You are here: Home / Pulsar Search / Home

Pulsar Candidate Search (PSRsearch)

Pulsars

Imagine… After millions of years of nuclear fusion, a massive star depletes its core of hydrogen and helium. With no outward pressure to hold it up, gravity wins, and the star collapses. The outer layers rebound from the core and are expelled into space in a giant supernova explosion. But, what of the core?? It continues to collapse into a neutron star… an object with the mass of our Sun, yet only 20 kilometers in diameter.

Some neutron stars–those we can detect–are called pulsars. Pulsars are incredible! Unlike our Sun which spins once every 25 days or so, pulsars can spin up to 800 times/second! They have magnetic fields 10,000,000,000 times stronger than a fridge magnet!

Want to discover new pulsars? This pulsar candidate search tool (PSRsearch) can be used by students, teachers and scientists alike.

The Pulsar Science Collaboratory

The Pulsar Science Collaboratory runs an out-of-school-time citizen science project for students aged 13 and up. After training, PSC students and teachers gain access to radio astronomy data collected by the Green Bank Telescope, the world’s first fully steerable radio telescope. PSC members then analyze the data to search for new pulsars.

Finding a pulsar is a significant scientific discovery, which advances our knowledge of the Universe! To date, PSC students have analyzed more than 2,000,000 pieces of data, discovered 8 new pulsars, have been authors on scientific publications, and were congratulated in person by President Obama!

For students. PSC students participate in an online course that teaches them about pulsar science and radio astronomy and prepares them to become competent researchers. The course is led by world renowned astronomers Dr. Maura McLaughlin and Duncan Lorimer. Once trained, PSC students gain access to radio astronomy data taken at the giant Green Bank Telescope.

If you are interested searching for pulsars as part of a classroom based citizen science team, start here: Becoming a search team member

For teachers. PSC students and teachers participate in an online course that teaches them about pulsar science and radio astronomy. The course is led by world renowned West Virginia University radio astronomers Dr. Maura McLaughlin and Dr. Duncan Lorimer. Once trained, PSC students (and you if you wish) gain access to radio astronomy data taken at the Green Bank Telescope. The data is reserved for PSC students and will not be analyzed by other scientists so any pulsar found is a significant scientific discovery. A sample of the data is available here. By participating, your students gain training in astronomy and data analysis from experts in pulsar astronomy. They participate in authentic scientific research with the possibility of making publishable scientific discoveries. They will have the opportunity to interact with leading scientists and discuss their research with both scientists and other students. They may have the opportunity to present their research at a Capstone event at a local university. Students and teachers will also have the opportunity to apply to spend a week extending their research experience at a summer camp at the GBT.

If you are interested in leading a team searching for pulsars, start here: Becoming a search team leader

Research

For scientists. In addition to the PSC students and teachers, scientists may join and search additional surveys for pulsar candidates. If you are interested in searching for pulsars as as an astronomer, start here: Using for research

For survey owners. If you have a project with compatible pulsar survey data you may be able to add it to the PSRsearch database and make it available to some or all PSC members. If you are interested in using this project to help search your pulsar survey data, start here: Adding your survey data

