Mario Livio, and Divya Palaniswamy, near the bottom of column 2 of page 1: "This is a quiescent region where the magneto–rotational instability...". But I'm fine either way.
RoySmith(talk)13:53, 12 September 2023 (UTC)reply
There are several processes[a] that could give rise to planetary systems I'm not sure what value there is in this compendium. You state that there are no known pulsar planets which belong to the first two classes. Presumably all the known pulsar planets belong to one of the later three classes, but you don't indicate which belong to which class.
This section talks about "neutron star planets". Is this the same as a pulsar planet? Not all neutron stars are pulsars, so I guess not all neutron star planets are pulsar planets? This should be clarified.
Technically, there are rare non-neutron star pulsars, but for this article we only discuss these around neutron stars. For some reason, science calls them "pulsar planets" instead of more generical "neutron star planets".
Jo-Jo Eumerus (
talk)
18:11, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Observability
Same comment about pulsars are ... clocks as above. The source (I can only see the preview) says "serve as ultraprecise celestial clocks.", which isn't quite the same as "are clocks."
no more than one planetary system per 200 neutron stars as above, this leaves me confused about whether "neutron star" and "pulsar" are synonyms or not.
Yeah, they are not interchangeable terms in general but in many discussions on planets pulsar is a synonym of neutron star. Practically, detecting a planet around a non-pulsar neutron star isn't possible with current technology and possibly not ever without FTL.
Jo-Jo Eumerus (
talk)
18:39, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
OK, that's a reasonable explanation. Please add something along those lines to the article, including a statement that the terms are being used interchangeably here. It's confusing to read two different terms for what appear to be the same thing and be unsure if they're actually the same, or somehow different and you just haven't figured out yet how they differ.
RoySmith(talk)14:12, 12 September 2023 (UTC)reply
I'm not sure which part of that is SYNTH, but my main point is that it's confusing that you're using two different terms ("pulsar" and "neutron star") without explaining why you sometimes use one and sometimes use the other.
WP:GACR says the prose needs to be understandable to an appropriately broad audience. I think I'm a representative of that audience; I have a background in the physical sciences and an amateur-level interest in astronomy. As I read through the article, I kept coming back to not understanding why sometimes you're talking about pulsars and sometimes you're talking about neutron stars and going back to see what I missed that led to the change of topic.
One way or another you need to eliminate this confusion. If they're synonyms, say so. If they're not, but the literature is inconsistent on which term it uses, say so. If one is a subset of the other, say that. And if it truly is SYNTH to say that the terms are interchangeable, then pick one term and use it consistently. But this needs to be clarified somehow.
RoySmith(talk)14:54, 13 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Among the better known pulsar planets You show a table with all the known examples (7) but you describe 4 of them as "among the better known". This seems like a strange way to describe it.
heating it to temperatures of about 2,300 K I think you can just say "heating it to about 2,300K". I'm also not sure there's any value in the {{convert}} for K -> C. That's usually used to convert metric to imperial or vice-versa. If giving both K and C is our normal convention for astronomy articles, I'm OK with it, but if not, I think it just adds noise. In any case, in converting 2300 to 2030, you're adding a significant digit of precision which isn't justified. See
MOS:CVT
I assume you're referring to 2,300 K (2,030 °C)? Um, no. Is there really any need to convert K to C for the reader? At the sorts of temperatures we're talking about there, the difference between the two values is meaningless. "2,300 K" has 2 significant digits. "2,030 C" has 3 significant digits. You can't generate additional significant digits by doing a units conversion. But beyond that,
MOS:CVT says not to do the conversion at all ("in science-related articles, supplying such conversion is not required unless there is some special reason to do so."
RoySmith(talk)14:20, 12 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Yeah, I did notice that. What you've got is fine. Maybe "large amounts" insteads of "plenty"? While I'm here, "Pulsars emit a very different radiation..." doesn't seem grammatically correct. Maybe "Pulsars emit a very different radiation spectrum..."?
RoySmith(talk)14:26, 12 September 2023 (UTC)reply
The nomenclature is confusing (not your fault; that's how it is). Could you add a short statement somewhere near the beginning of the article along the lines of "Pulsar planets are named using standard conventions for
pulsar names and the less standardized conventions for
exoplanet names. This will prep the reader for why when they click through on PSR B1257+12b, they get to
PSR B1257+12 A (not to mention why the table has entries for 12b, 12c, and 12d, but not 12a.
The table in Known pulsar planets has all blanks for the last two columns. Eliminate those columns.
Also in the table, it took me a bit of thought to realize "Semimajor axis" describes the orbit, not the planet itself. Perhaps add another group heading for "Orbital parameters" above columns 3-5, with 2nd level headings "Semimajor axis", "period", and "eccentricity".
Gonna sleep on the previous two, as a) these values can in theory be discovered in the future and b) from what I can see, both changes require either replacing the template with a custom table or rearranging the template itself, both of which involve a notable maintenance burden in the future. I'll think about it again tomorrow.
Jo-Jo Eumerus (
talk)
18:39, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
I think most readers with some knowledge of astronomy will understand the mass, axis, and period values in the context of "how these compare to our solar system", but won't have as good a feel for the eccentricity values. Without looking up all of these (I did have to go look up Pluto), I come up with something like, "Most of these orbits are very nearly circular, similar to the orbits of our own solar system. PSR B0329+54b is the outlier, with an eccentricity very similar to Pluto". Maybe it would make sense to add something along those lines, to give readers more context?
The eccentricity for PSR B1257+12b is given as the integer 0, which seems odd. Integers count, real numbers measure. The source (
https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0305536.pdf) gives it as 0.0, so I'd use that here.
I get why the larger planets in the table list masses in M sub j instead of M sub e, but it leads to a discontinuity as you scan down the column. If you don't notice the change of units (indeed, on the display I'm reading this on now, it's difficult to see), you would come away with an erroneous impression. I suggest using the same unit (M sub e) for all of these, even if that's not the way they're typically presented in isolation.
In some places you use spaces for digit groups ("10 140 +/- 11" in the table), in other places you use commas ("2,300 K"). Pick one style and use it consistently.
From
PSR B0329+54, I gather that the existence of PSR B0329+54b is questionable. You should mention that. I haven't checked all of them, but if that's true for others, do likewise for those.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.