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Jocelyn Bell Burnel

1945 - Present

On Feb. 29, 1968, Bell Burnel was the first to discover a pulsating radio source, or "pulsar," in the depths of outer space. First noticing it the previous November, she dubbed it "LGM," short for "little green men." Soviet astrophysicist Iosif Shklovsky called it "the greatest astronomical discovery of the twentieth century."