Over the course of a long and productive career, Vera Rubin proved a pioneer in a number of important respects. As an astronomer, she was one of the first to study spiral galaxies, and her work helped convince scientists of the existence of dark matter. As a woman living in America in the mid-20th century, she forged a career in the sciences at a time when few women did so – and even fewer of whom did so while married and raising a family. To have done either was noteworthy. To have done both was truly remarkable.

To tell the story of Rubin’s life properly it is important to incorporate both of these achievements into it. And this is what Jacqueline and Simon Mitton do in their biography of the astronomer. As accomplished astronomers and scientific authors in their own right, they bring to it both their shared expertise in the subject and their experience with explaining it in a way that is accessible to the lay reader. Both skills are on full display in their retelling of Rubin’s contributions and the odds she overcame in order to make them.

Why Rubin became an astronomer, as the Mittons explain, was entirely due to her sister Ruth’s choice of beds. When the Rubin family moved into their new home in Washington D.C. in 1939, Ruth’s choice of the bed next to the wall left Vera with the one by the window. Staring at the night sky sparked Vera’s curiosity, leading her to embark upon her own amateur explorations. Such was her determination that she plowed through the obstacles so common to women interested in science – the discouragement of a high school physics instructor, the challenges of attending college in an era when most women didn’t, the expectation of many of the professionals whom she encountered that she would give up on her career once she got married. Even when Rubin did get married and had four children, this imposed only a pause on her path towards becoming an astronomer.

One of the factors working in Rubin’s favor was the growing support given to astronomy after the Second World War. Thanks to it, she was able to find part-time employment working on federally funded research projects to observe solar activity. Yet Rubin’s interests extended far beyond the Solar System, as her passion was for understanding galaxies themselves. It was when she gained a post at the Carnegie Institution of Washington that Rubin was able at last to focus on her passion for observational astronomy. Over the next several years Rubin studied galactic expansion and the rotation of galaxies, with her calculations on the latter subsequently providing the first evidence of dark matter.

Not only do the Mitton’s description of Rubin’s scientific work help to understand what she accomplished, but the role she played in helping us to better understand the universe. It is the sheer scale of this which probably renders it her greatest achievement, which is not to diminish Rubin’s considerable activism (especially in her later years) for women’s equality in the sciences. Either achievement justifies her biography; taken together they make for a account of an accomplished life that is well worth reading. ( )