- Book
- 40 pages
- Level: all audiences — younger readers. Click here for other resources for younger readers.
This 2023 book by Suzanne Slade, nicely illustrated by Susan Reagan, tells the story of Vera Rubin and her work. This work eventually led her to the idea of Dark Matter. The references to Rubin’s Jewish faith are scant — a reference to music and an illustration of a cantor. There are also brief mentions of how, while Rubin was devoted to research, her family (her husband and eventually four children) was also of great importance to her.
However, the book talks about how Rubin obtained her Ph.D. at, and later worked for a decade at, Georgetown University. Georgetown is, of course, a Catholic and Jesuit school. Moreover, at Georgetown, Rubin would get to know Fr. George V. Coyne, S.J., who would go on to become Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006. In one of his earliest published papers, “Comparative Spectrophotometry of Selected Areas on the Lunar Surface”, which appeared in The Astronomical Journal in February 1963, Coyne thanks (among other people) “Dr. Vera C. Rubin of the Georgetown staff”. Rubin would teach at the first Vatican Observatory Summer School in 1986, and was a long-time friend of the Observatory. Thus a knowledgeable adult can help fill out the “faith and science” picture a little bit more.
From the publisher, Astra Publishing House:
From the moment she first looked out her window at the night sky, future astronomer Vera Rubin was star-struck. Her cosmic questions about stars, galaxies, and the universe gave Vera the drive to build her own telescope and earn multiple degrees in astronomy, despite an army of naysayers who thought women shouldn’t reach for the stars.
But Vera did reach for the stars. Studying spiral galaxies, she searched the skies all through the night, using telescopes in unheated observatories, some of which barred women until Vera insisted they let her in. And her studies revealed something stellar: evidence for the existence of dark matter, the most mysterious substance in the universe.
Today, scientists continue to build off of Vera’s groundbreaking work as they strive to better understand dark matter. A trailblazing scientist, Vera Rubin changed people’s understanding of both the universe and what a woman can do.
The publisher lists this book as being suitable for readers aged 7-10 years.
Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.
A “look inside” preview is also available from Penguin Random House, who distributes Astra Publishing House books.
The following video is also available from the publisher:
