向历史上默默无闻的女天文学家致敬

向历史上默默无闻的女天文学家致敬

Artist Carol Prusa remembers looking out of her window at the night sky as a child and feeling the "overwhelming immensity" of space. Decades later, that same feeling still informs her art .

艺术家卡罗尔·普鲁萨记得，她小时候从窗口望出去，看到夜空，感觉到了空间的“无边无际”。几十年后，同样的感觉仍然影响着她的艺术。

Learning about the Big Bang in middle school was similarly influential, Prusa said, adding that she still meditates on the threshold between existing and not.

普鲁萨说，在中学学习大爆炸也有类似的影响。她补充说，她仍然会在“存在”和“不存在”之间做冥想。

"I tried to envision what there was before there was something," she explained in an email interview. "Art, in its many forms, can... feel and express that vastness and the overwhelming fecundity of life. Looking at the night sky can leave one breathless by sheer scale and beauty and what we do not yet know."

她在接受电子邮件采访时解释说:“我试着去想象在事情发生之前会是什么样子。”“艺术，以其多种形式，可以……感受并表达生命的博大精深。仰望夜空，规模之大、景色之美以及我们所不知道的事情都令人窒息。

Prusa's new show "Dark Light," which opens this week at Florida's Boca Raton Museum of Art, honors the pioneering work of female astronomers. Coming just weeks after the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, the exhibition also aims to explore the broader mysteries of the universe.

普鲁萨的新展览《黑暗之光》本周将在佛罗里达州的博卡拉顿艺术博物馆开幕，它是为了纪念女性天文学家的开创性工作。此次展览距离登月50周年仅几周时间，目的还在于探索宇宙中更广泛的奥秘。

Prusa encountered female astronomers as she delved into books about dark matter and eclipses. In particular, she cites Vera Rubin, an astrophysicist credited with helping prove the existence of dark matter, and Maria Mitchell, the first American woman to work as a professional astronomer.

普鲁萨在钻研有关暗物质和日食的书籍时遇到了女天文学家。她特别引用了薇拉·鲁宾和玛丽亚·米切尔的例子。鲁宾是一位天体物理学家，被认为帮助证明了暗物质的存在。米切尔是第一位从事专业天文学家工作的美国女性。

Mitchell's journals detailed her experience of taking a team of female astronomers to Denver, Colorado, to witness a rare total solar eclipse in 1878.

米切尔的日记详细描述了她带领一组女天文学家前往科罗拉多州丹佛市，亲眼目睹1878年罕见的日全食的经历。

"Seeing a total eclipse for the first time, I was blown away by a euphoric feeling . I was so moved that I literally fell backward," said Prusa, who watched the event from the banks of the North Platte River in Nebraska. "When the shadow of the eclipse passed over, the world changed in a way I had never experienced before.

“第一次看到日全食，我被一种愉悦感所震撼。我太感动了，简直要倒了下去，”普鲁萨说，她在内布拉斯加州的北普拉特河岸边观看了这一现象。“当日食的阴影过去后，世界发生了我从未经历过的变化。

While Prusa's earlier work played with similar shades of gray, her new series -- rooted in the eclipse -- focuses on the contrast between light and dark tones. She created her striking palette by grinding stainless steel, iron oxide and graphite into painting materials. The end result is multiple domes and circular artworks representing various stages of a total solar eclipse.

虽然普鲁萨的早期作品也使用了类似的灰色色调，但她的新系列——植根于《月食》——关注的是明暗色调的对比。她将不锈钢、氧化铁和石墨研磨成绘画材料，创造出了自己引人注目的调色板。最终的结果是多个穹顶和圆形艺术品，代表了日全食的不同阶段。

"Black, no matter how dark, still reflects light. I wanted to make black have depth and structure, and to be infinite," Prusa said. "The eclipses influenced me in this respect, but this could also be a reflection on the times we live in. There isn't dark without light -- or light without dark."

黑色，不管有多暗，仍然会反射光线。我想让黑色具有深度和结构，并且是无限的，”普鲁萨说。“日食在这方面影响了我，但这也可能是我们所生活的时代的反映。没有光就没有黑暗，没有黑暗就没有光明。”