Maud Worcester Makemson

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“She was a mentor to Vera Rubin, {{w|Vassar College|Vassar}} class of 1948, who became an eminent astronomer and made critical discoveries about dark matter. Rubin said of her professor, “She was a very thorough teacher, demanding high quality in return.” With her students, Makemson computed the orbits of twelve {{w|minor planet}}s, and named one “{{w|Maria Mitchell}}” and another “Vassar.””

“The {{w|Marquesans}} and the {{w|Gilbert Islands#Population|Gilbert Islanders}} divided the year into intervals which had no connection with the {{w|lunar month}} and were governed solely by the stars.”

“In Mexican cosmology the sky fell down as a result of profound rainy spell. Two gods changed themselves into trees with which it was then supported. Rain also caused the collapse of the sky in a story told by the {{w|Cahto|Kato}} of the northwestern United States. {{w|Cahto#Religion|Naga-itcho, Great Traveler}}, saw that the old sky which was made of {{w|sandstone}} and badly cracked in places was about to fall, so he and Thunder constructed a new sky.”

“The {{w|Polynesians}} of old conceived of the sky as a dome or inverted bowl resting upon the rim of the hemispherical earth. One legend compares the universe with a {{w|calabash}}, the cover of which formed the sky, while the bowl was earth, land, and sea, the juice became rain, and the seeds were metamorphosed into sun, moon, and stars. Several writers divide into three zones the space between the earth—paa ilalo, the "solid below"—and the heavens—paa iluna, the "solid above." {{w|Kepelino}}'s ... work contains several allusions to the triple heavens, lani kaukolu ...”