An Extraordinary Woman

And yet again, I learn about an exceptional human being from her obit. Margherita Hack, who died recently at age 91, was an Italian astrophysicist. According to the current director of the observatory in Trieste that she once headed, she was one of the first astronomers to maintain that space satellites would be crucial to the future of astronomical observation. She also fought for the right to euthanasia, gay rights, and against nuclear reactors in Italy. All this during a time, starting in the late 1940s, when such causes ~ and, indeed, the idea of women in the sciences ~ were not as accepted as they are now: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/29/margherita-hack-dead-italian-astrophysicist-dies_n_3521670.html?utm_hp_ref=science