Jocelyn Bell Burnell Awarded The Copley Medal

 

Jocelyn Bell Burnell won the Copley Medal. This is the oldest scientific award still in existence. She was instrumental in the discovery of pulsars. Pulsars are a type of star that rotates and emits high amounts of electromagnetic radiation. The radiation comes out of the magnetic poles. They are spherical in shape and have mass that exceeds that of the sun. Pulsars were only discovered in 1967 and changed what scientists knew about outer space. Space is a strange environment of black holes, planets, stars, comets, asteroids, and dark matter. Pulsars are just another strange object that astronomers and astrophysicists examine. Classified as a neutron star its rapid spinning from a far away distance makes it look like a blinking  of lights. Burnell did not get a Nobel Prize in 1974, but instead it went to her PhD supervisor. She was a graduate student that contributed to a major discovery and would not get recognition until decades later. Jocelyn Bell Burnell continues to study various binary starts and has assisted in the construction of radio telescopes. Later She served as president of  the Institute of Physics. Being the first to identify pulsars was an important  advancement in the field of astrophysics.