The Galaxy

An interactive tribute to women, non-binary, and trans people whose work shaped our world. The style is an ode to the Space Jam 1996 website. Celestial objects represent different kinds of contribution: planets for scientists and explorers, comets for organizers and activists, stars for writers and thinkers, moons for caretakers and educators, and nebulae for collectives and movements. Click any figure to open their Wikipedia page.

Hypatia — mathematician and astronomer of ancient Alexandria.
Maria Kirch — German astronomer who discovered a comet.
Laura Bassi — first woman to earn a physics doctorate in Europe.
Caroline Herschel — first woman to discover a comet and receive a Gold Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society.
Vera Rubin — astronomer whose work confirmed the existence of dark matter.
Chien-Shiung Wu — experimental physicist who disproved the law of conservation of parity.
Katherine Johnson — NASA mathematician whose calculations were critical to the first US spaceflights.
Henrietta Swan Leavitt — astronomer who discovered the relationship between Cepheid variable stars and distance.
Hisako Koyama — Japanese astronomer who observed the sun for over 40 years.
Women spacefarers — a celebration of all women who have traveled to space.
Nichelle Nichols — actress and activist who inspired generations as Lt. Uhura.
Women astronomers — a full list of women who have shaped astronomy.
Annie Maunder
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
Jill Tarter
Annie Jump Cannon
Sandra Faber
Katie Bouman
Maria Mitchell
Mary Somerville
Mary Jackson
Dorothy Vaughan
Sally Ride
Margaret Burbidge
Wang Zhenyi
Kate Mulgrew