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from the changing-our-understanding-of-the-universe dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
[...] Renowned astrophysicist and National Medal of Science awardee Vera Rubin passed away in Princeton N.J., the evening of December 25, 2016, at the age of 88. Rubin confirmed the existence of dark matter—the invisible material that makes up more than 90% of the mass of the universe. She was a retired staff astronomer at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, D.C.
"Vera Rubin was a national treasure as an accomplished astronomer and a wonderful role model for young scientists," remarked Carnegie president Matthew Scott. "We are very saddened by this loss."
In the 1960s, Rubin's interest in how stars orbit their galactic centers led her and colleague Kent Ford to study the Andromeda galaxy, M31, a nearby spiral. The two scientists wanted to determine the distribution of mass in M31 by looking at the orbital speeds of stars and gas at varying distances from the galactic center. They expected the speeds to conform to Newtonian gravitational theory, whereby an object farther from its central mass orbits slower than those closer in. To their surprise, the scientists found that stars far from the center traveled as fast as those near the center.
After observing dozens more galaxies by the 1970s, Rubin and colleagues found that something other than the visible mass was responsible for the stars' motions. Each spiral galaxy is embedded in a "halo" of dark matter—material that does not emit light and extends beyond the optical galaxy. They found it contains 5 to 10 times as much mass as the luminous galaxy. As a result of Rubin's groundbreaking work, it has become apparent that more than 90% of the universe is composed of this invisible material. The first inkling that dark matter existed came in 1933 when Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky of Caltech proposed it. But it was not until Rubin's work that dark matter was confirmed.
Besides her remarkable scientific contributions, as noted by colleague Neta Bahcall of Princeton University: "Vera was an amazing scientist and an amazing human being. A pioneering astronomer, the 'mother' of flat rotation curves and dark-matter, a champion of women in science, a mentor and role model to generations of astronomers."
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Friday December 30 2016, @01:43AM
Oh I get it, some scientist who did amazing work and helped to get others into science is talked about but when a scientist dies doing REAL science like Piers Sellers the editors turn a blind eye and don't think it would be interesting to the community. It is getting worse and worse here every day. Probably all the dirty political hacks refusing to talk about what is going on with our climate and trying to cover up events going on that effect progress.
The above comment was meant to be seen as funny and to in no way denegrate V. Rubin or P. Sellers, both seem to have done excellent work and will be missed. I am glad that after seeing this brought up in the thread about the woman from Starwars that it actually made the front page as it is an interesting read. Rubin had a lot of pretty great acomplishments under her belt.
If 2016 wasn't almost over and we were to be freed from this deadly year I would suggest a "this week in science" deaths talking about those who have left the community behind and the contributions to their fields while they were here. If I had not been looking for an excuse to complain in this thread like is done in every other thread I would not have known about P. Sellers. He had served some time on the ISS as well.
http://www.itechpost.com/articles/68122/20161224/piers-sellers-death-climate-scientist-dies-61.htm [itechpost.com]
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 30 2016, @02:45PM
Why not compose that story and submit it?
Washington DC delenda est.