Vera Rubin has died, aged 88. Rubin was the astonomer whose studies of galactic rotation rates and the movement of galaxies within clusters led to the first strong evidence in favour of the existence of Dark Matter. This was one of the most important findings of the 20th century, and inasmuch the fact that she never received the Nobel Prize has been described by me as a “total gyp”.

Here is one of her key papers:

‘Motion of the Galaxy and the local group determined from the velocity anisotropy of distant SC I galaxies’

dv said:

Vera Rubin has died, aged 88. Rubin was the astonomer whose studies of galactic rotation rates and the movement of galaxies within clusters led to the first strong evidence in favour of the existence of Dark Matter. This was one of the most important findings of the 20th century, and inasmuch the fact that she never received the Nobel Prize has been described by me as a “total gyp”.

Here is one of her key papers:

‘Motion of the Galaxy and the local group determined from the velocity anisotropy of distant SC I galaxies’

That’s one name name I do know. Back in the … hold on, that’s that same article you’ve referenced above. The Rubin-Ford effect is the movement of the Milky Way and local galaxies relative to the distant galaxies. At the time, the reason was unknown, now the reason has been given the name “the great attractor”.

That’s the work I remember best.

But Rubin is more famous for her galaxy rotation curves that later led to the discovery of dark matter.

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

Vera Rubin has died, aged 88. Rubin was the astonomer whose studies of galactic rotation rates and the movement of galaxies within clusters led to the first strong evidence in favour of the existence of Dark Matter. This was one of the most important findings of the 20th century, and inasmuch the fact that she never received the Nobel Prize has been described by me as a “total gyp”.

Here is one of her key papers:

‘Motion of the Galaxy and the local group determined from the velocity anisotropy of distant SC I galaxies’

That’s one name name I do know. Back in the … hold on, that’s that same article you’ve referenced above. The Rubin-Ford effect is the movement of the Milky Way and local galaxies relative to the distant galaxies. At the time, the reason was unknown, now the reason has been given the name “the great attractor”.

That’s the work I remember best.

But Rubin is more famous for her galaxy rotation curves that later led to the discovery of dark matter.

fritz zwicky coined the term dark matter, dunkle materie, back in 1933 after studying the coma cluster’s gravitational mass and deduced it must be 400x greater than what could be seen.