| Citation | Distinguished for her fundamental contributions to atomic and astrophysics. It is striking that throughout the development of solar rocket spectroscopy she participated in the identification and subsequent diagnostic application of every new major spectral feature discovered, including the so-called ZETA/Solar lines (observed first in the Sun and then in ZETA), the soft X-ray intercombination and satellite lines associated with He-like and Li-like ions (of major importance in the study of solar activity and will become of even greater importance as cosmic X-ray spectroscopy is opened up), the ultraviolet coronal forbidden lines observed uniquely in the solar eclipse of 1970, and emission lines of molecular hydrogen, due to fluorescence caused by Lyman alpha (the first unambiguous detection of H2 in the Sun). She has followed up this latter work by observing and detecting those same fluorescence transitions in the pre-main sequence star T Tauri (another first).
Acknowledged internationally as an authority in Solar XUV physics, she was one of the pioneers to use ultraviolet observations (with the Copernicus satellite) to extend such studies to late-type stars. Her further extensive exploitation of the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite has made a leading contribution to a revolution in our knowledge of the nature and structure of stellar chromospheres and coronae. |