OTD In Space – February 24: Pulsars First Discovered
On February 24, 1968, an astronomy grad student Jocelyn Bell announced that she had discovered the first pulsar.
A few months earlier, she noticed what she called a "bit of scruff" in the data from her telescope. A signal was sending pulses every 1.3 seconds. At first she and her advisor, Anthony Hewish, thought it could have come from aliens. They ruled out that option when they found another signal coming from a different part of the sky. Bell and Hewish found four pulsars before publishing their findings, but they still had no explanation. Scientists have since figured out that pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars that radiate narrow beams of light in opposite directions.
A few months earlier, she noticed what she called a "bit of scruff" in the data from her telescope. A signal was sending pulses every 1.3 seconds. At first she and her advisor, Anthony Hewish, thought it could have come from aliens. They ruled out that option when they found another signal coming from a different part of the sky. Bell and Hewish found four pulsars before publishing their findings, but they still had no explanation. Scientists have since figured out that pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars that radiate narrow beams of light in opposite directions.
Transcript
00:00 On this day in space.
00:03 On February 24th, 1968, an astronomy grad student, Jocelyn Bell,
00:08 announced that she had discovered the first pulsar.
00:11 A few months earlier, she noticed what she called a bit of "scruff" in the data from her telescope.
00:16 A signal was sending pulses every 1.3 seconds.
00:19 At first, she and her advisor, Anthony Hewish, thought it could have come from aliens.
00:24 They ruled out that option when they found another signal coming from a different part of the sky.
00:28 Bell and Hewish found four pulsars before publishing their findings, but they still had no explanation.
00:33 Scientists have since figured out that pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars
00:36 that radiate narrow beams of light in opposite directions.
00:39 And that's what happened on this day in space.
00:42 [ ♪ ]