, exhibited at
Cambridge University Library , showing
synchrotron emission in the surrounding
pulsar wind nebula, powered by injection of magnetic fields and particles from the central pulsar On 28 November 1967, while a postgraduate student at Cambridge, Bell Burnell detected a "bit of scruff" on her
chart-recorder papers that tracked across the sky with the stars. The signal had been visible in data taken in August, but as the papers had to be checked by hand, it took her three months to find it. She established that the signal was pulsing with great regularity, at a rate of about one pulse every one and a third seconds. Temporarily dubbed "Little Green Man 1" (LGM-1) the source (now known as
PSR B1919+21) was identified after several years as a rapidly rotating
neutron star. This was later documented by the BBC
Horizon series. In a 2020 lecture at
Harvard, she related how the media was covering the discovery of pulsars, with interviews taking a standard "disgusting" format: Hewish would be asked on the astrophysics, and she would be the "human interest" part, asked about vital statistics, how many boyfriends she had, what colour is her hair, and asked to undo some buttons for the photographs. The Daily Telegraph science reporter shortened "pulsating radio source" to
pulsar. She worked at the
University of Southampton between 1968 and 1973,
University College London from 1974 to 1982 and the
Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (1982–1991). From 1973 to 1987 she was a tutor, consultant, examiner, and lecturer for the
Open University. In 1986, she became the project manager for the
James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on
Mauna Kea, Hawaii, a position she held until 1991. She was Professor of Physics at the Open University from 1991 to 2001. She was also a visiting professor at
Princeton University in the United States and dean of science at the
University of Bath (2001–04), and President of the
Royal Astronomical Society between 2002 and 2004. Bell Burnell was visiting professor of astrophysics at the
University of Oxford, and a Fellow of
Mansfield College in 2007. She was President of the
Institute of Physics between 2008 and 2010. In 2013, Bell Burnell was elected Pro-Chancellor of
Trinity College, Dublin. In February 2018 she was appointed
Chancellor of the
University of Dundee. In 2018, Bell Burnell visited
Parkes, NSW, to deliver the keynote
John Bolton lecture at the Central West Astronomical Society (CWAS) AstroFest event.
Nobel Prize controversy Controversially, Bell did not receive recognition in the 1974
Nobel Prize in Physics. She helped build the
Interplanetary Scintillation Array over two years and initially noticed the anomaly, sometimes reviewing as much as of paper data per night. Bell later said that she had to be persistent in reporting the anomaly in the face of scepticism from Hewish, who initially insisted it was due to interference and man-made. She spoke of meetings held by Hewish and Ryle to which she was not invited. The paper announcing the discovery of pulsars had five authors. Bell's thesis supervisor
Antony Hewish was listed first, Bell second. Hewish was awarded the Nobel Prize, along with the astronomer
Martin Ryle. At the time fellow astronomer Sir
Fred Hoyle criticised Bell's omission. In 1977, Bell Burnell commented:I believe it would demean Nobel Prizes if they were awarded to research students, except in very exceptional cases, and I do not believe this is one of them. The
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in its press release announcing the prize, cited Ryle and Hewish for their pioneering work in radio-astrophysics, with particular mention of Ryle's work on
aperture-synthesis technique and Hewish's decisive role in the discovery of pulsars.
Feryal Özel, an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona, characterized Bell Burnell's contributions as follows: In later years, she opined that "the fact that I was a graduate student and a woman, together, demoted my standing in terms of receiving a Nobel prize." The decision continues to be
debated to this day. ==Awards and honours==