Crosspost: Eight Women Astronomers You Should Know

Written By Sidney Perkowitz for JSTOR Daily

Headshots of eight trailblazing women in physics and astronomy from antiquity to now. Top row, left to right: Hypatia, Dr. Andrea Ghez, Henrietta Leavitt, Mary Somerville. Bottom row, left to right: Dr. Sara Seager, Emilie du Chatelet, Dr. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, and Caroline Herschel. Credit: JSTOR Daily via Wikimedia Commons

Andrea Ghez, a professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics for finding a supermassive black hole stuffed with 4 million suns at the center of our galaxy. Among the four female Nobel Laureates in physics to date, Ghez is the only astronomer. Her award is a pinnacle for women in astronomy and astrophysics. Yet women astronomers remain a minority and often encounter a lack of recognition, unwelcoming career paths, and harassment. But today women participate and publish in astronomy and astrophysics at higher rates than in physics overall, producing world-class research.

Read the rest of the article at https://daily.jstor.org/eight-women-astronomers-you-should-know/ to learn more about the incredible legacy of women in astronomy dating back to ancient Greece!