Dr. Vera Rubin started observing at Kitt Peak Nationwide Observatory in 1963 on the 36-inch telescope. Credit score: NOIRLab
A century in the past galaxies in our universe perplexed astronomers. Only a decade after the conclusion of what galaxies are, astronomers first seen that spiral galaxies had been rotating unusually. Their outer areas had been rotating across the galactic facilities almost as shortly as their inside “hubs.” One thing should have been serving to the rotation alongside. In 1933, astronomer Fritz Zwicky first prompt that an unseen part, which he referred to as dark matter, should exist.
Three a long time after dark matter was hypothesized, in a breakthrough second, one astronomer collected the primary direct proof of dark matter’s existence. Her title was Vera Rubin, and her work helped to revolutionize astronomy within the center a part of the 20th Century.
Rubin was born Vera Florence Cooper in Philadelphia on July 23, 1928 and died on Dec. 25, 2016. In her lengthy and illustrious profession, Rubin was a fierce advocate for girls in science and a beloved colleague. Regardless of going through sexism and skepticism from the scientific neighborhood, she opened the doorways for a lot of ladies who adopted.
From a younger age, Rubin gazed outdoors her bed room window in Washington D.C. and charted the paths of stars. With the assist of her father, she even constructed a telescope out of cardboard and a small lens. Rubin’s father inspired her curiosity and would take her to D.C. Amateur Astronomer Club Meetings, the place she would hear in regards to the newest concepts. “By about age 12, I would like to remain up and watch the celebrities than fall asleep. I began studying. I began going to the library and studying. However it was initially simply watching the celebrities from my bed room that I actually did. There was simply nothing as attention-grabbing in my life as watching the celebrities each evening,” Rubin mentioned in an interview with Alan Lightman for the American Institute of Physics in 1989
Schooling and sexism

NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
Rubin’s captivation with the motion of objects in a darkish evening sky continued all through her profession. Impressed by Maria Mitchell, the primary lady to turn out to be an expert astronomer in america, Rubin enrolled in Vassar Faculty’s astronomy program after receiving a scholarship. There, she acquired her diploma in 1948 as the only astronomy main. Whereas at Vassar, Rubin additionally labored throughout summers on the Naval Analysis Laboratory. Proper after commencement, she married Robert Rubin, a physicist and naval officer on his option to finishing a doctoral diploma at Cornell College.
Regardless of being accepted to Harvard, Rubin joined her husband at Cornell College, the place she earned her grasp’s diploma in astronomy and studied underneath Philip Morrison, Richard Feynman, and Hans Bethe.
For Rubin’s master’s thesis, she investigated whether or not teams of galaxies moved like different objects within the universe, just like the objects within the solar system orbiting the Solar. Later, the motion Rubin noticed could be often known as the supergalactic plane. Though the paper about this discover was by no means printed and was rejected by editors of the Astrophysical Journal and the Astronomical Journal, Rubin did current the outcomes on the 1950 American Astronomical Society (AAS) Assembly.
After finishing her grasp’s thesis, Rubin was referred to as in by William Shaw, her thesis advisor, who supplied to current Rubin’s findings underneath his title. Right now, Rubin was pregnant and never a member of the AAS. “Instantly, I replied, ‘No. I can go.’ We had no automobile. My dad and mom drove from Washington D.C. to Ithaca, then crossed the snowy New York hills with Bob, me, and their first grandchild, ‘thereby getting old 20 years,’ my father later insisted,” Rubin wrote in her autobiography. Simply 22 on the time, Rubin delivered the speak three weeks after giving delivery.
Her presentation was met with some skepticism. Martin Schwarzschild, an astronomer from Princeton, was the one one within the viewers to supply assist and advised her she needed to collect more data to attract worthwhile conclusions.
Quickly, Rubin graduated and have become a full-time mom. However she couldn’t stay away from astronomy. Whereas taking her younger youngster to the park, Rubin would learn The Astrophysical Journal. There, she realized she missed analysis and, inspired by her husband, determined to pursue a Ph.D. at Georgetown College. Rubin accomplished her diploma in 1954 underneath physicist George Gamow. “Ladies typically required extra luck and perseverance than males did. It helped to have supportive dad and mom and a supportive husband,” she wrote in her autobiography.
Rubin’s dissertation demonstrated that galaxies should not neatly organized all through the universe. As an alternative, they typically cluster collectively. Rubin’s findings had been confirmed fifteen years after her dissertation.
Rotation curves
Rubin taught at Georgetown College for a decade whereas elevating 4 youngsters and conducting analysis. In 1962, she printed her first paper on flat rotation curves within the Astronomical Journal together with six of her graduate college students. Although not effectively acquired then, the paper was referenced for a very long time afterward. On this research, Rubin and her college students discovered that the Milky Way’s rotational pace was flat and didn’t lower as anticipated.
