Origins of a scientifique vocation
Jocelyn Bell Burnell is an astrophysicist born in 1943 in Belfaste, Nothern Ireland. Already passionate about astronomy. She often accompanied her father , and during their multiple visits, Jocelyn was encouraged by the employees to pursue her dreams and hang onto her passion for the universe and its stars.
A non-waited discovery
In 1967, while Jocelyn was at Cambridge University, she set up a radio telescope to study quasars , under the watch of Antony Hewish, her thesis director.
Taking a look at the analysis, she spots a strange signal repeating itself once every second, coming from the same position in the sky.
This signal is so strange that it will be called "Little Green Men 1",
mocking possible alien's origin of the signal 👽.
In fact, Jocelyn just discovered the first pulsar, a star emitting radio frequencies at regular intervals.
An injustice revealing gender inequalities
Yet, in 1974, the Nobel Prize of Physics was awarded to Antony Hewish, Jocelyn was not even mentioned. At that time, it was impossible to think that a student could be the one to make that big of a discovery ! And to think that a woman could be the head of it was even harder ! Women were only rarely recognized in science.
A prestigious price to the service of futur scientifique generation
In 2018, years later, Jocelyn Bell Burnell received the prestigious Breakthrough Prize, and acquired three millions dollars with this prize, and had chosen to give all of it to scholarships for young women and disadvantaged people who opted for the same direction as her, science.
