Margherita Hack was an Italian astronomer with a major work in astronomy and a professor at the University of Florence.
She was born in 1922 in Florence.
She was a young basketball player, athlete in the high jump and the long jump.
In 1944 she married an athlete he met on the courts where they competed.
She graduated with a degree in physics from the University of Florence with honors.
Her dissertation in astrophysics was related to Cepheid variables.
She was also a professor of astronomy at the same university.
She was the first Italian to run the Trieste Observatory. She was a member of well-known physics and astronomy societies.
She has worked in many American and European observatories but has also worked for NASA and ESA (European Space Agency).
She also dealt with politics. She was a member of the Democratic Radical Party and was also elected a representative.
She was an advocate for animal rights and gender equality.
Her personal library in Trieste had 24,000 astronomy books.
She was a vegetarian and wrote a book to explain the reasons for this choice.
She had anti-religious views and was critical of the Catholic Church. She believed that morality was a matter of personality and not of religion.
The asteroid 8558 Hack, discovered in 1995, was named in her honor.
She died in 2013 of heart problems that plagued her for two years.
[Source: el.wikipedia.org]
