Astronomy has fascinated humans for thousands of years, from the earliest rock carvings to astronomy apps and cultural narratives interweaving storytelling with science to modern space telescopes.
Complementing our list of (some) of our favourite female Australian astronomers, we’re recapping some remarkable women who pushed boundaries and made significant contributions to this awe-inspiring field.
Early astronomy pioneers
Hypatia (350-415 AD) is sometimes called the first female mathematician and astronomer. She was one of the late Roman Empire’s most prominent mathematicians, philosophers, and astronomers, and her murder sent a message to scholars in Alexandria, chilling scientific study.
Wang Zhenyi (1768-1797) was a Chinese astronomer living during the Qing Dynasty who defied society’s expectations of women, learning astronomy at home. Wang Zhenyi was also an early science communicator, describing celestial phenomena, explaining and demonstrating equinoxes and writing articles on lunar and solar eclipses.
Telescope Trailblazers
Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) detected three nebulae while working alone in 1783. In 1786, she became the first woman to discover a comet. Over the next 11 years, Herschel spotted seven more comets, including the periodic comet 35P/Herschel–Rigollet.
Mary Somerville (1780 – 1872) was a self-taught Scottish astronomer who played a vital role in the discovery of the planet Neptune. Along with Caroline Herschel, Somerville was elected as the first female Honorary Member of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) is best known as the first American professional female astronomer. In 1847, Mitchell discovered comet C/1847 T1, earning her international recognition and a gold medal prize.
An advocate for education for girls and women, Mitchell travelled to Colorado with an all-female team of graduate researchers to observe 1878’s solar eclipse.
Glimpses of of history
Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921) pioneered stellar classification. Leavitt spent many years analysing photographic plates at Harvard College Observatory, discovering 2,400 new variable stars, including ‘Cepheid variables’, whose luminosity (brightness) fluctuates in regular patterns.
Leavitt discovered a relationship between the star’s period of variation and luminosity. Measuring how fast the stars flickered told astronomers how bright they were, and this became known as Leavitt’s Law.
This giant leap for astronomy helps gave astronomers the tool to measure the distances to stars and galaxies that were previously impossible with old methods.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1979) found the stuff stars are made of, revolutionising our understanding of the cosmos. As a PhD student, Payne-Gaposchkin drew on the findings of astrophysicist Meghnad Saha, whose theories said the elements making up stars were related to their temperature. By studying stars classified by their ‘spectral signatures’, Payne-Gaposchkin confirmed the theory and found that stars mainly comprised hydrogen and helium.
Finding the invisible
Vera Rubin (1928-2016) provided compelling evidence for the existence of dark matter, defying accepted understandings of the universe.
Rubin’s passion for astronomy started as a child, and she built a telescope out of cardboard (with the help of her engineer dad) to observe and track meteors. Rubin’s PhD thesis showed that galaxies weren’t randomly distributed through space but instead formed clusters and clumped together.
Rubin also found that some spiral galaxies should be flying apart from how quickly they rotated. This proved a large amount of unseen mass was holding them together: dark matter.
Modern Inspiration
Ruby Payne-Scott (1912-1981 is one of our top five (Australian) female astronomers and is considered the first female radio astronomer. During her career, Payne-Scott significantly contributed to solar astronomy, discovering three of the five categories of solar bursts.
Payne-Scott’s work has shaped our understanding of solar activity and its impact on Earth’s atmosphere and helped lay the groundwork for understanding how these bursts impact communication systems, navigation, and even power grids on Earth.
Payne-Scott also championed equal rights for women, protesting women’s wage inequality post-World War II and challenging discriminatory workplace policies.
Nancy Grace Roman (1925-2018) was NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy and is known as the “Mother of Hubble.”
Roman proposed that a space-based telescope might detect planets orbiting other stars and led NASA’s orbiting astronomical observatories program. The program demonstrated the technologies necessary for the large space telescope.
Although known for her crucial role in planning the Hubble Space Telescope, Roman’s astronomy research contributions include classifying stars by their chemical composition and motion through the galaxy.
Roman earnt recognition from several women’s organisations for her work advancing women in senior science management and was also one of four women featured in 2017 in LEGO’s Women of NASA set,
NASA has scheduled to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope by May 2027
Jocelyn Bell Burnell (born 1943) discovered the first pulsar in 1967 while pursuing her PhD in astronomy at Cambridge uni.
Bell Burnell noticed a strange, rapidly pulsing signal in the radio telescope data she was studying. PSR B1919+21 is now known as a pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star that pulses a beam of radiowaves like a lighthouse.
Over 50 years later, Bell Burnell won the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for her pulsar discovery, and her work remains pivotal.
Beth Brown (1969 – 2008) was a pioneering astrophysicist at NASA whose research focused on elliptical galaxies and black holes.
Brown found that many elliptical galaxies are incredibly bright in the X-ray wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, suggesting the presence of gas heated to millions of degrees. She theorised the cause could be supernova explosions or supermassive black holes.
Brown was the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in astronomy from the University of Michigan. She was also a passionate educator, developing a popular astronomy course for beginners and appearing on TV to share her love of space science.
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