19/03/2013

This week’s programme comes from Friars School in Bangor where, as part of the Bangor Science Festival, students put their questions to the astronomer who discovered pulsars, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

Pulsars are the spinning, super-dense, high energy remains of exploded stars. As they spin they send out a beam of radiation like a cosmic lighthouse. Jocelyn discovered them while she was working on a radio telescope for her Ph.D in 1967. She noticed a series of regular pulses coming from a particular patch of sky. It took a while to find the signal again and to eliminate the possibility that it was man-made interference but eventually it was confirmed that Jocelyn had identified a new type of star and made one of twentieth century astronomy’s greatest discoveries.

Jocelyn is a dedicated communicator of science, a passionate advocate for women in science and she was the Institute of Physics’ first female president. She also challenges some of the usual perceptions of physicists with her religious faith – she’s a Quaker – and her love of the arts, especially poetry. In this week's Science Cafe she answers questions from the Ysgol Friars students on her choice of career; the battles she’s fought as a woman working in the very male-dominated world of physics; her religious faith; and the existence of extra-terrestrial life.

Links

BBC Science: Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Bangor Science Festival