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.
For information on women who knew how to
get really tough, see this
other page on Warrior
Women.