to start PSRsearch

Debug Console

Close4 MBRequestSessionTimelineDatabase18Events16
$_GET
Array( ) Array(

)
$_POST
Array( ) Array(

)
$_COOKIE
Array( ) Array(

)
$_SERVER
Array( TEMP => /var/www/tmp, TMPDIR => /var/www/tmp, TMP => /var/www/tmp, PATH => /usr/lo... Array(
TEMP => /var/www/tmp,
TMPDIR => /var/www/tmp,
TMP => /var/www/tmp,
PATH => /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin,
USER => apache,
HOME => /usr/share/httpd,
SCRIPT_NAME => /index.php,
REQUEST_URI => /psrsearch,
QUERY_STRING => ,
REQUEST_METHOD => GET,
SERVER_PROTOCOL => HTTP/1.1,
GATEWAY_INTERFACE => CGI/1.1,
REDIRECT_URL => /psrsearch,
REMOTE_PORT => 38964,
SCRIPT_FILENAME => /var/www/pulsars/index.php,
SERVER_ADMIN => root@localhost,
CONTEXT_DOCUMENT_ROOT => /var/www/pulsars,
CONTEXT_PREFIX => ,
REQUEST_SCHEME => https,
DOCUMENT_ROOT => /var/www/pulsars,
REMOTE_ADDR => 18.97.14.84,
SERVER_PORT => 443,
SERVER_ADDR => 157.182.3.38,
SERVER_NAME => pulsars.nanograv.org,
SERVER_SOFTWARE => Apache/2.4.37 (Rocky Linux) OpenSSL/1.1.1k,
SERVER_SIGNATURE => ,
HTTP_CONNECTION => Keep-Alive,
HTTP_HOST => pulsars.nanograv.org,
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING => br,gzip,
HTTP_IF_MODIFIED_SINCE => Thu, 12 Sep 2024 06:27:45 GMT,
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE => en-US,en;q=0.5,
HTTP_ACCEPT => text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8,
HTTP_USER_AGENT => CCBot/2.0 (https://commoncrawl.org/faq/),
SSL_TLS_SNI => pulsars.nanograv.org,
HTTPS => on,
SCRIPT_URI => https://pulsars.nanograv.org/psrsearch,
SCRIPT_URL => /psrsearch,
UNIQUE_ID => Z1bKfT2lj5NoC@QUzlh2FwAAAEc,
HTTP_AUTHORIZATION => ,
REDIRECT_STATUS => 200,
REDIRECT_SSL_TLS_SNI => pulsars.nanograv.org,
REDIRECT_HTTPS => on,
REDIRECT_SCRIPT_URI => https://pulsars.nanograv.org/psrsearch,
REDIRECT_SCRIPT_URL => /psrsearch,
REDIRECT_UNIQUE_ID => Z1bKfT2lj5NoC@QUzlh2FwAAAEc,
REDIRECT_HTTP_AUTHORIZATION => ,
FCGI_ROLE => RESPONDER,
PHP_SELF => /index.php,
REQUEST_TIME_FLOAT => 1733741181.0113,
REQUEST_TIME => 1733741181
)
separator .
orderBy id
orderDir asc
1 registerIP
2 access
always
renew
tracker.sid c2ba481b0ee25518bcdb98ecd3840589
tracker.ssid c2ba481b0ee25518bcdb98ecd3840589
tracker.rsid c2ba481b0ee25518bcdb98ecd3840589
  • site 0.049 seconds (+0.049); 2.00 MB (+2.000) - afterInitialise
  • site 0.064 seconds (+0.015); 2.00 MB (0.000) - afterRoute
  • site 0.076 seconds (+0.012); 2.00 MB (0.000) - afterDispatch
  • site 0.086 seconds (+0.009); 2.00 MB (0.000) - beforeRenderModule mod_breadcrumbs (Breadcrumbs)
  • site 0.092 seconds (+0.006); 4.00 MB (+2.000) - afterRenderModule mod_breadcrumbs (Breadcrumbs)
  • site 0.093 seconds (+0.001); 4.00 MB (0.000) - onAfterRender
  • site 0.094 seconds (+0.001); 4.00 MB (0.000) - sessionStore
4 MB

