Discovering the First Pulsar - Episode 48

What this episode covers

Astrophysicist and professor, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell reflects on how she helped change astronomy forever.In this episode, learn more about how a peculiar signal from space led Jocelyn to a groundbreaking discovery. She discusses her aerospace journey, building a radio telescope, discovering pulsars, and the 1974 Nobel Prize controversy. This one is going to be cool!Key Takeaways:At the time, women were not often permitted to study science fields in school. Her parents protested this rule and Jocelyn became top of her class in Physics.While attending Cambridge, Jocelyn helped build their radio telescope alongside Astronomers Martin Ryle and Antony Hewish.Originally the telescope was built to study Quasars, which are distant galaxies whose incredibly bright cores are powered by supermassive black holes. While observing and researching the telescope, Jocelyn found a strange "pulse" that occurred at regular intervals. Labeled LGM-1 or Little Green Men 1, it was the first recording of a pulsar.Since pulsars were discovered, over 3,000 have been found today.In 1974, Martin Ryle and Antony Hewish were awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of pulsars. Because Martin and Antony were the telescopes' leaders, Jocelyn, a student at the time, was left out. She has since been awarded several prestigious accolades.Jocelyn encourages audiences to double-check anomalies as they never know which scientific discoveries could be found.Resources:Jocelyn's Bio (Wikipedia) What are pulsars? (Space.com) Journeys of Discovery (University of Cambridge)

PodParley-generated summary based on available episode metadata and transcript content.