West Virginia
South Harrison student discovers space object
CHARLESTON — A West Virginia high school student has discovered a new object in space — a type of neutron star called a rotating radio transient, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory said.
Sophomore Lucas Bolyard of South Harrison High School in Lost Creek made the discovery in March. He was participating in a project in which students are trained to analyze data from the giant radio telescope in Green Bank.
Astronomers at West Virginia University examined Bolyard’s findings and determined it’s among only about 30 known types of rotating radio transients.
Bolyard was participating in a joint project of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and West Virginia University. It is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Earlier this year Bolyard had studied more than 2,000 data plots from the Green Bank Telescope and found nothing.
“I was home on a weekend and had nothing to do, so I decided to look at some more plots from the GBT,” he said. “I saw a plot with a pulse, but there was a lot of radio interference, too. The pulse almost got dismissed as interference.”
He reported the findings, which were examined by WVU astronomers Maura McLaughlin and Duncan Lorimer. They scheduled new observations of the region where the pulse came from, but follow-up observations showed nothing, indicating the object was not a normal pulsar.
In July, Bolyard was at the Green Bank observatory with other students. Using raw data, Lorimer showed Bolyard a new plot of his pulse that indicated it was real and not interference.
While pulsars emit radio waves continuously, rotating radio transients emit only sporadically, one burst at a time, with as much as several hours between bursts. They are difficult to observe — the first one was discovered in 2006.
“These objects are very interesting, both by themselves and for what they tell us about neutron stars and supernovae,” McLaughlin said. “We don’t know what makes them different from pulsars — why they turn on and off. If we answer that question, it’s likely to tell us something new about the environments of pulsars and how their radio waves are generated.
“They also tell us there are more neutron stars than we knew about before, and that means there are more supernova explosions. In fact, we now almost have more neutron stars than can be accounted for by the supernovae we can detect.”
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As session ends, ethics, tax items stalled
Measures offering ultrasound images to women seeking abortions and creating a single agency to manage the state’s vehicle fleet were among those sent to Gov. Joe Manchin on Saturday as West Virginia’s Legislature wound down its regular session.
With the economy still weak from the recession, lawmakers and Manchin both worked from hemmed-in agendas during the 60-day session.
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Snow hampered helicopter rescue
Three hours after a Navy helicopter crashed last month in West Virginia’s snow-covered mountains, National Guard medic Casey Dunfee cracked his cable on the floor of a Blackhawk rescue helicopter to break the ice and lowered himself hundreds of feet to the wreckage below.
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Varied topics left for W.Va. lawmakers
West Virginia’s Legislature headed toward the end of its regular session Friday with just a handful of measures from its recession-inhibited workload left on the agenda.
On the eve of the 60-day session’s midnight finish, the House and Senate began exchanging a final batch of bills that include several items from Gov. Joe Manchin’s agenda.
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W.Va. gets $22M for ‘bad schools’
Nearly $22 million in federal stimulus money will help West Virginia’s worst schools take drastic measures, including replacing principals and overhauling curriculum, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Thursday.
West Virginia is the first state to receive money through the federal School Improvement Grants program, which seeks to improve student performance by targeting chronically low-performing schools.
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Dead bills pile up in W.Va. Legislature
Teenage tanners, seat belt scofflaws and adults who text while driving are among those who will evade further legislative restriction this year.
With three days to go before the regular legislative session ends, Thursday was the last day for most bills to reach the full House or Senate in time for a final vote.
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W.Va. Senate bolsters proposed FY11 budget
Federal stimulus dollars and a recent pension funding change have allowed West Virginia’s Senate to tweak the upcoming state budget by $248 million.
But the amended budget bill unanimously passed Wednesday still cuts general revenue spending by $47 million from what the Legislature passed last year.
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Proposed fees may doom election funding bill
The head of the Senate Finance Committee warned that the governor’s proposal to publicly finance state Supreme Court races could be derailed by concerns over the fees it would charge.
Senate Finance Chairman Walt Helmick, a Pocahontas County Democrat, questioned whether his committee would consider the legislation after it advanced late Monday from the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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Mountain State cities may get more freedom
State lawmakers appear ready to increase the independence of West Virginia’s local governments, and they aren’t waiting on results from an ongoing experiment on the subject.
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Lawmakers entering session’s crunch time
West Virginia’s Legislature has less than a week to decide the fate of proposals targeting abortion, corporate political spending and prescription drug abuse.
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Foreman says mine boss ordered him to fake records
A mining foreman accused of forging safety inspection reports at a West Virginia coal mine says his boss put profit ahead of potential danger, telling him to stop production and evacuate the mine only if a federal inspector was watching.
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As session ends, ethics, tax items stalled
