Robert McNees
Jocelyn Bell Burnell transformed astronomy #OTD in 1967 when she made the first observation of a pulsar.
She and advisor Antony Hewish initially dubbed the object LGM-1 (“Little Green Men”) for its regular signal, but soon identified it as a rotating, magnetized neutron star.
Robert McNees
Bell, a grad student, and advisor Antony Hewish constructed a low frequency radio array to study the solar wind’s effect on nearby radio sources. During the commissioning phase, while analyzing data by hand, Bell discovered a regular signal with a stable period of about 1.33s.
Robert McNees
Bell and Hewish ruled out terrestrial interference or a problem with the instrument as explanations. Imagine seeing that remarkably regular signal, and not knowing of an astrophysical source that might produce something like it. They joked that it must be "Little Green Men."
Here is Bell recounting the discovery, during an after-dinner speech during the Eighth Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics.
http://www.bigear.org/vol1no1/burnell.htm
Robert McNees
Before long, the sources were identified as rotating, magnetized neutron stars. A tightly collimated beam of radiation is ejected along the neutron star's magnetic axis. We see regular pulses as it rotates, hence “pulsar."
Here, let me show you with this old tweet by @AstroKatie. (The link in the tweet points to https://www.atnf.csiro.au/outreach/education/everyone/pulsars/index.html)
Robert McNees
Anyway, in 1974 Antony Hewish received the Nobel for his "decisive role in the discovery of pulsars."
As per the Nobel Prize's long tradition of sexism, Jocelyn Bell Burnell was not included. A grad student won the Physics Nobel the previous year, so awarding to a grad student wasn’t the issue.
Robert McNees
Today happens to be Hulse's birthday (again, he was very deserving of their prize).
The Nobel used to note this every year, along with a casual mention of Jocelyn Bell Burnell's discovery.
What they always failed to mention was that both Burnell and Hulse were 24 year old grad students when they made their discoveries. Hulse is a man, so he got a share of the prize. But Burnell is a woman, so the prize was given to her supervisor.
They don't post it anymore.
Robert McNees
In 2004, Jocelyn Bell Burnell wrote
"Although I was not included, I celebrated that first award in 1974 of the Physics Prize for an astronomical discovery. Now I celebrate the fact that we have a better understanding of the teamwork necessary for scientific progress."
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.304.5670.489
Robert McNees
In 2018, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Physics for her discovery of pulsars. The judges and founders of that prize did what the Nobel Committee should have done.
She used the prize money to set up a fund supporting students from under-represented groups who want to become researchers in physics and astronomy.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45425872
Robert McNees
Happy 55th birthday to pulsars, which were discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell.
LoriWitzel
@mcnees @antonioserrata Miss Jocelyn Bell Burnell The Cat approves of this toot. (My kitty was the last of a litter of kittens from a feral mom, fostered by a grad student who named all the kittens after female scientists the grad student thought needed to be better known.) #catsofmastodon #cats #astronomy
Robert McNees
@loriwitzel @antonioserrata MORE LIKE JOCELYN BELL PURR-NELL
Robert McNees
@llewelly Thanks for taking the time to alert me to this. I *think* I have successfully set the image to not display automatically. If it's not too much trouble, would you mind telling me if the current version of the post looks okay to you?
llewelly
@mcnees
It was an important discovery by an important person who deserves more recognition, but I would really appreciate it if people would avoid using gifs that flashes like that.
(I know that's a common way to convey what pulsars are, but no. Just no.)
Robert McNees
I marked the gif in the last post as "Sensitive," so hopefully the very flashy gif won't autoplay. Thanks very much to @transponderings and @llewelly for helpfully pointing this out!
Robert McNees
Evening addendum: The image on the cover of the Joy Division album "Unknown Pleasures" is from a plot that radio astronomer Harold Craft made for his PhD dissertation, using data collected at Arecibo while studying the pulsar discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell.
This Scientific American article tracks down the original sources and links to video of an interview with album cover designer Peter Saville:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/pop-culture-pulsar-origin-story-of-joy-division-s-unknown-pleasures-album-cover-video/
Greg Whitehead
@mcnees I guess @minouette@twitter.com hasn't moved over yet, but she has a nice woodcut of Jocelyn Bell with this plot that I have hanging on the wall in my office https://www.etsy.com/listing/178998272/astronomer-jocelyn-bell-and-the-lgm-1
Robert McNees
Saville first spotted Craft’s plot in “The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy.” It shows up again — printed on a much cheerier blue background — in a 1971 Scientific American article on pulsars by radio astronomer Jeremiah Ostriker.
Odell Abner Dracula
@mcnees @stabforddeathrage thank you
Robert McNees
Okay, let's make this an annual post.
Happy 56th birthday to pulsars, which were discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell.
Image Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Image warning: A very flashy (but very cool) gif of a pulsar.
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