NOAO announces with sorrow the death of Dr. Vera Rubin

Dr. Vera Rubin began observing at Kitt Peak National Observatory in 1963 at the 36-inch telescope. With her colleague Kent Ford, she continued using the Kitt Peak 2.1-m, accumulating over 60 galaxy rotation curves over the following years. Flat rotation curves were directly visible from the spectra: these data provided compelling observational evidence for a new kind of matter in the Universe, “dark matter”. Vera Rubin continued observing at Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo throughout her long career, and will be greatly missed by the entire NOAO science staff, the mountain technical staff, and everyone who had the good fortune to meet her.