Model of a pulsar

A new kind of star

Antony Hewish used this model to teach people about pulsars – the new kind of star he and Jocelyn Bell discovered in 1967. The orange ball at the centre represents a neutron star, the incredibly dense remnant of a supernova explosion. The curved wires show magnetic field lines. The foil tubes represent beams of radiation from the neutron star. As the star rotates, the beam turns in the direction of the Earth, and astronomers detect radio pulses. Hewish’s first version of the model was driven by a gramophone motor.