Antony Hewish obituary

Radio astronomer who won the Nobel prize for physics for his role in the discovery of pulsars

In 1967, a team led by the radio astronomer Antony Hewish, who has died aged 97, discovered pulsars, rapidly pulsating radio sources that turned out to be due to rotating, magnetised neutron stars, the ultra-dense collapsed remnants of massive stars.

This was one of the most exciting astronomical events of the second half of the 20th century: the precise timing of the pulses from these objects is more accurate than the best atomic clocks and has allowed precision tests of general relativity.

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