18 Queries Logged: 0.018499374389648 seconds

  1. SELECT data
      FROM `jos_session`
      WHERE `session_id` = 'bbeb8699cd628fbaabc27424e73edc8c'
  2. DELETE
      FROM `jos_session`
      WHERE `session_id` = 'bbeb8699cd628fbaabc27424e73edc8c'
  3. SELECT data
      FROM `jos_session`
      WHERE `session_id` = 'c2ba481b0ee25518bcdb98ecd3840589'
  4. SELECT extension_id AS id,element AS "option",params,enabled
      FROM `jos_extensions`
      WHERE `type` = 'component'
      AND `element` = 'com_languages'
  5. SELECT session_id
      FROM `jos_session`
      WHERE `session_id` = 'c2ba481b0ee25518bcdb98ecd3840589'
      LIMIT 1
  6. INSERT INTO `jos_session` (`session_id`,`client_id`,`time`,`ip`)
      VALUES ('c2ba481b0ee25518bcdb98ecd3840589','0','1733741181','18.97.14.84')
  7. SELECT extension_id AS id,element AS "option",params,enabled
      FROM `jos_extensions`
      WHERE `type` = 'component'
      AND `element` = 'com_members'
  8. SELECT b.id, b.title
      FROM `jos_usergroups` AS `a`
      LEFT JOIN jos_usergroups AS b
      ON b.lft <= a.lft
      AND b.rgt >= a.rgt
      WHERE `a`.`id` = '1'
  9. SELECT *
      FROM `jos_viewlevels`
  10. SELECT folder AS type,element AS name,protected,params
      FROM `jos_extensions`
      WHERE `enabled` >= '1'
      AND `type` = 'plugin'
      AND `state` >= '0'
      AND `access` IN ('1','1')
      ORDER BY `ordering` ASC
  11. SELECT m.id,m.menutype,m.title,m.alias,m.note,m.path AS route,m.link,m.type,m.level,m.language,m.browserNav,m.access,m.params,m.home,m.img,m.template_style_id,m.component_id,m.parent_id,e.element AS component
      FROM `jos_menu` AS `m`
      LEFT JOIN jos_extensions AS e
      ON e.extension_id = m.component_id
      WHERE `m`.`published` = '1'
      AND `m`.`parent_id` > '0'
      AND `m`.`client_id` = '0'
      ORDER BY `m`.`lft` ASC
  12. SELECT jos_template_styles.id,jos_template_styles.home,jos_template_styles.template,jos_template_styles.params,jos_extensions.protected
      FROM `jos_template_styles`
      INNER JOIN jos_extensions
      ON jos_extensions.element = jos_template_styles.template
      WHERE `jos_template_styles`.`client_id` = '0'
      AND `jos_extensions`.`enabled` = '1'
      AND `jos_extensions`.`type` = 'template'
      AND jos_extensions.`client_id` = `jos_template_styles`.`client_id`
      ORDER BY `home` DESC
  13. SELECT extension_id AS id,element AS "option",params,enabled
      FROM `jos_extensions`
      WHERE `type` = 'component'
      AND `element` = 'com_psrsearch'
  14. SELECT extension_id AS id,element AS "option",params,enabled
      FROM `jos_extensions`
      WHERE `type` = 'component'
      AND `element` = 'com_users'
  15. SELECT m.id,m.title,m.module,m.position,m.content,m.showtitle,m.params,mm.menuid,e.protected
      FROM `jos_modules` AS `m`
      LEFT JOIN jos_modules_menu AS mm
      ON mm.moduleid = m.id
      LEFT JOIN jos_extensions AS e
      ON e.element = m.module
      AND e.client_id = m.client_id
      WHERE `m`.`published` = '1'
      AND `e`.`enabled` = '1'
      AND (`m`.`publish_up` IS NULL OR `m`.`publish_up` <= '2024-12-09 10:46:21' )
      AND (`m`.`publish_down` IS NULL OR `m`.`publish_down` >= '2024-12-09 10:46:21' )
      AND `m`.`access` IN ('1','1')
      AND `m`.`client_id` = '0'
      AND (`mm`.`menuid` = '154' OR `mm`.`menuid` <= '0' )
      ORDER BY `m`.`position` ASC,`m`.`ordering` ASC
  16. SELECT extension_id AS id,element AS "option",params,enabled
      FROM `jos_extensions`
      WHERE `type` = 'component'
      AND `element` = 'com_content'
  17. SELECT extension_id AS id,element AS "option",params,enabled
      FROM `jos_extensions`
      WHERE `type` = 'component'
      AND `element` = 'com_categories'
  18. UPDATE `jos_session`
      SET `data` = '__default|a:9:{s:15:\"session.counter\";i:1;s:19:\"session.timer.start\";i:1733741181;s:18:\"session.timer.last\";i:1733741181;s:17:\"session.timer.now\";i:1733741181;s:8:\"registry\";O:23:\"Hubzero\\Config\\Registry\":2:{s:7:\"\0*\0data\";O:8:\"stdClass\":1:{s:1:\"0\";s:7:\"session\";}s:9:\"separator\";s:1:\".\";}s:4:\"user\";C:17:\"Hubzero\\User\\User\":22:{a:1:{s:5:\"guest\";b:1;}}s:11:\"tracker.sid\";s:32:\"c2ba481b0ee25518bcdb98ecd3840589\";s:12:\"tracker.ssid\";s:32:\"c2ba481b0ee25518bcdb98ecd3840589\";s:12:\"tracker.rsid\";s:32:\"c2ba481b0ee25518bcdb98ecd3840589\";}',`time` = '1733741181',`ip` = '18.97.14.84'
      WHERE `session_id` = 'c2ba481b0ee25518bcdb98ecd3840589'
  • onAfterInitialise Method plgSystemP3p::onAfterInitialise /core/plugins/system/p3p/p3p.php:21
  • onAfterInitialise Method plgSystemRemember::onAfterInitialise /core/plugins/system/remember/remember.php:20
  • onAfterInitialise Method plgSystemHubzero::onAfterInitialise /core/plugins/system/hubzero/hubzero.php:21
  • onAfterInitialise Method plgSystemXFeed::onAfterInitialise /core/plugins/system/xfeed/xfeed.php:21
  • onAfterInitialise Method plgSystemSupergroup::onAfterInitialise /core/plugins/system/supergroup/supergroup.php:113
  • onAfterInitialise Method plgSystemReferrerpolicy::onAfterInitialise /core/plugins/system/referrerpolicy/referrerpolicy.php:21
  • onAfterRoute Method plgSystemJquery::onAfterRoute /core/plugins/system/jquery/jquery.php:21
  • onAfterRoute Method plgSystemSpamjail::onAfterRoute /core/plugins/system/spamjail/spamjail.php:21
  • onAfterRoute Method plgSystemIncomplete::onAfterRoute /core/plugins/system/incomplete/incomplete.php:21
  • onAfterRoute Method plgSystemUnconfirmed::onAfterRoute /core/plugins/system/unconfirmed/unconfirmed.php:21
  • onAfterRoute Method plgSystemUnapproved::onAfterRoute /core/plugins/system/unapproved/unapproved.php:21
  • onAfterRoute Method plgSystemPassword::onAfterRoute /core/plugins/system/password/password.php:21
  • onAfterDispatch Method plgSystemMobile::onAfterDispatch /core/plugins/system/mobile/mobile.php:22
  • onAfterDispatch Method plgSystemDebug::onAfterDispatch /core/plugins/system/debug/debug.php:60
  • onAfterDispatch Method PlgSystemHighlight::onAfterDispatch /core/plugins/system/highlight/highlight.php:25
  • onAfterRender Method plgSystemSef::onAfterRender /core/plugins/system/sef/sef.php:21