ASTRO BIO

Felipe Rojas

Mr. Dacey

Astronomy

Jocelyn Bell-Burnell

Born in Northern Ireland, Burnell’s early life foreshadowed her future success. She was a straight A student through her early life, educated in the highest schools in Ireland, one of them being Lurgan College. She soon caught on interest in astronomy, reading, noting, and analyzing series of books having to do with astronomy. Unfortunately, around the 50s was a time that girls could not study science. This was an obstacle that would never stop Jocelyn from achieving her dreams and aspirations. Around that time her skills in school began to diminish, but her physics teacher applauded her because although she wasn’t catching on everything, she did indeed catch on elaborate concepts.

From there life was better, she was learning, getting more and more powerful because knowledge truly is power. She graduated from University of Glasgow in 1965 with a degree in Natural Philosophy, a branch from physics. She even worked on a radio telescope with a man named Hewish, in order to study quasars, a subject not well understood at the time. And then a discovery was made, some scientists say it was the most important one of the 20^th century, a complete revolution to the comprehensive mind of astronomers understanding stellar evolution. She began to notice pulses at one time per second, she was astonished. What was this pulse? Well now it is known as a neutron star, an important in stellar evolution.

Burnell did not quit there, she continued teaching curious students and future astronomers her amazing knowledge. But all the perfection in her life had a speed bump. Remember when her and Hewish were working on that Radio Telescope. Well guess who did not get credit when the Nobel Prize was awarded. Burnell worked hard day and night with data from that project but yet recognition was not awarded.

Although this is true and depressing, she knows what she did and continues to do, she is an icon to astronomy and we now know the true excellence of her genius.