In the early 1970s, in their quest for the mysterious celestial beacons called pulsars, astrophysicist Taylor and his graduate student Hulse, along with other scientists at UMass-Amherst, used discarded telephone poles and wire mesh ordered from the Sears catalog to build a powerful radiotelescope next to the Quabbin Reservoir. The telescope's receiver, later attached to a telescope in Puerto Rico, was one of the inexpensive resources that helped make possible the discovery that earned the Nobel prize. We built it mostly out of used, surplus parts and whatever. It was pretty low budget. At UMass, the Swedish Academy's announcement was met with pride.
Radio astronomers use specialized telescopes to observe radio emissions from celestial objects.
Physicists and astronomers yesterday said the discovery was one that had long been considered of Nobel caliber. He is such a modest, thoughtful, insightful, organized, hard-working and pleasant person. Pulsars, for which British astronomer Antony Hewish received the Nobel Prize in 1974, were discovered in 1967. Many astronomers have since grumbled that graduate student Jocelyn Bell, who actually made the discovery under Hewish's direction, was unfairly bypassed for the honor. At a press conference yesterday in Princeton, Hulse said he never forgot the moment the odd new pulsar showed up in the radio data.