Vera Rubin

Vera Cooper Rubin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 23,

1928. She was the younger of the two daughters of Philip Cooper, an
electrical engineer, and Rose Cooper nee Applebaum (Larsen 2019). She
passed away at age 88 on Christmas Day 2016 (Domonoske 2016). Vera
Rubin was a pioneer for female scientists and a groundbreaking astronomer
whose findings confirmed the existence of dark matter and demonstrated
that galaxies are embedded in dark-matter halos, (Bahcall 2017).
In an interview with Vera Rubin in 1990, Marcia Bartusiak recounted
the story of how after Rubin and her family moved to Washington D.C. when
she was ten, she would stay awake at night looking out of her window at the
moving constellations and meteors. Her passion for astronomy was strong
her entire life and would motivate her to be the seminal astronomer she
became (Bartusiak 1990, 88). She eventually attended Vassar College in New
York, which was also attended by Maria Mitchell, the first professional female
astronomer in the United States. When she graduated, she was the only
Astronomy major. She earned her masters degree at Cornell and her PhD
from Georgetown University. In 1965, she received a research position at the
Carnegie Institutions Department of Terrestrial Magnetism and continued her
work there for the rest of her career (Bahcall 2017).
Vera Rubins important work revolves around measuring how fast
galaxies spin from their centers to their fringes. She found that they spin so
fast that they should fall apart, stars falling off as gravity declines. The
explanation she found for these flat rotation curves is that galaxies are
kept intact by being embedded in dark matter, which is matter that we
cannot detect which makes up at least 85 percent of the universe (Bartusiak
1990, 88)(Bahcall 2017). To make these conclusions, Rubin worked with
fellow astronomer Kent Ford for many years doing extensive studies, and she
confirmed the existence of dark matter which had been proposed in 1933 by
Fritz Zwicky, a Swiss astrophysicist (Domonoske 2016)(Bartusiak 1990).
Vera Cooper Rubin was a pioneer for female astronomers. She was not
admitted to Princetons astronomy program because she was a woman, was
the first woman to be allowed in to observe at Caltechs Palomar
Observatory, and advocated for women publically to be admitted to scientific
organizations and institutions (Domonoske 2016). She is quotes to have
written:
I live and work with three basic assumptions:
1.) There is no problem in science that can be solved by a man
that cannot be solved by a woman.
2.) Worldwide, half of all brains are in women.
3.) We all need permission to do science, but, for reasons that
are deeply ingrained in history, this permission is more often
given to men than women. (Domonoske 2016)
 As an advocate for scientific research and for women in science, Vera
Cooper Rubin broke every glass ceiling in the book as one of the worlds
most important modern astronomers, setting an amazing example for
women in all branches of science. Her discoveries have shaped modern
science and will continue to be influential for a long time.
Bibliography
Bahcall, Neta A. 2017. "Vera Rubin (1928-2016)." Nature 542 (7639).
Bartusiak, Marcia. 1990. "The Woman who Spins the Stars." Discover 11 (10):
88-94.
Domonoske, Camila. 2016. "Vera Rubin, Who Confirmed Existence Of Dark
Matter, Dies At 88." NPR: The Two-Way. December 26. Accessed March
3, 2017. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/12/26/507022497/vera-rubin-who-confirmed-existence-of-
dark-matter-dies-at-88.
Larsen, Kristen. 2009. "Vera Cooper Rubin." Jewish Women: A
Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. March 1. Accessed March 3,
2017. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/rubin-vera-cooper.