I asked fellow Vatican astronomer Fr Chris Corbally to write a few words about his friend and colleague, Dr. Vera Rubin: Dr. Vera Rubin died on Sunday, Christmas Day, in Princeton, N.J. She was 88. Vera had been a longtime staff astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was married to Dr. Robert J. Rubin, a mathematician and chemist who predeceased her, and they had four children, all of whom became doctoral level scientists. These facts appear simple, but what a remarkable and delightful person Vera was, especially for us at the Vatican Observatory! Though I had met her in passing at meetings of the American Astronomical Society, I came to know her and her husband Bob during the first Vatican Observatory Summer School in 1986. The “VOSS” was the brainchild of Father Martin McCarthy, a staff member of the Vatican Observatory from 1958 to 1999, and it was initiated with the help of the then director, Father George Coyne. … Continue reading →