Vera Robin

Vera Robin

Vera Rubin was an American astronomer who made significant contributions to the study of galaxy rotation rates. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 23, 1928.

Rubin received her bachelor's degree in astronomy from Vassar College in 1948 and went on to earn her Ph.D. in astronomy from Cornell University in 1954. After completing her studies, she took a position at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, where she worked for more than 50 years.

Throughout her career, Rubin made significant contributions to the study of galaxy rotation rates and the distribution of dark matter in the universe. In the 1970s, she and her colleague Kent Ford discovered that the outer stars in many spiral galaxies were rotating at the same speed as the inner stars, which was not consistent with the predictions of the prevailing theory at the time. This discovery provided strong evidence for the existence of dark matter, which is thought to make up a significant portion of the mass of the universe.

Rubin received numerous awards and honors for her work, including the National Medal of Science, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, and the Bruce Medal. She passed away on December 25, 2016 at the age of 88