Astrophile: Stopped Clocks Deepen Pulsar Enigmas

How do they know that the signal is not being blocked by some planetary body...?

Said body being large enough to continuously block the signal while earth circled the sun more than one full revolution? Or was this body near the pulsar, larger than the pulsar itself, AND able to hold position for 580 days? If this is a "planetary body", the primary around which it circles must be well beyond immense! Such a "planetary body" ought to have become a star itself, and be visible on its own . . . not to mention that its primary must be vastly larger, and therefore either luminescent, or a black hole.

But the article states that he was observing the star for a five-minute period once a month, so the star itself was not blocked; only the pulsing was stopped. Add the fact that other pulsars have stopped and started [pulsing], and the possibility of planetary bodies being properly located to make this happen in each case just doesn't make sense at all. Further, if such bodies occurred, we should see ordinary stars switching on and off; instead, we observe planets around stars when their light output dims by some tiny fraction of one percent for a short interval (NOT by 100% for 580 days).

Interesting article. After a fairly precise definition of a pulsar (which, of course is based on the Standard Model rather than direct observation of a pulsar actually being formed from a supernova), we are treated to the fudging of bets: "Details are elusive, ...somehow producing a beam of radiation along the magnetic field axis...Camilo suggests that some of the unpredictability of pulsars may be due to old age...RRATs do seem to be fairly old..." concluding with Camilo saying "The reality is that we don't really know"...

This was a breakthrough discovery, for which Jocelyn Bell should have received far more recognition that she did, including a share of the Nobel Prize.

The following is adapted from a Wikipedia article about her:

Susan Jocelyn Bell (Burnell) discovered the first radio pulsars with her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish, for which Hewish shared the Nobel Prize in Physics.

The paper announcing the discovery had five authors, Hewish's name being listed first, Bell's second. Dr. Hewish was awarded the Nobel Prize, along with Dr. Martin Ryle, without the inclusion of Bell as a co-recipient, which was controversial, and was roundly condemned by Hewish's fellow astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in their press release announcing the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, cited Ryle and Hewish for their pioneering work in radio-astrophysics, with particular mention of Ryle's work on aperture-synthesis technique, and Hewish's decisive role in the discovery of pulsars. Dr. Iosif Shklovsky, recipient of the 1972 Bruce Medal, had sought out Bell at the 1970 International Astronomical Union's General Assembly, to tell her: "Miss Bell, you have made the greatest astronomical discovery of the twentieth century."