Chicago astronomist, professor named one of Time Magazine's Most Influential People of 2025
Alongside Snoop Dogg and Demi Moore, a Chicago professor and astronomist was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Influential People of 2025.
Wendy Freedman is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Time recognizes her research in observational cosmology, or the study of direct observations, using instruments like telescopes, to examine evidence of the universe's development and structure.
Freedman and her team created a new Hubble Constant, a unit of measurement used to describe how fast the universe is expanding. It is considered one of the most critical numbers in cosmology because it can determine the universe's age and could even reveal potential new physics.
Her work has been recognized within the science community, but this is her first "public" recognition.
"It was a complete surprise when I learned about it. I am honored to be on this list," she said.
"I feel very grateful to the University of Chicago for giving me the opportunity to study what I do and all the people and my teams over the years that have made this possible. It's not a solitary endeavor," Freedman said.
The concept of the Hubble Constant originated from a Belgian physicist in 1927, and then Edwin Hubble provided the first observational evidence of it. Since then, NASA has recognized four women, including Freedman, behind the Hubble Space Telescope's achievements.
"This measurement was one of the primary justifications for building a space telescope," according to NASA. The Hubble Space Telescope Key Project is the name of the international team she co-led to refine the Hubble Constant.
April 24th marked 35 years of the Hubble Telescope in space. NASA celebrated the milestone by releasing photos of galaxies and planets. Freedman's observations are among the 1.6 billion observations made by the Hubble.
Freedman was also the first woman to join the Carnegie Observatories as a permanent scientific staff member. She began her work there initially as a postdoctoral fellow. She also helped launch the Giant Magellan Telescope Project and served as the chair of the board of directors for over a decade.
Planetary Nebula NGC 2899, Hubble Telescope
NASA
Being a woman scientist in the middle of a significant debate in cosmology does not come without controversy.
"What people had been arguing about was whether the Hubble constant was 50 or 100, and we were able to make that measurement with 10% accuracy, which, for the time…was a huge step forward," she said.
She said controversy can be good because it keeps scientists accountable. "Science is a field that self-corrects. You get better measurements that supersede the older ones. That's one of the reasons why I love science," she said.
So, what's next?
"As you make more and more accurate measurements, you unearth other kinds of things that could be causing a difference. So that's where we're actively involved now, and that is another controversy. We're trying to understand how exciting this is, because it would be very exciting if it were something new and fundamental about the universe that we didn't understand before," she said.
The list is divided into six categories: innovators, titans, artists, icons, leaders, and pioneers.
"We have artists, musicians, scientists, and writers. Human capacity for doing things is really very vast. I think it's nice that all of those kinds of things get recognized because it's who we are," Freedman said.
Some other people on the list are Gisèle Pelicot, a French woman who survived years of sexual assault by her husband and over 50 men, whose case took the world by storm, as well as Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, and Robert Montgomery, who "revolutionized organ transplantation, expanding access and improving outcomes for patients worldwide."
There are also controversial people on this list, including six members of the Trump Administration, including President Trump.
"TIME's founders knew that focusing on the individuals who are transforming the world is the best way to help readers understand it," Sam Jacobs, Editor-In-Chief of Time, wrote in the explainer of how Time chooses the 100 people. "
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Europe prepares to land rover on the Moon for first time
The first European Moon rover is due to land on the lunar surface on Thursday. Named Tenacious, the rover is less than 2ft long and can carry a payload of just over one pound. Built by the European arm of Japanese lunar exploration company Ispace, it will be controlled by ground staff in Luxembourg, who will be able to drive it at up to four inches per second in near real time, using a video camera mounted on its front panel. Once on the Moon, it will deliver an art project called Moonhouse, a 3in-high model of a typical red Swedish cottage, developed by Mikael Genberg, a Swedish artist. The team hopes to place the house in a location where it can be photographed with the Earth in the background. The rover is also carrying a shovel to collect lunar regolith – moon dust – which will be sold to Nasa for $5,000 (£3,685) under an agreement that will make history as the first off-planet sale of resources. It is the second attempt to land on the Moon by Ispace, after the company's first craft crash-landed on the lunar surface in 2020. An investigation later found that a software glitch had led the spacecraft to believe it was on the surface when it was still several miles from landing. Takeshi Hakamada, the founder of Ispace, said: 'Just over two years ago, Ispace became the first private company in the world to attempt a lunar landing. 'While the mission achieved significant results, we lost communication with the lander just before touchdown. 'Since that time, we have drawn on the experience, using it as motivation to move forward with resolve. We are now at the dawn of our next attempt to make history.' The rover is being carried in a lander spacecraft called Resilience which launched in January on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and entered lunar orbit on May 6. It is due to land on the Mare Frigoris region of the northern hemisphere of the near side of the Moon at 19:17 BST. The team is hoping that the area will be flat enough to allow the rover to trundle around, although its sturdy wheels should help it navigate unexpectedly rough terrain. Sophia Casanova, a senior lunar scientist at Ispace, said: 'The mission will be going to a really exciting region on the Moon. We are hoping to encounter a range of really interesting geologic features, and in particular with our Tenacious rover we will be exploring the lunar regolith, which is the soil-like material that covers the lunar surface. 'Understanding the characteristics of this material will help us not only understand the geology of the Moon but also help us understand the design of our future rovers.' She added: 'The Tenacious rover may encounter an array of features that may pose a hazard. Things like steep slopes, highly fluffy or compacted material, or small craters and boulders. However, these features represent really important characteristics for us to evaluate and our rover was designed with these operational conditions in mind.' The lander is also carrying several payloads including a water electrolyser for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, as well as experiments looking at food production and space radiation. Kathryn Hadler, the director of the European Space Resources Innovation Centre, said: 'There are many resources of interest on the Moon, we can use the oxygen and metals present on the dust that coats the surface of the Moon, and we are also interested in the water ice that is present in the permanently shadowed reasons. 'This is important because we can use these resources to support human life, we can use it for rocket propellant, and this will allow us to support a future of sustainable space exploration. 'We need to develop the technologies to allow us to use these resources in space. It will allow us to understand how the regolith behaves when it is scooped and handled. And this is critical to develop technology for future space missions.' Ispace has previously said that its goal is to kick off the lunar economy, and it has several more missions planned, including working on two more landers. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
