astronomy

Ursula Marvin

Ursula Marvin is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ursula Marvin rather than just read about it. In short: Ursula Bailey Marvin (August 20, 1921 – February 12, 2018) was an American planetary geologist and author who worked for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. She won the 1997 Women in Science and Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award.

Key takeaways

Ursula Marvin belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ursula Marvin to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ursula Marvin from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ursula Bailey Marvin (August 20, 1921 – February 12, 2018) was an American planetary geologist and author who worked for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. She won the 1997 Women in Science and Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1986, the Geological Society of America awarded her their History of Geology Award. She also won the 2005 Sue Tyler Friedman Medal, and Antarctica's Marvin Nunatak is named in her honor. In 2012, the Meteoritical Society awarded her the Service Award in part for her work recording the oral history of meteoriticists. Asteroid (4309) Marvin is named in her honour, as is Marvin Crater on the Moon, located near the Lunar south pole.

Early life and education Ursula Bailey was born in Bradford, Vermont, on August 20, 1921, to Harold Leslie Bailey and Alice M. Bailey. Her childhood near the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where, as she recalled in 1997, sunsets "shone with a pink-purple afterglow," inspired her with a love of the outdoors, but did not, at first, spark an interest in geology. While studying history at Tufts University, she took a geology class to fulfill her science requirements and was taken by the subject. She asked her geology professor to change majors to geology, but he refused (he told her she should learn how to cook) so she added geology, math and physics courses to her schedule. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in history from Tufts University in 1943. She then attended Harvard University-Radcliffe, earning a master's degree in geology in 1946.

Career and research

Following World War II, she moved to Chicago, where she was a research associate at the University of Chicago, working with Julian Goldsmith. She was briefly married to Lloyd Chaisson, a dental student at the University of Chicago. She then returned to Harvard, to work on her Ph.D. in geology. While at Harvard she worked alongside her second husband, Thomas Crockett Marvin (June 28, 1916 – July 1, 2012), whom she married in 1952. They prospected for ore deposits in Brazil and Angola starting in 1953. After returning to the United States in 1958, she taught mineralogy at Tufts for two years before she was offered a job researching meteorites at Harvard. She was appointed to a permanent research staff position at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 1961 and received a Ph.D. in geology from Harvard in 1969. She authored the 1973 book Continental Drift: Evolution of a Concept and authored over 160 research papers. Her key contributions in planetary science concentrated on studies of meteorites and lunar samples. Her publications include analysis of oxidation products of Sputnik 4 to determine mineralogical alteration over exposure time with applications to iron meteorites. She was also involved with numerous studies of returned samples from both the American and Russian lunar programs, including from the Apollo 12, Apollo 15, Apollo 16 missions, and from Luna 16 and Luna 20. She traveled to Antarctica for three of the early ANSMET surveys and analyzed the first lunar meteorite, Allan Hills A81005. She was the first woman on the American team that conducted research there. Because of her contributions to research in Antarctica, a small mountain on the ice sheet was named for her, Marvin Nunatak. She served as a trustee at Tufts University from 1975 to 1985, and was an emerita trustee of the university.

Awards and honors 1997, Lifetime Achievement Award from Women in Science and Engineering. 1986, History of Geology Award, Geological Society of America 2005, Sue Tyler Friedman Medal 2012, Service Award, the Meteoritical Society Antarctica's Marvin Nunatak is named in her honor. Asteroid (4309) Marvin is named in her honor. Marvin Crater, located near the south pole of the Moon, is named in her honor.

References

External links Media related to Ursula Marvin at Wikimedia Commons Quotations related to Ursula Marvin at Wikiquote

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ursula Marvin

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ursula Marvin claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ursula Marvin before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ursula Marvin ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ursula Marvin

In research: Ursula Marvin appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ursula Marvin in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ursula Marvin is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1921 births, 2018 deaths, 20th-century American astronomers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ursula Marvin outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ursula Marvin in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ursula Marvin means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ursula Marvin out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ursula Marvin in simple terms?

Why does Ursula Marvin matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ursula Marvin?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ursula Marvin.