Mary Mulvihill reports on an Irishwoman who helped pioneer astrophysics back in the 19th century.
It was an astronomical love affair: a husband-and-wife collaboration that laid the foundations for modern astrophysics. And it began with a chance meeting in Dublin in 1873, when Irish telescope maker Howard Grubb introduced his client, the noted English astronomer Sir William Huggins, to his friend and neighbour, Margaret Murray.
The Dublin woman had no formal astronomy training, and Huggins (at 49) was twice her age, yet two years later they married, and began a collaboration that lasted 30 years, and has since been described as "one of the most successful husband and wife partnerships in astronomy".
Huggins (1824-1910) had already done pioneering work, using the newly invented spectroscope to analyse light from heavenly bodies and reveal their chemical composition. He had shown that stars and comets were made of chemical elements that were also found on Earth, and studying a nova, or new star, in 1866, Huggins discovered that the bright display was from a shell of hot hydrogen gas surrounding the exploding star.
Margaret Murray's background included the conventional girls' education of languages, music and art, but, sparked by her grandfather, she was keen on astronomy. With her small telescope she studied sunspots and the like, she experimented with photography (which would be handy in her later scientific work), and she also read popular astronomy books. Indeed, before she met Huggins she had read of his work, so perhaps theirs was not a chance meeting after all?
Huggins was one of the last amateur astronomers of private means. The observatory at his London home was equipped with high-tech expensive instruments (many on loan from scientific institutions), and it was there that Margaret Murray joined him in 1875, first as assistant, but soon becoming his collaborator.
They were the first to use the newly invented dry plate photographic technique in astronomical spectroscopy, which allowed them to "accumulate" light and so study faint objects for the first time. They studied several planets and the Orion Nebula, in whose spectrum they discovered puzzling violet lines (identified years later as ionised oxygen), and they published a Photographic Atlas of Stellar Spectra in 1897. (Other firsts included identifying the complete Balmer series of hydrogen lines in the spectrum of Vega, and discovering cyanogen in the ultraviolet spectrum of Tebbutt's comet in 1881. Their last work (1903-05) was on the spectra of radioactive substances, prompted by meetings with Marie and Pierre Curie.)
William and Margaret Huggins published their scientific papers jointly, and some historians of science believe that Margaret was often the driving force in the partnership, but the conventions of the day meant William was accorded the many honours, including a knighthood. In 1903 the Royal Astronomical Society did elect Margaret Huggins as an honorary member, but did not admit women on the same terms as men until 1915.
An advocate of women's education, Lady Huggins bequeathed her scientific and personal papers to Wellesley Women's College in the US. She died 90 years ago, on this day March 24th 1915, aged 66. A commemorative plaque marks this pioneering astrophysicist's former home, at 23 Longford Terrace, Monkstown, Co Dublin.
Read Dr Maire Bruck's biography of Margaret Huggins in Stars, Shells & Bluebells: women scientists and pioneers, edited by Mary Mulvihill (WITS, 1997)