How Vera Rubin convinced the scientific community that dark matter might exist, persevering despite early dismissals of her work. We now know that the universe is mostly dark, made up of particles and forces that are undetectable even by our most powerful telescopes. The discovery of the possible existence of dark matter and dark energy signaled a Copernican-like revolution in astronomy: not only are we not the center of the universe, neither is the stuff of which we’re made. Astronomer Vera Rubin (1928–2016) played a pivotal role in this discovery. By showing that some astronomical objects seem to defy gravity’s grip, Rubin helped convince the scientific community of the possibility of dark matter. In Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond, Ashley Jean Yeager tells the story of Rubin’s life and work, recounting her persistence despite early dismissals of her work and widespread sexism in science. Yeager describes Rubin’s childhood fascination with stars, her education at Vassar and Cornell, and her marriage to a fellow scientist. At first, Rubin wasn’t taken seriously; she was a rarity, a woman in science, and her findings seemed almost incredible. Some observatories in midcentury America restricted women from using their large telescopes; Rubin was unable to collect her own data until a decade after she had earned her PhD. Still, she continued her groundbreaking work, driving a scientific revolution. She received the National Medal of Science in 1993, but never the Nobel Prize—perhaps overlooked because of her gender. She’s since been memorialized with a ridge on Mars, an asteroid, a galaxy, and most recently, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory—the first national observatory named after a woman.

In 1965, Vera Rubin was the first woman permitted to observe at Palomar Observatory. In the intervening years, she has become one of the world's finest and most respected astronomers. This particular collection of essays is compiled from work written over the past 15 years and deals with a variety of subjects in astronomy and astrophysics, specifically galaxies and dark matter. The book also contains biographical sketches of astronomers who have been colleagues and friends, providing a stimulating view of a woman in science. About the Author Since 1965 Vera Rubin has been a staff member at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Dr. Rubin has authored nearly 200 papers on the structure of our galaxy, motions within other galaxies, and large scale motions in the universe. She has been a distinguished visiting astronomer at the Cerro Tololo Inter American Observatory in Chile; a Chancellor's Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Berkeley; a President's Distinguished Visitor at Vassar College; and a Beatrice Tinsley visiting professor at the University of Texas, Austin.

Recently, improved observational capabilities have allowed the study of fainter and fainter extra-galactic planetary nebulae in galaxies well beyond the Milky Way. This book result from a workshop held at ESO headquarters in Garching in 2004, the first devoted to Extra-galactic Planetary Nebulae. A wide range of topics is covered, from stellar and nebular astrophysics to galactic dynamics and galaxy clusters, making this a reference of broad astrophysical interest.

There can be little doubt now that 90-99% of the Universe comprises dark matter. Hence it is of critical importance now not just to pursue further evidence for its existence but rather to identify what the dark matter is. Assessment of progress in this area was the objective of the first International Workshop on the Identification of Dark Matter, in particular to consider what techniques, both observational and experimental, are currently being used, how successful they are now and what new techniques will improve the prospects of identifying the likely candidates. The meeting included reviews on major particle astrophysics topics in dark matter but was largely devoted to short contributed talks on new work in the field. This book is the written proceedings of the meeting.

One of the hottest debates in astronomy and cosmology today concerns the value of the Hubble constant. This constant is of paramount importance since it fixes the size and age of the Universe. At a symposium at the Space Telescope Science Institute, experts from around the world presented the latest results from a plethora of techniques for determining the Hubble constant. The value has always been controversial, but at this meeting experts' results agreed for the first time to within about 20%. Based on the meeting, this book presents twenty-three specially written review articles. They provide a comprehensive account of the Hubble-constant debate with the latest results from gravitational lensing, supernovae and novae, the Tully-Fisher relation, the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, globular clusters, planetary nebulae, light echoes, and the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project. This timely volume provides a standard reference for graduate students and researchers in astronomy and cosmology.

The proceedings of the first meeting on “New Worlds in Astroparticle Physics” focus on the joint field of particle physics and astrophysics. This is a field widely open to both theory and experiment. Important questions of particle physics — from the role of the Higgs scalar to the deconfined QCD phase, the developments beyond the Standard Model and the subtle behavior of neutrinos — are discussed. The same is true for the relevant questions in astrophysics and cosmology — from the fluctuations in the photon background radiation to large scale structure formation, dark matter searches and the origin of cosmic rays at very high energies. The two viewpoints, from the small sizes or from the large scales, are convergent and reveal the same universe: the universe of astroparticle physics.

This volwne is the proceedings of the third school in particle astrophysics that Schramm and Galeotti have organized at Erice. The focus of thirs third school was the Generation of Cosmological Large-Scale Structure. It was held in November of 1996. The fIrst school in the series was on "Gauge Theory and the Early Universe" in May 1986, the second was on "Dark Matter in the Universe" in May 1988. All three schools have been successful under the auspices of the NATO Advanced Study Institute. This volume is thus the third in the series of the proceedings of these schools. The choice of the topic for this third school was natural, since the problem of generating a large-scale structure has become the most pressing problem in cosmology today. In particular, it is this generation of structure that is the interface between astronomical observations and particle models for the early universe. To date, all models for generating structures inevitably require new fundamental physics beyond the standard, SU x SU X U , model of high energy physics. The 3 2 I seeds for generating structures usually invoke unifIcation physics, and the matter needed to clump and form them seems to require particle properties that have not been seen in laboratories to date.

Features original and archival photographs and observations on the science of cosmological thinking.

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