Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell (born 1943, Belfast) is the astrophysicist who first discovered pulsars – rapidly rotating neutron stars that release regular bursts of radiowaves. The discovery is one of the most significant in astrophysics.
While at Cambridge University during her Ph.D., Jocelyn began working on a radio astronomy project using a telescope she herself had helped to construct. She was responsible for monitoring the daily recordings from the telescope, which proved a tedious job until, in November 1967, she began to take notice of unusual signs on the recordings.
After playing with theories of reflections from the moon, or even extraterrestrial origins, Bell noticed that the unusual radio source remained fixed with respect to the stars and was therefore beyond the solar system. Over the next few months, she discovered 3 more pulsating radio sources.
The signals were coming from pulsars.
Burnell was awarded the prestigious Michelson Award with her former graduate advisor Anthony Hewish in 1973.
The following year when Sir Martin Ryle and Anthony Hewish were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “for their pioneering work in astrophysics”, Jocelyn was not acknowledged or recognised for the discovery.
Many astronomers felt she should also have been awarded the Nobel prize. Today Jocelyn Bell Burnell is still working on the advancement of astronomy and is presently Professor of Physics and Department Chair at the Open University, England.
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