“They didn’t get a dip. They acquired this bizarre flattening. And that flattening meant that there’s extra mass on the edge than we might have anticipated. There’s this disconnect between the plenty we see, which is the celebrities, the gasoline, issues like that. And the mass that’s clearly exerting some form of gravitational affect. In order that classwork kicked off this concept,” says Emily Levesque, an astrophysicist on the College of Washington.
A brand new software to watch the skies
In 1965, Rubin met Kent Ford on the Carnegie Establishment of Washington’s Division of Terrestrial Magnetism (DMT). On the time, Ford developed an improved spectrograph that may very well be used to check galaxy rotation curves. Rubin started by inspecting quasars together with Ford however then determined to concentrate on the rotation of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). “I made a decision to choose an issue that I might go observing and make headway on, hopefully, an issue that folks could be enthusiastic about, however not so [in] that anybody would hassle me earlier than I used to be executed,” Rubin advised Lightman.
Rubin’s concentrate on galaxy rotational curves led to the first direct evidence of dark matter. With Ford’s spectrograph, Rubin employed a number of the world’s strongest telescopes, and have become the first woman to watch with the 5-m telescope at Palomar Mountain Observatory. As Rubin and Ford noticed increasingly more galaxies, they discovered increasingly more proof for the flat rotation curves. In 1970, the crew printed their paper on the rotation curve of the Andromeda Galaxy within the Astrophysical Journal.
“They stored seeing flat curves, and it will definitely became this clear proof that in a spinning galaxy, there may be matter that we will’t see,” says Levesque. “There’s matter that’s clearly behaving gravitationally like different matter, however it’s not interacting with mild in any respect.” Researchers infer the existence of dark matter as a result of results it has on observable matter.
Rubin’s crew supplied probably the most full and concrete proof with a considerable amount of knowledge. “These rotation curves the place you’re plotting the gap of the galaxy in opposition to its velocity had been very, very clear, says Ashley Yeager, Affiliate Information Editor at Science Information and writer of Brilliant Galaxies, Darkish Matter, and Past: The Lifetime of Astronomer Vera Rubin. “And also you’re taking measurements in the kind of mild that our eyes see, and so I believe the neighborhood which was snug with optical astronomy had been round for hundreds of years.”
Vera Rubin’s impression
Rubin was a fierce advocate for girls in science all through her profession. Having confronted a lot skepticism and pushback, Rubin labored to open doorways for different feminine astronomers. On the Carnegie Establishment, Rubin spoke to and inspired many younger ladies in science and invited younger post-docs to work along with her on the DMT. “She additionally made positive that at any huge conferences, they might invite many ladies audio system, and if not, she would contact the organizers,” says Neta Bahcall, a cosmologist at Princeton College and considered one of Rubin’s shut associates. All through her profession, Rubin additionally wrote about and championed different ladies scientists corresponding to Charlotte Moore Sitterly.
“The opposite factor that at all times comes up when speaking about Vera is how many individuals she mentored alongside the best way,” says Yeager. “And I don’t imply that in a light-weight sense. I imply, she actually helped form a whole lot of ladies’s careers and a whole lot of different scientist’s careers and doubtless past scientists. I imply, I take into account she additionally formed my profession.”
What awards did Vera Rubin obtain?
In her lifetime, Rubin acquired greater than a dozen awards and honors. To call a number of, Vera Rubin was elected to the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, acquired the National Medal of Science in 1993, and in 1996 was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the first woman to do so since Carolyn Herschel in 1828. Rubin was by no means awarded the Nobel Prize. “She has received each scientific award {that a} scientist can win besides the Nobel Prize, says Levesque, “and at this level, it’s appeared extra like a evident omission on the Nobel Prize committee’s half.” Rubin authored better than 200 scientific papers on galaxies.
Vera Rubin’s legacy
Rubin devoted her profession to learning the motion of stars and understanding galaxies. Within the second half of 2024, when the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is full, the telescope will host an 8.4-meter instrument, a complicated knowledge processing system, and a 3200-megapixel digicam that can constantly seize photos of the sky. Previous to 2019, the observatory was referred to as the Massive Synoptic Survey Telescope. The telescope is presently present process development at Cerro Pachón, Chile.
When the instrument sees first mild, it would seize knowledge from the celebrities and galaxies that Rubin adored. “My life has been an attention-grabbing voyage,” she as soon as mentioned. “I grew to become an astronomer as a result of I couldn’t think about dwelling on Earth and never making an attempt to grasp how the universe works.”