When one thinks of an astronomer, they may be inclined to picture an old man sitting alone in an observatory, looking up at the stars. But one of the strangest, most captivating objects in the sky was first discovered by a young woman in 1967­ – although the Nobel Prize for the discovery was given to her supervisor instead.

Born in Northern Ireland in 1943, Jocelyn Bell was raised in a Quaker family (footnote 1). As a girl and later a young woman in the 1950s trying to learn science, life was not easy – at her primary school, only boys were allowed to take technical subjects, and girls were banished to cookery and cross-stitching [1]. She was only allowed to take science classes after her parents campaigned hard for her to do so. At boarding school she was inspired by her physics teacher, Mr. Tillott, who encouraged her to progress further in physics [1]. Although later on going to the University of Cambridge as a graduate student, she suffered from imposter syndrome (footnote 2) and was convinced that she would be thrown out at any time, which pushed her to work even harder [2].

In 1967, while still a graduate student, she was part of the team that assembled the Interplanetary Scintillation Array at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory and later discovered the first four pulsars while processing the data from the telescope [2]. Since the radio telescope would also pick up human interference, like radio stations and thermostats, her job was to filter out the human interference and keep the remaining data. She first noted the strange pulsating signals in a particular part of the sky; after her advisor asked her to check with another telescope, they confirmed that there was indeed a signal coming from the first ever discovered pulsar, now known as PSR B1919+21. She had famously labeled the strange signal LGM – short for Little Green Men [2].

Despite this remarkable discovery, Bell Burnell was not awarded the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics; the prize instead went to Antony Hewish, her PhD supervisor, and Martin Ryle, the Head of the Cambridge Radio Astronomy Group, for devising the method of linking several telescopes located physically apart to enlarge their total combined aperture, a revolutionary method in radio astronomy. Some astronomers, including Fred Hoyle, one of the formulators of stellar nucleosynthesis (the creation of new chemical elements in stars), criticized this decision, and it has been a point of controversy ever since. Many more sensational articles even go as far as to portray Hewish, her advisor, as an unsympathetic figure, but he was in fact supportive of his student’s work, and his development of the techniques and interpretation of the discovery also deserved to be recognized. Bell Burnell believed that a Nobel Prize should not be given to a graduate student (as she was at the time) unless in exceptional cases, but was upset by other media encounters. In a recent lecture, she described that reporters would ask Hewish about the astrophysics, and she would largely get personal questions, like how many boyfriends she had, and what color her hair was [7].

Jocelyn Bell became engaged to Martin Burnell, a local government officer, in 1968; her husband’s job required him to move around the UK frequently, and so she had to move positions frequently and work part-time for 18 years, raising her son in the process. As a result, when one looks at her research output, it may not be as impressive (at first sight) when compared to her male colleagues of a similar age because of such family commitments. Nevertheless, she continued to work on astronomy for many years, studying mainly neutron stars and pulsars, and campaigned for the involvement of more women in astrophysics. Active in the scientific community, she was the first ever female president of both the Institute of Physics (2008-2010) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2014-2018).

Despite living in the 21st century, where there has been significant progress on many fronts of gender equality, Bell Burnell’s story still highlights an interesting question. On the surface, opportunities may still be equally available to people of all genders, but many women are still held back from their work, often by choice, by traditional family roles, as they tend to take up the majority of family duties. Although many only know Bell Burnell for the discovery of pulsars and “missing out” on the Nobel Prize, this story also forces us to examine the deeper issues regarding gender equality beyond just accessibility, and one can only wonder what she could have done if she had worked full-time.

1 Quakers: Members of the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian community.

2 Imposter syndrome: A feeling of inferiority among some high achievers, especially graduate students (master or PhD students), who attribute their achievements to luck instead of their competence and fear they will be found out as a fraud one day. There is a growing awareness in Western countries of this common psychological phenomenon which may lead to anxiety and depression among graduate students [8].

References:

[1] Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell: ‘Did I feel cheated over the Nobel Prize? No. I know from another pulsar astronomer who won it that you get no peace. You’re asked about every subject under the sun. It quite wrecks your life’. (2018, May 8). Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved from https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/dame-jocelyn-bell-burnell-did-i-feel-cheated-over-the-nobel-prize-no-i-know-from-another-pulsar-astronomer-who-won-it-that-you-get-no-peace-youre-asked-about-every-subject-under-the-sun-it-quite-wrecks-your-life-36882138.html

[2] Walsh, L. (n.d.) Journeys of discovery: Jocelyn Bell Burnell and pulsars. Retrieved from https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/journeysofdiscovery-pulsars

[3] Cofield, C. (2016, April 22). What Are Pulsars? Retrieved from https://www.space.com/32661-pulsars.html

[4] Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA. (2017, March). Neutron Stars. Retrieved from https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/neutron_stars1.html

[5] Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA. (2007, August 27). Astronomers Pioneer New Method for Probing Exotic Matter. Retrieved from https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/27aug07.html

[6] Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA. (2017, March). Neutron stars in different light. Retrieved from https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/neutron_stars2.html

[7] CfA Colloquium. (2020, February 14). The discovery of pulsars – a graduate student’s tale [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot1Ggv6YZyQ

[8] Weir, K. (2013, November). Feel like a fraud?. gradPSYCH. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2013/11/fraud