Suggested Talk Hashtags

As part of the new Planet Hunters classification interface, the Summary page (see below) suggests some hashtags you could use to label the light curves you’re seeing in Talk and in the Talk comment area on the Summary page. A few people on Talk have asked for a full list, so here’s a handy list of the first set of hashtags suggested by the science team at launch of the new Planet Hunters.

Summary Page

Classification summary page. A suggested hashtag to be on the eye out for is suggested in the left in the red box.

#rrlyrae

RR Lyrae Star – Pulsating star with periods ~1/2 day

#cepheid

Pulsating star with periods >1 day.

#pulsating

Pulsators – Rapid up and down changes in brightness on the order of a few hours

#eclipsingbinary

Eclipsing binary – A star transits another star, often exhibiting V-shape and uneven transit depth

#cv

Cataclysmic variable – Cataclysmic variables (cv’s) are a class of stars where the sudden ignition of material on the surface of a white dwarf results in gigantic increase in brightness for several days before returning to natural quiescent state.

#variable

Variable star – Change in brightness on timescales greater than 1 day. May be periodic or non-periodic.

#heartbeatstar

Heartbeat star – Two stars get very close together but avoid collision. Their structure changes, and the light curve exhibits a shape like a cadiogram.

#glitch

glitch – Occasional malfunction of data reduction pipeline.

#transitingplanet

Planet transit – A planet goes in front of a star and blocks a portion of the star light

#flare

Stellar flare – Sudden brightening of a star, often associated with massive material ejection. duration of a few hours. Typically non-periodic.

These listed above are suggested hashtags the science team has come up with. A light curve can definitely be described by more than one hashtag. Also do feel free to use your own hashtags too. There are many more ways to describe and sort the light curves and stars. You can see the most frequent hashtags being used by the Planet Hunters community on the left side of Talk under ‘popular hashtags’