For nearly a month, from February 11, marking the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, to March 8, celebrating International Women’s Rights Day, eight portraits of women astronomers who have worked "for" or "with" the Paris Observatory over the last three centuries will be published on the wire.
Discover the portrait of the first woman to open this collection:
Nicole-Reine Lepaute (1723-1788)
Nicole-Reine Lepaute, a great lady of science of the Enlightenment, signed her astronomical works with her friend Jérôme de Lalande and her husband, the king’s watchmaker
Recognized in her time for particularly complex calculations in astronomy, Nicole-Reine Lepaute calculated the ephemerides of the Sun, the Moon and the planets for the Academy of Sciences, in order to predict the visibility of lunar eclipses, the moments of two transits of Venus and the return of comets. In particular, Lalande and Lepaute calculated a delay of 518 days due to Jupiter and 100 days due to Saturn for the famous Halley’s comet, considering the 3-body problem developed just before by Clairaut. They predicted the return of the comet in 1759 - one year after Halley’s prediction - with a passage at perihelion in April 1759, more or less one month. The comet was observed at its perihelion on March 13, 1759: victory of Newtonian mechanics over Descartes’ vortices! Moreover, she educated her nephew, who became a brilliant astronomer, academician, and was chosen to accompany Lapérouse in his world tour.
The Women Astronomers project at Paris Observatory
At the initiative of the working group on equality between women and men, and with the support of the presidency of the Observatoire de Paris-PSL, a committee of female and male researchers, students and doctoral students has been formed to highlight the work of women astronomers who, as much as their male colleagues, have contributed to the scientific history of the institution. These women often remained in the shadow of the private sphere, rarely co-signing the publication of their own results, or confined to the role of assistant or scientific secretary, before finally obtaining the recognized status of astronomer at the beginning of the 20th century.
In addition to a first event in the form of a few web and Twitter publications on the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2023, the project plans to build a documentary fund, to write wikipedia content to describe the work of the many women astronomers who have worked with the institution, and eventually an installation in the form of a portrait gallery, displayed in the buildings of the institution.
Participating in this project are Romane Cologni, Lucie Cros, Léa Griton, Mathilde Malin, Rhita-Maria Ouazzani and Gilles Theureau.