H. R. 3196 

One Hundred Sixteenth Congress 

of the 

United States of America 

AT THE FIRST SESSION 

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Thursday, 

the third day of January, two thousand and nineteen 

An Act 

To designate the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope as the ‘‘Vera C. Rubin Observatory’’. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 

the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Vera C. Rubin Observatory 

Designation Act’’. 

SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

Congress finds the following: 

(1) Dr. Vera Rubin was born July 23, 1928, to Philip 

and Rose Applebaum Cooper. 

(2) Dr. Rubin pursued her graduate studies at Cornell 

University and Georgetown University, earning her Ph.D. in 

Physics in 1954. 

(3) Dr. Rubin’s Ph.D. thesis on galaxy motions provided 

supporting evidence that galaxies are not uniformly distributed, 

but exist in clusters. 

(4) Dr. Rubin continued to study the motions of galaxies, 

first as research associate and assistant professor at Georgetown University, and then as a member of the staff at the 

Carnegie Institution of Washington Department of Terrestrial 

Magnetism. 

(5) Dr. Rubin faced barriers throughout her career because 

of her gender. 

(6) For instance, one of the world’s leading astronomy facilities at the time, the Palomar Observatory, did not permit 

women. Dr. Rubin persisted and was finally allowed to observe 

at Palomar in 1965, the first woman officially allowed to do 

so. 

(7) In 1970, Dr. Rubin published measurements of the 

Andromeda galaxy showing stars and gas orbiting the galaxy’s 

center too fast to be explained by the amount of mass associated 

with the light output of the stars. 

(8) In the years that followed, Dr. Rubin and her collaborators used their observations, in conjunction with the work 

by earlier astronomers on the rotation of stars in spiral galaxies, 

to provide some of the best evidence for the existence of dark 

matter. 

(9) This work contributed to a major shift in the conventional view of the universe, from one dominated by ordinary 

matter such as what produces the light of stars, to one dominated by dark matter. 
H. R. 3196—2 

(10) Dr. Rubin was elected to the National Academy of 

Sciences in 1981, the second woman astronomer to be so honored. 

(11) Dr. Rubin was awarded the President’s National Medal 

of Science in 1993 ‘‘for her pioneering research programs in 

observational cosmology which demonstrated that much of the 

matter in the universe is dark, and for significant contributions 

to the realization that the universe is more complex and more 

mysterious than had been imagined’’. 

(12) Dr. Rubin was an outspoken advocate for the equal 

treatment and representation of women in science, and she 

served as a mentor, supporter, and role model to many women 

astronomers throughout her life. 

(13) The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, funded jointly 

by the National Science Foundation and the Department of 

Energy, will honor the legacy of Dr. Rubin and her colleagues 

to probe the nature of dark matter by mapping and cataloging 

billions of galaxies through space and time. 

SEC. 3. DESIGNATION. 

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope shall be known and designated as the ‘‘Vera C. Rubin Observatory’’. 

SEC. 4. REFERENCES. 

Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, 

or other record of the United States to the facility described in 

section 3 shall be deemed to be a reference to the ‘‘Vera C. Rubin 

Observatory’’. 

Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

Vice President of the United States and

President of the Senate.