Which scientist discovered the first pulsar in 1967 as a doctoral student?

Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered the first pulsar in 1967 while she was a doctoral student.

Working with her supervisor Antony Hewish at the University of Cambridge, Bell Burnell helped build and analyze data from a radio telescope designed to study interplanetary scintillation. She noticed a strange, highly regular signal in the charts, informally marking it “LGM,” for “Little Green Men,” before its natural origin became clear.

The source was named CP 1919 and later recognized as a pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation. Bell Burnell’s discovery opened a new field of astronomy and provided evidence for the existence of neutron stars, which had been predicted theoretically.

The 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle, not Bell Burnell. She later received major honors, including the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2018. The discovery is frequently discussed in histories of women’s contributions to science.