29 Facts About Margherita Hack

Margherita Hack's father Roberto Hack was a Florentine bookkeeper of Protestant Swiss origin.

Margherita Hack's mother, Maria Luisa Poggesi, a Catholic from Tuscany, was a graduate of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze and a miniaturist at the Uffizi Gallery.

An athlete in her youth, Margherita Hack played basketball and competed in track and field during the National University Contests, called the Littoriali under Mussolini's fascist regime, where she won the long jump and the high jump events.

Margherita Hack married Aldo De Rosa on 19 February 1944 in the church of San Leonardo in Arcetri; De Rosa had been one of her childhood playmates.

Margherita Hack attended the Liceo Classico "Galileo Galilei" in Florence, but the outbreak of World War II prevented her from taking her exams.

Margherita Hack considered Abetti her model for a scientist, teacher, and scientific research centre administrator.

Margherita Hack was a vegetarian from childhood and supported animal welfare.

Margherita Hack wrote a book explaining this choice entitled Perche sono vegetariana ; she wrote a book entitled La mia vita in bicicletta.

Margherita Hack had been hospitalized for a week for heart problems, from which she had suffered for about two years.

Margherita Hack left her personal library, containing 18,000 books on astronomy, to the city of Trieste.

In June 2022, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of her birth, a statue of Margherita Hack was placed in front of the Universita Statale di Milano.

Margherita Hack was full professor of astronomy at the University of Trieste from 1964 to the 1st of November 1992, when Hack was placed "out of role" for seniority.

Margherita Hack has been the first Italian woman to administrate the Trieste Astronomical Observatory from 1964 to 1987, bringing it to international fame.

Margherita Hack was a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.

Margherita Hack worked at many American and European observatories and was for long time member of working groups of ESA and NASA.

Margherita Hack has published several original papers in international journals and several books both of popular science and university level.

In 1978, Margherita Hack founded the bimonthly magazine L'Astronomia, whose first issue came out in November 1979; later, together with Corrado Lamberti, she directed the magazine of popular science and astronomy culture Le Stelle.

Margherita Hack was known for her activities outside of science, especially in the social and political fields.

Margherita Hack was an atheist and she did not believe in any religion or form of supernaturalism.

Margherita Hack believed that ethics does not derive from religion, but from "principles of conscience" that allow anyone to have a secular view of life, respectful of other people's individuality and freedom.

Hostile to any form of superstition, including pseudosciences, Margherita Hack was a scientific guarantor of CICAP since 1989 and an honorary president of the Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics.

Margherita Hack has been a member of the Transnational Radical Party.

Margherita Hack stood for Italian regional elections of 2005 in Lombardy in the list of the Party of Italian Communists obtaining 5,364 votes in the province of Milan.

Margherita Hack sided again with the Party of Italian Communists in the 2006 Italian general election.

Margherita Hack was nominated for several districts of the Chamber of Deputies, but she decided to give the seat up to devote herself to astronomy.

For more times, Margherita Hack was invited by and gave some lectures at the Grand Orient of Italy.

Margherita Hack openly expressed her indifference to the outcome and the festival itself, leading to a live televised argument with Pippo Baudo.

In 2010, Margherita Hack appeared in the music video for Alfonsina e la bici by the band Tetes de Bois, portraying the role of Alfonsina Strada, a pioneering female cyclist.

Between 2011 and 2012, she collaborated with singer Ginevra Di Marco on the concert-show L'anima della terra vista dalle stelle, where Margherita Hack narrated her experiences of the 20th century accompanied by Di Marco's music.