Today at Growing with Science blog we are celebrating the new picture book biography, The Stuff Between the Stars: How Vera Rubin Discovered Most of the Universe by Sandra Nickel and illustrated by Aimée Sicuro .
Vera Rubin was an astronomer who discovered some cool and important “stuff”.
From a young age, she was captivated by stargazing.
As she got older, she began to investigate swirling clusters of stars, gases, and dust known as galaxies. She studied where galaxies were found in space and how they moved relative to each other. When the stars within galaxies move at different speeds as she thought they should, she demonstrated there was something in between the stars that we can’t see or detect, something pulling the stars. That “something” had been previously named dark matter and there is a lot of it!
Discussion:
In addition to revealing groundbreaking science, author Sandra Nickel also celebrates Vera Rubin’s passion for her work and how she kept going in spite of numerous obstacles, including others not understanding her work.
Aimée Sicuro’s illustrations are out of this world. They vacillate between concrete and abstract, capturing how grounded Vera was and yet her thoughts were in the galaxies. You can see what I mean in the page spread below.
The Stuff Between the Stars is sure to thrill budding astronomers. It would also be perfect to accompany a trip to a planetarium, as well as for Women’s History Month discussions. Gaze into a copy today!
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