Valentina Vladímirovna Nikolayeva Tereshkova (1937–)

This chapter deals with the life of Valentina Tereshkova, and how she managed to become the first woman in history to go out into space.

Mary Proctor (1862–1957)

This chapter describes the figure of Mary Proctor, American popularizer of astronomy, and her work to make science understandable.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868–1921)

This chapter describes the painful life of Henrietta Leavitt, who discovered the tool that allows the distances to other galaxies to be measured.

Antonia Caetana de Paiva Pereira Maury (1866–1952)

The chapter tells the life of the astronomer Antonia Maury and the difficulties she had to overcome in order for her scientific opinion to be recognized.

Understanding the Moon

This chapter provides background material to put the Moon in context and to understand how craters came to be formed, as part of the formation of the solar system. It presents a brief history of the solar system and the first observations of the Moon, and how they affected its portrayal in art and literature. The measurement of its distance and the misunderstood “dark side” are also described.

Pretext

The Moon is no longer the “in” thing. We see it as often as the Sun and give it little thought—we’ve become indifferent. However, the Moon does reflect more than just sunlight. The nomenclature of lunar craters holds up a mirror to an important aspect of human history. Of the 1586 lunar craters that have been named honoring philosophers and scientists, only 28 honor a woman. These 28 women of the Moon present us with an opportunity to meditate about this gap, but perhaps more significantly, they offer us an opportunity to talk about their lives, mostly unknown today. The women of the moon tell us stories of love, sorrow, and courage, of remarkable scientific achievements realized through perseverance, and of tragedies triggered by circumstances.

Judith Arlene Resnik (1949–1986)

This chapter focuses on the life of the American astronaut Judith Resnik, who died in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

Amalie Emmy Noether (1882–1935)

This chapter deals with the life of the mathematician Emmy Noether, her escape from her country due to the rise of Nazism, as well as her scientific contributions.

Sofia Vasílyevna Kovalévskaya (1850–1891)

The fascinating life of Russian mathematician Sofia Kovalévskaya is narrated in this chapter, along with her problems in being accepted as an equal in the academic world.

Maria Mitchell (1818–1889)

The main subject of this chapter is the life of Maria Mitchell, the first American woman to discover a comet, and the first director of the Vassar Observatory.