Posted:
2 years ago
Google paid tribute to Margherita Hack, an Italian astrophysicist on the 12th of June, 2021, on her 99th birthday. Google honored her with an animated doodle, in which she can be seen sitting on a chair and looking through her Telescope. Margherita Hack was known for her discovery of the asteroid 8558, which was later named Hack in her honour.
Personal & Professional Life
Hack was born in Florence, Italy on 12 June, 1922. Born to a Protestant Swiss origin Father and a Catholic Mother, both her parents had left their religion to join the Italian Theosophical society. Hack graduated in Physics from the University of Florence in 1945. She had an keen interest in astrophysics and her expertise mainly concerned the study of Stellar objects. She performed various researches to study the chemical composition, surface temperatures and gravity of various stars.
Margherita Hack served as a Full Professor of astronomy at the University of Trieste to 1964 to 1992. Hack also became the first Italian Woman to lead the Trieste Astronomical Observatory from 1964 to 1987. She was also a member of Accademia Nazionale Dei Lincei, National member in the class of Mathematical Physics and Natural sciences. Margherita Hack was for long an active member of the European Space Agency (ESA) and NA⁷⁸SA. Hack also had an bimonthly magazine named L’Astronomia in 1978.
Margherita Hack was an atheist, and was often known for her anti-religious views in Italy. She held major criticism for Catholic Church’s hierarchical ideologies and their overall functioning. She was known to be a vegetarian and had also published a book explaining the reason behind her contemplated choice.
Social & Political Life
Margherita Hack, was also an active campaigner and believer of civil rights, animal protection and equality for all. As we know Hack was an hardcore atheist, and remained hostile to any forms of superstitions and pseudoscience’s. Hence, she served as a scientific guarantor of CICAP, which was an Italian Organization, whose main objective was to investigate pseudoscientific claims.
Hack also stood for Italian regional elections in 2005 & 2006, only to end up giving her seat to other candidates, so as to focus herself fully to astronomy. On the 21st of January 2009, Hack became a candidate for the Anti-Capitalist List for the European elections, although she was never elected, as she couldn’t reach the 4% threshold. She stated that Italy was neither fully capable or reliable for handling nuclear projects at that time. Hence, she stood against a number of constructions concerning nuclear reactors in Italy, but always favoured nuclear study and research
Achievements & Honours
As mentioned earlier in the post, Margherita Hack was known internationally for her discovery of asteroid 8558 ‘Hack.’ Her invaluable work towards ESA & NASA, also helped her earn international acclamation. A life long scientific dissemination service brought several honours and awards for Margherita Hack, like Targa Giuseppe Piazzi award in 1994, Cortina Ulisse Prize in 1995, and lastly Dama di Gran Croce in 2012, which is considered the highest award given by the Italian government.
Margherita Hack was often known as the ‘The Lady Of The Stars’, acclaimed because of her ability to oversimplify complex scientific concepts while describing to the general public. Hack died on 29th June 2013, due to long term heart complications. If alive she would have been of 99 years today, Google honoured this great by a Doodle, as a continuation of its customary process in what is called a Pride Month.