How NASA plans to mine the Moon
By Dean Murray The United States has shown off how it plans to mine the Moon. Incredible scenes show NASA testing a vehicle designed to extract vital resources that could help humans live in the lunar environment or even on Mars. Engineers at Kennedy Space Center in Florida are experimenting with the RASSOR (Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot) on a simulated lunar surface. RASSOR's counter-rotating drums dig up simulated moon dust to extract regolith, the loose, fragmental material found on the Moon's surface. The opposing motion of the drums helps RASSOR grip the surface in low-gravity environments like the Moon or Mars. On Tuesday (June 3), NASA said: "With this unique capability, RASSOR can traverse the rough surface to dig, load, haul, and dump regolith that could later be broken down into hydrogen, oxygen, or water-resources critical for sustaining human presence." The space agency is using the foundation of RASSOR's development to inform IPEx (In-Situ Resource Utilisation Pilot Excavator), a newer vehicle being prepared for a potential technology demonstration mission on the Moon. IPEx is still in the advanced development and testing phase and will improve on RASSOR with refinements in scale, modularity, and mission capability to support future lunar resource extraction missions. The post How NASA plans to mine the Moon appeared first on Talker. Copyright Talker News. All Rights Reserved.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Massive planet discovered orbiting tiny star, puzzling scientists
Astronomers announced Wednesday they have discovered a massive planet orbiting a tiny star, a bizarre pairing that has stumped scientists. Most of the stars across the Milky Way are small red dwarfs like TOI-6894, which has only 20% the mass of our sun. It had not been thought possible that such puny, weak stars could provide the conditions needed to form and host huge planets. But an international team of astronomers have detected the unmistakable signature of a gas giant planet orbiting the undersized TOI-6894, according to a study in the journal Nature Astronomy. This makes the star the smallest star yet known to host a gas giant. The planet has a slightly larger radius than Saturn, but only half its mass. It orbits its star in a little over three days. The astronomers discovered the planet when searching through more than 91,000 low-mass red dwarfs observed by NASA's TESS space telescope. Its existence was then confirmed by ground-based telescopes, including Chile's Very Large Telescope. "The fact that this star hosts a giant planet has big implications for the total number of giant planets we estimate exist in our galaxy," study co-author Daniel Bayliss of the UK's Warwick University said in a statement. Another co-author, Vincent Van Eylen, of University College London, said it was an "intriguing discovery." "We don't really understand how a star with so little mass can form such a massive planet!" he said. "This is one of the goals of the search for more exoplanets. By finding planetary systems different from our solar system, we can test our models and better understand how our own solar system formed." Planet is unusually cold The most prominent theory for how planets form is called core accretion. The process begins when a ring of gas and dust — called a protoplanetary disc — which surrounds a newly formed star builds up into a planetary core. This core attracts more gas that forms an atmosphere, eventually snowballing into a gas giant. Under this theory, it is difficult for low-mass stars to host giant planets because there is not enough gas and dust to begin building a core in the first place. A rival theory proposes that these planets instead form when their protoplanetary disc becomes gravitationally unstable and breaks up, with the collapsing gas and dust forming a planet. However neither theory seems to explain the existence of the newly discovered planet, TOI-6894b, the researchers said. The planet also interests scientists because it is strangely cold. Most of the gas giants discovered outside our solar system so far have been what are known as "hot Jupiters," where temperatures soar well over 1,000 degrees Celsius. But the newly discovered planet appears to be under 150C, the researchers said. "Temperatures are low enough that atmospheric observations could even show us ammonia, which would be the first time it is found in an exoplanet atmosphere," said study co-author Amaury Triaud of Birmingham University. The James Webb space telescope is scheduled to turn its powerful gaze toward the planet in the next year, which could help uncover some more mysteries of this strange planet. Recent cosmic discoveries The spotting of the giant planet orbiting the undersized star marks the latest in a string of recent celestial discoveries. Last month, a U.S.-based trio hunting the elusive "Planet Nine" said they instead stumbled on what appears to be a new dwarf planet in the solar system's outer reaches. Named 2017 OF201, the new object is roughly 430 miles across, according to a preprint study, making it three times smaller than Pluto. Also in May, an international team reported that a newly found celestial object — perhaps a star, pair of stars or something else entirely — is emitting X-rays around the same time it's shooting out radio waves. Meanwhile, scientists announced recently that a new planetarium show about the Milky Way helped them unlock one of the solar system's many secrets. Experts at the American Museum of Natural History in New York were fine-tuning a scene about the Oort Cloud that's far beyond Pluto. Scientists have never glimpsed this region, but when museum experts projected their scene onto the planetarium dome, created using simulation data, they saw a spiral shape. Scientists had long thought the Oort Cloud was shaped like a sphere or flattened shell, warped by the push and pull of other planets and the Milky Way itself. The planetarium show hinted that a more complex shape could lie peek: Where is Jermain Charlo? Baldwin grills McMahon on unallocated funds for students, schools, approved by Congress Hegseth orders Navy to rename USNS Harvey Milk, Jeffries calls it "a complete and total disgrace"
