Vera Rubin

Astronomer (1928-2016) - Observatory namesake, pioneering dark matter researcher

On June 23, 2025, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images—and they're staggering. A 3.2-gigapixel camera, the largest ever built for astronomy, captured 10 million galaxies in a single frame. In just 10 hours of test observations, it found 2,104 asteroids nobody knew existed, including seven near-Earth objects. This isn't a telescope taking pretty pictures—it's a time machine that will photograph the entire Southern Hemisphere sky every three nights for a decade.

Updated Jan 7

Astronomer (deceased 2016) - Provided observational evidence for dark matter in galaxies

Fusion reactors might crack open the dark matter mystery without trying. University of Cincinnati physicist Jure Zupan and colleagues at Fermilab, MIT, and Technion just published a breakthrough showing how neutrons slamming into reactor walls could spawn axions—the hypothetical particles that may explain the 27% of the universe we can't see. The twist: we're already building these reactors for clean energy.

Updated Dec 29, 2025