The Institute of Space Sciences (IEEC-CSIC) is an institution at the forefront of scientific and technological research with the mission of contributing to the general advance of studies of the Cosmos.

During July 1967, Profs. Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish started taking data at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory that would lead a few months later to the discovery of the first pulsar.

That year, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the event, Neutron Stars and their Environments was the theme of the 1st Institute of Space Sciences Summer School.

Ever since their discovery in the late Sixties, neutron stars had been fascinating objects pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the physical Universe. Neutron stars encompassed matter at densities beyond those in atomic nuclei and under the most intense magnetic and gravitational fields, representing unique laboratories to test our understanding of the extremes of physics: to test general relativity in the strong limit, the acceleration of very high energy cosmic rays, or heat transport at nuclear densities. Two Nobel Prizes had been awarded for discoveries in neutron star physics (Ryle and Hewish 1974; Hulse and Taylor 1993).

In the previous decade or so, thanks to the availability of new-generation instrumentation, there had been high-impact discoveries in neutron star research: close-by (a few hundred light-years) thermally emitting magnetic neutron stars (the so-called XDINSs), extremely magnetic neutron stars known as magnetars, from which crust-quakes during luminous Giant Flares had been observed, accreting millisecond pulsars, jets and wind-blown nebulae probing their powerful particle winds, observations of X-ray bursts in systems accreting at the Eddington luminosity, and radio timing of pulsars that allowed researchers to test General Relativity with unprecedented accuracy, as well as to constrain the equation of state of dense matter.

The School program covered many aspects of neutron stars, from fundamental physics (equation of state, magneto-thermal evolution) to observations of isolated and accreting pulsars and pulsar wind nebulae across the electromagnetic spectrum, including thermonuclear explosions and the generation of gravitational waves in binary systems.

The Institute of Space Sciences welcomed around 30 Master and Doctoral students who attended the Summer School: they broadened their knowledge in this exciting field and got in touch with the other research groups working at the Institute.

• Stellar Evolution of Massive Stars
• Equation of State of Neutron Stars
• Microscopic Properties of Nuclear Matter
• Magnetothermal Evolution of Neutron Stars
• Isolated Pulsars
• Accreting Pulsars
• γ-rays Observations
• Pulsar Wind Nebulae - Very High Energy Emission
• Thermonuclear Explosions in Neutron Stars
• Gravitational wave sources: NS-NS and NS-BH systems