15 July

1943/1967: On 15 July 1943, Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell was born. In 1967, she celebrated her 24th birthday by discovering the first pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star that sends out regular bursts of radio waves and other electromagnetic radiation.

She was working on her PhD at the University of Cambridge as a research student and constructed and operated the departmental radio telescope. The paper recordings of the radio waves received by the telescope were analysed by Bell and the analysis revealed the new phenomenon.