For #Spacetober prompt telescope: #astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell as a grad student in ‘67 discovered the 1st radio pulsar, a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of EM radiation. This radiation can only be observed when the star is pointed towards us; like the light from a lighthouse, it appears to pulse at a precise frequency. She had been working with her supervisor Hewish & others to construct a radio telescope to study quasars.
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#linocut #printmaking #histsci
She noted some “scruff” on her chart-recorder, & that pulses were regular, occurring every 1.337 seconds. Hewish was initially scornful & insisted regular pulses must be noise from a human made source. He dubbed this object ‘LGM 1’ for “Little Green Men 1”, a playful joke about their uncertainty about what could emit radiation so regularly - obviously it could only be a communication from extraterrestrials hahaha! After she found other such sources, in different places with different 2/n
frequencies, were her colleagues convinced & this lead to the development of the pulsar model. It is now known PSR B1919+21.
The 1968 paper announcing this discovery in Nature has 5 authors, lead by Hewish, followed by Bell. In 1974, Hewish won the Nobel Prize for this discovery, along with fellow radioastronomer Martin Ryle. That Jocelyn Bell was not included has been condemned by many leading astronomers.
Not only the discovery, but the presentation of the data (by colleague HD Croft Jr)
is impressive and elegant. The diagram was included in books on data visualization and was used in the iconic design of Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’ album.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell has gone on to a very distinguished career in astrophysics. She became the first female president of the Institute of #Physics and of the Royal Society of Edinburg. She helped set up the UK Athena Swan #womenInSTEM programme.
In 2018 she was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for her discovery of #pulsars & leadership in science. She donated money to the Institute of Physics for PhD scholarships for underrepresented people including women, ethnic minorities & refugee students in physics!
https://minouette.etsy.com/listing/178998272
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