Bright galaxies, dark matter, and beyond : the life of astronomer Vera Rubin / Ashley Jean Yeager.

Author
Yeager, Ashley Jean [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, 2021.
Description
1 online resource

Details

Subject(s)
Series
The MIT Press
Summary note
How Vera Rubin convinced the scientific community that dark matter might exist, persevering despite early dismissals of her work. We now know that the universe is mostly dark, made up of particles and forces that are undetectable even by our most powerful telescopes. The discovery of the possible existence of dark matter and dark energy signaled a Copernican-like revolution in astronomy: not only are we not the center of the universe, neither is the stuff of which we're made. Astronomer Vera Rubin (1928-2016) played a pivotal role in this discovery. By showing that some astronomical objects seem to defy gravity's grip, Rubin helped convince the scientific community of the possibility of dark matter. In Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond, Ashley Jean Yeager tells the story of Rubin's life and work, recounting her persistence despite early dismissals of her work and widespread sexism in science. Yeager describes Rubin's childhood fascination with stars, her education at Vassar and Cornell, and her marriage to a fellow scientist. At first, Rubin wasn't taken seriously; she was a rarity, a woman in science, and her findings seemed almost incredible. Some observatories in midcentury America restricted women from using their large telescopes; Rubin was unable to collect her own data until a decade after she had earned her PhD. Still, she continued her groundbreaking work, driving a scientific revolution. She received the National Medal of Science in 1993, but never the Nobel Prize perhaps overlooked because of her gender. She's since been memorialized with a ridge on Mars, an asteroid, a galaxy, and most recently, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory the first national observatory named after a woman.
Notes
Includes index.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Source of description
OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.
Contents
  • Stellar tales
  • The start of darkness
  • Waiting on the stars
  • Threads of research : a rotating universe and radio astronomy
  • Chasing stars
  • A clumpy cosmos
  • Career challenges and galactic questions
  • A taste of astronomy
  • At last, a real astronomer
  • Andromeda's young, hot stars
  • The matter we cannot see
  • More matter than meets the eye
  • Diving into dark matter
  • Gender equality in astronomy : a darker universe?
  • The final nights.
ISBN
  • 0-262-36688-6
  • 0-262-36687-8
OCLC
  • 1262373148
  • 1260470307
International Article Number
  • 9780262366885
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