Although it is generally
not appreciated (or even known) by the general public nor the typical
introductory astronomy student,
women have made critically important contributions to the field of astronomy and
astrophysics. In many cases, their work has enjoyed widespread recognition and
appreciation within the field, and this should signal any budding women
scientists to consider the subject as one that could lead to a rewarding
career.
Nevertheless, it is also true that in some
cases, women astronomers were certainly not give the credit they deserved, and
it would be dishonest not to admit this. In some cases, of course, this had
nothing to do with their gender, while in other cases, it certainly did.
Around the turn of the century, many women
were employed in astronomy as "calculators", individuals whose task
it was to go through laborious mathematical calculations of the positions and
motions of astronomical objects. It was accepted by many males that women were better-equipped to carry out such activities, as opposed to
the more "creative" scientific work done by males. Somewhere in
between were those women who were involved with work that required intelligent
pattern-recognition capabilities, and were every bit as capable as their male
counterparts, but who never enjoyed the same status as the men did.
Here are some of the individuals whose
stories should be known. I also encourage you to check out some of the web
sites that I have listed below.
Discovered
pulsars as part of her Ph.D. thesis work. Ryle and Hewish provided a
theoretical explanation based on a concept of neutron stars, a type of star
suggested by Fritz Zwicky and Walter Baade many
decades earlier to exist. Ryle and Hewish got the Nobel Prize. Bell got the
proverbial "pat-on-the-back".
Annie Cannon was an expert stellar spectroscopist and the first person to carefully and
systematically classify the spectra of stars on a
large scale. Near the turn of the century, Cannon began working on a project
began by Henry Draper, to classify all the stellar spectra that could be
obtained with a modest-sized objective prism instrument. Although Draper died
before the project was very far underway, Draper's widow sponsored its
continuation, eventually published as the Henry Draper Catalog. It contained
spectral classifications of approximately a quarter of a million stars, done
mostly by Cannon herself. This was followed by the Henry
Draper Extension, bringing the total number classified to one-third of a
million. Most stars brighter than about 9th magnitude are
still referred to by their HD or HDE numbers, and the spectral catalog formed
the basis of almost all modern spectral classifications in use today.
"All dogmatic religions are
fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as
final." - Hypatia
"The last scientist to work in the
Library was a mathematician, astronomer, and physicist and head of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy -
an extraordinary range of accomplishments for any individual of any age. Her
name was Hypatia. She was born in Alexandria in 370.
At a time when women had few options and were treated as property, Hypatia moved freely and unselfconsciously through
traditional male domains. By all accounts she was a great beauty. She had many
suitors but rejected all offers of marriage. The Alexandria of Hypatia's time - by then under Roman rule - was a city
under grave strain. Slavery had sapped classical civilization of its vitality.
The growing Christian Church was consolidating its power and attempting to
eradicate pagan influence and culture. Hypatia stood
at the center of these mighty social forces. Cyril, the Archbishop of
Alexandria, despised her because of her close friendship with the Roman
governor, and because she was a symbol of learning and science, which were
largely identified by the early Church with paganism. In great personal danger,
she continued to teach and publish until, in the year 415, on her way to work
she was set upon by a fanatical mob of Cyril's parishoners.
They dragged her from her chariot, tore off her clothes, and, armed with
abalone shells, flayed her flesh from her bones. Her remains were burned, her
works obliterated, her name forgotten. Cyril was made a saint." - Carl
Sagan, Cosmos
The key to unlocking the extragalactic
distance scale was made by Leavitt in 1912. While studying photographic plates
of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (two small,
nearby galaxies), she noticed that the Cepheid variable stars pulsated in
brightness in a manner where the period of variation was directly related to
its average brightness. Since all of the stars in each of these galaxies were
at about the same distance, this required that a Period-Luminosity Relation
must exist. Once the luminosities of a few Cepheids
could be calibrated, this relation would allow the distance to any
recognizable Cepheid, and the galaxy in which it resided, to be determined.
This is still the basis for almost all extragalactic distance determinations
done today, where the Cepheids are either used
directly, or other calibrators are tied to the Cepheid distance scale.
The first Ph.D. in
astronomy from Harvard University (male or female). She wrote what many consider to be the best Ph.D.
thesis ever in the field of astronomy. She was the fist person to deduce
that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen. However, as this flew in the
face of what was accepted at the time, she apparently felt compelled to
softening her stance on the correctness of this result. Today, of course, we
know her work to have been correct.
Eventually, her husband, Sergei Gaposchkin, was given a "real" position at
Harvard, while Cecila was forced to restrict her
research into an area which was, at that time, of "secondary"
importance (novae, for which she also made important contributions).
A number of
very talented women scientists and engineers work at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. Those of you who are considering a career in science and
engineering might want to read about them, in their own words.
The web site by Danuta Bois. Check out the Astronomy section (as well as others).
The American
Astronomical Society's Committee on the
Status of Women in Astronomy deals with issues of women in astronomy.
This page has
also been translated into: Polish,
Romanian,
French,
Swedish,
and Slovenian.
For information on women who knew how to
get really tough, see this other page on Warrior Women.