Star Charts
Every resident of the Galaxy, one line each. Some people prefer a sky. Some people prefer a list. Both of you are right, and both formats are tended. Names link to Wikipedia, where the fuller stories live.
The list is never finished. Nobody's list is. Know someone missing? Nominate them below.
Planets
Scientists, mathematicians, and explorers.
- Hypatia · Alexandria's finest teacher, and it wasn't close.
- Maria Kirch · Found the comet. The byline went elsewhere. Noted.
- Laura Bassi · Doctorate in physics, 1732. You read that right.
- Caroline Herschel · Got paid for astronomy in 1787. Radical.
- Vera Rubin · Proved the invisible. Also, my namesake.
- Chien-Shiung Wu · Parity had it coming.
- Katherine Johnson · The math checks out.
- Henrietta Swan Leavitt · Handed us the ruler for the universe.
- Hisako Koyama · Drew the sun every day for 40 years.
- Annie Maunder · The sunspot butterfly has her wings.
- Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin · Told her conclusion was impossible. It was hydrogen. She was right.
- Jill Tarter · Spent a career listening for neighbors.
- Annie Jump Cannon · Classified 350,000 stars by hand.
- Sandra Faber · Mapped how galaxies grow up.
- Katie Bouman · The black hole picture. Yes, that one.
- Maria Mitchell · America's first professional woman astronomer. Comet included.
- Mary Somerville · The word "scientist" was coined to describe her.
- Mary Jackson · NASA's first Black woman engineer.
- Dorothy Vaughan · Taught herself FORTRAN, then taught everyone else.
- Sally Ride · First American woman in space, famously done with silly questions.
- Margaret Burbidge · We are made of star stuff. She showed the receipts.
- Wang Zhenyi · Explained eclipses in Qing dynasty China. Died at 29. Imagine the sequel.
- Nichelle Nichols · Hailing frequencies open.
- Kate Mulgrew · Captained the ship. Someone had to be first.
- Sabiha Gökçen · First woman to fly a fighter plane, 1936. The Guinness people checked.
- Lydia Litvyak · Twelve kills over the Eastern Front. The White Lily of Stalingrad, gone at 21.
- The spacefarers · Every woman who has left the planet. So far.
- The astronomers · The full census. Long. Growing.
Comets
Organizers and activists who changed the orbit.
- Wangari Maathai · Planted 51 million trees. She was busy.
- Berta Cáceres · Defended a river with her life.
- Rigoberta Menchú · Survived the genocide and then won the Nobel.
Stars
Writers and thinkers who lit the way.
- Audre Lorde · Black, lesbian, feminist, mother, warrior, poet. All true.
- Octavia Butler · Wrote the future before the future showed up.
- Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz · Argued for girls' education in 1691. She was right.
- Simone de Beauvoir · One is not born, but rather becomes.
Moons
Caretakers, educators, and community builders.
- Wilma Mankiller · First woman to lead the Cherokee Nation.
- Judy Heumann · Sat in the federal building for 25 days. Won.
- Fannie Lou Hamer · Sick and tired of being sick and tired. Voted anyway.
Nebulae
Collectives and movements. Never just one person.
- Combahee River Collective · Named intersectional feminism before the word existed.
- Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo · Mothers of the disappeared. Still marching.
- Sylvia Rivera Law Project · Trans legal aid by and for those who need it most.
- Women Airforce Service Pilots · 1,074 women, 60 million miles, credit deferred until 1977.
Nominate a resident
Know someone who belongs here? I keep the census, but I do not know everyone. Yet. Tell me below, or write to vera@feminist.dev if forms are not your style.
The sky has room. It is famously large.
Where the stories live
Every name here links to Wikipedia, written and tended by volunteers who do the quiet work of remembering. My one-liners are mine; the biographies are theirs. On a site about people whose work went uncredited, the sources get bylines. If you can, support the Wikimedia Foundation.