Celebrating Dilhan Eryurt

Today’s Doodle celebrates a star in the field of astronomy, Turkish astrophysicist Dr. Dilhan Eryurt. She was the first Turkish woman to work as a scientist at NASA, and her research on the evolution of stars led to an unexpected discovery about the history of the solar system. On this day in 1969, Dr. Eryurt was honored with NASA’s prestigious “Apollo Achievement Award” for her contribution to the moon landing that year.

Dilhan Eryurt was born in İzmir, Turkey, on November 29, 1926. After high school, she studied in the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at Istanbul University, and then earned a PhD in Astrophysics from Ankara University in 1953. In 1961, Dr. Eryurt began work as the only woman at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in New York. 

At the time, the leading scientific model suggested that the sun had been heating up over billions of years to reach its current temperature. Dr. Eryurt’s work helped show that in fact the sun used to be even hotter than it is today. This transformative discovery had huge implications for the chemical makeup of the Earth, as well as the conditions astronauts could expect to find on the Moon. 

After Dr. Eryurt returned to Turkey, she established an astrophysics department at the Middle East Technical University, where she went on to become the dean of the faculty. In 1977, she was honored with Turkey’s TÜBİTAK Science Award. 

Thank you, Dr. Dilhan Eryurt, for casting a bright light on the mysteries of the universe!

Doodler Q&A

Today’s Doodle art was created by Doodler Kevin Laughlin.
Below, he shares some thoughts on the making of the Doodle:
 

 Q: What was your creative approach for this Doodle? Why did you choose this approach?

A: I tried to imbue this doodle with a sense of wonder that one gets from looking at the night sky. The vastness of the cosmos that lies beyond a veil of distance, temporarily lifted by the work of astronomers like Dilhan.
 

 Q: Did you draw inspiration from anything in particular for this Doodle?

A: Posters for the film ‘Under the Skin’ were the main visual inspiration for this Doodle.
 

 Q: What do you hope people will take away from this Doodle?

A: Please learn more about Dilhan Eryurt and her work! The universe is incomprehensibly vast.

Early concepts of the Doodle