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WonderCosmology biography

Beatrice Tinsley, a New Zealand astronomer, showed in the late 1960s and 1970s that galaxies change colour and brightness as their stars age. Her computer models changed how astronomers read the light of distant galaxies.

Beatrice Tinsley

SpaceScienceBiography

The story behind the card

Tinsley was born in Chester, England, in 1941 and grew up in New Zealand. After she married a fellow physics student, university rules kept her from working where he was employed, and in 1963 she followed him to Dallas. She earned her doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin in 1967, as the only woman in its astronomy programme. Her key point was that we see a distant galaxy as it was long ago, when its stars were younger, so it would look different even if nothing else had changed. Astronomers had to allow for this before using galaxies to measure the universe. Despite her influence, she found no permanent post until Yale hired her in 1974; in 1978 she became its first woman professor of astronomy. She died of melanoma, a skin cancer, in 1981, aged 40.

Türkçe oku
Yeni Zelandalı gökbilimci Beatrice Tinsley, 1960'ların sonu ile 1970'lerde galaksilerin, yıldızları yaşlandıkça renk ve parlaklık değiştirdiğini gösterdi. Bilgisayar modelleri, gökbilimcilerin uzak galaksilerden gelen ışığı yorumlama biçimini değiştirdi.

Tinsley 1941'de İngiltere'nin Chester kentinde doğdu, Yeni Zelanda'da büyüdü. Fizik bölümünden bir sınıf arkadaşıyla evlendikten sonra, üniversitenin kuralları yüzünden eşinin çalıştığı yerde iş bulamadı ve 1963'te onunla birlikte Dallas'a taşındı. 1967'de Texas Üniversitesi'nde (Austin) doktorasını tamamladı; astronomi programındaki tek kadın oydu. Temel fikri şuydu: uzak bir galaksiyi çok eski hâliyle, yıldızları daha gençken görürüz; bu yüzden başka hiçbir şey değişmemiş olsa bile farklı görünür. Gökbilimciler galaksileri evreni ölçmek için kullanmadan önce bunu hesaba katmak zorundaydı. Alanda büyük etkisi olmasına rağmen, 1974'te Yale onu işe alana kadar kalıcı bir kadro bulamadı. 1978'de Yale'in ilk kadın astronomi profesörü oldu. 1981'de, 40 yaşında bir cilt kanseri olan melanomdan öldü.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Beatrice Tinsley
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