Burbidge, Margaret

Burbidge, Margaret (Eleanor Margaret Burbidge), 1925–, Anglo-American astronomer. She was the first woman appointed director (1972–73) of the Royal Greenwich Observatory and was named (1982) president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Burbidge; her husband, Geoffrey Burbidge; William Fowler; and Sir Fred Hoyle showed (1956) how heavier elements can be built up from lighter ones in the interiors of stars.

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Burbidge, (Eleanor) Margaret

 orig. Eleanor Margaret Peachey

(born Aug. 12, 1919, Davenport, Cheshire, Eng.) English astronomer. She served as acting director (1950–51) of the Observatory of the University of London. In 1955 her husband, Geoffrey Burbidge (b. 1925), became a researcher at the Mount Wilson Observatory, and she accepted a research post at Caltech. She later joined the faculty at UC–San Diego, briefly serving as director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory (1972–73). Jointly with her husband, she made notable contributions to the theory of quasars and to the understanding of how the elements are formed in the depths of stars through nuclear fusion (nucleosynthesis).