The U.S. Mint has recently released a quarter into nationwide circulation that features the late Vera Rubin, a renowned astrophysicist and longtime researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. The coin is part of the Mint’s American Women Quarters series, which honors notable American women who made significant contributions in a variety of fields. Dr. Rubin joins an elite group of women who have been recognized in the series, such as Sally Ride, Bessie Coleman, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
A native of Philadelphia, Rubin graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1948. She was the only astronomy major in her graduating class. Seeking to obtain a Ph.D. in astronomy at Princeton University, Rubin was denied admission due to her gender. Instead, she went on to earn a master’s degree at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and a Ph.D. at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
After teaching at Georgetown University, she accepted a position at the Carnegie Institute. There, working with astronomer Kent Ford, Dr. Rubin determined that the speed of stars in outer regions of galaxies could not be explained unless there were some unseen “dark matter” that affected the gravitational pull on these stars. She estimated that this dark matter made up 90 percent of the mass in these galaxies.
Dr. Rubin was the first woman permitted to use the Palomar Observatory operated by the California Institute of Technology. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and was given the National Medal of Science by President Clinton.
Dr. Rubin died on Christmas Day in 2016 in Princeton, New Jersey, at the age of 88. In 2020, the National Science Foundation announced that the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in Chile will be named the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. The first images from the observatory were released on June 23.
