She Looked Into Dark Matter, Now They Named a National Observatory After Her

For the very first time, a national United States observatory has been named after a woman: astronomer Vera C. Rubin, whose studies offered some of the first ever evidence of dark matter’s existence.

Chairwoman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and congresswoman Jenniffer González-Colón argued for Rubin’s recognition for over six months, introducing the bill which was finally enacted into law on December 20, 2019. The initiative marks a significant step in better representing women’s work in science.

“Dr. Vera Rubin exemplifies the remarkable contributions women have long made to science,” González-Colón said in a statement last year. “I am proud to be a cosponsor of this bill.”

Rubin’s dark matter discoveries consisted of “one of the most important contributions to science in the past century, not only for astronomy, but also for fundamental physics,” says Steve Kahn, director of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, in a statement. The naming of the observatory fits in well with the astronomer’s groundbreaking studies, as it’s scheduled to take its first observations of the universe in two years to explore the cosmos for dark matter.