hubble telescope

Dr. Nancy Grace Roman was interested in astronomy from the very beginning. Born in Tenessee in 1925, in elementary school Roman was a co-founder of an astronomy club. She went on to excel in a Baltimore high school and attended Swarthmore College to earn her bachelors degree in Astronomy. In 1949, she received her doctorate in astronomy from the University of Chicago.

Shortly after earning her Ph.D., Dr. Roman found a star with unusual emission spectra. This discovery helped her create a name for herself among astronomers.

She began her work teaching at the University of Chicago but left because she didn’t see a future for herself there. She believed that she would never receive tenure simply because she was a woman.

I’m happy about the fact that women can get senior jobs now. They’re not being quite as discouraged as I was.
Nancy Grace Roman

In 1959, Dr. Roman became NASA’s first chief of astronomy. She traveled across the country, speaking to astronomers and giving lectures. She spoke of the advantage of observing the stars from outer space: no light pollution, no clouds, and no atmosphere to block parts of the signal. Most importantly, however, she spoke about and lobbied for the Hubble Space Telescope.

Dr. Roman spoke to secure funding for the project. She pushed for designs to be drawn. Her work has earned her the title “the Mother of Hubble.” And yet, very few people have heard of her.

It wouldn’t be until 1990, after her retirement, that she would see her efforts launched into orbit.

Nancy Grace Roman, later in life. Source: NASA

Dr. Nancy Grace Roman died in 2018 at the age of 93. A fantastic scientist, inspirational woman, and passionate person, her legacy lives on in our beloved Hubble Space Telescope.

Dr. Roman did everything she could to help the Hubble Space Telescope project. Who knows where it would have gone without her? But Dr. Roman is largely forgotten. Time is washing her memory into oblivion. We must keep Dr. Roman and every other influential woman in history alive. I, among others, must write about her. You must talk about her. We must remember her.

To read about more women in science, check out the links below:

As always, the Hubble Space Telescope is looking to the stars for new exciting sights. Images of swirling galaxies are extremely common. On June 3, 2019, the Hubble Space Telescope released this photo of two exoplanets orbiting a distant star―an incredibly uncommon sight.

The system is called PDS 70 and is located in the constellation Centaurus. Less massive but larger than our sun, the star, also called V1032 Centauri, is a K5 type. K5 stars are cooler and dimmer than our sun. PDS 70 is 370 light-years from the Earth. That’s over 2.17 quadrillion (2,170,000,000,000,000) miles (3.5 quadrillion kilometers)!

In the image below, the white star represents the location of V1032 Centauri. To the left is PDS 70 b and to the right is PDS 70 c.

Exoplanets PDS 70 b and c. Source: ESO and S. Haffert (Leiden Observatory)

Right now, the only way astronomers know how to find planets is by observing the light from the stars. If there is a regular periodic dip in the signal, astronomers can infer that something is passing in front of it. Anything large enough to do this is probably a planet. While this is helpful, a measurement taken from this far leaves lots of room for error.

These planets were first imaged using the Very Large Telescope in Chile. We know that PDS 70 b is 4 to 17 times as massive as Jupiter, while PDS 70 c is 1 to 10 times as massive. The large range in these estimates is a consequence of the lack of precision in the measurement.

Astronomers are rarely able to get images like this because the stars are so big and bright and the planets are small and dim. Star light completely conceals anything coming from a distant planet. In the image above, astronomers cancelled light from the star to reveal the planets.

Once again, the Hubble Space Telescope dazzles us with the cosmos. We will have to wait to see what new sights they excite us with next time!

madison brewer

Nancy Grace Roman: the Mother of Hubble

Seeing Distant Planets