Julie Marie Vinter Hansen

Danish astronomer, Julie Marie Vinter Hansen, at the
7th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union, August 1948.

Credit: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf6-04356], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

Julie Marie Vinter Hansen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in July 1890. Hansen became a so-called "computer" at the University of Copenhagen Observatory in 1915 and, after graduating, became a permanent assistant. In 1922, she was promoted to the rank of Observer, becoming the first woman to hold the office of Observer at the University of Copenhagen Observatory. At the time, the observatory was focused on visual observations of asteroids and comets and numerical investigations in celestial mechanics, so this is what Hansen spent her time on.

She was an incredibly astute observer and an outstanding numerical computer, calculating the ephemerides for new comets. [Note: an ephemeris is a table showing the positions of a celestial object on a number of dates in a regular sequence]. Later in life, she focused on the exhaustive calculation of the orbit of the periodic comet 32P/Comas Solà which was used as a numerical example in the first volume of HM Nautical Almanac's Planetary Coordinates.

In addition to conducting scientific work and teaching, Hansen had been the Editor of Nordisk Astronomisk Tidsskrift since 1920. She was also Editor of the International Astronomical Union Circulars and Director of the telegram bureau. This work enabled her to connect with a variety of astronomers from around the world and allowed her to pursue her interest in travelling.