Harlow Shapley Project

I'm delighted to go to California for the AAS 248 meeting and also do needed archival research. In this update, I report on a new grant, an exciting new home for Harlow Shapley Project content, and previews of two forthcoming posts.

Here are selected slides from my presentation at the American Astronomical Society’s 247th meeting (#AAS247) on January 5, 2026. I told the story of Harlow Shapley’s public defiance when right-wing politicians tried to discredit scientists, artists, teachers, and other citizens through accusation without due process.

Today the 69 jewel-like globular clusters that Harlow Shapley mapped to discover the shape of our Galaxy still yield new science and delight.

From the Editor: 4 opportunities in the spring and summer advanced the Project’s goal “to raise knowledge of Shapley’s legacy among general audiences and scholars.”

Drawing on one of the most famous debates in scientific history, Deborah Shapley poses the question whether head-to-head conflict is a model that benefits science. She offers a wider version of the story of her grandfather Harlow Shapley’s loss after 1920 debate with Heber Curtis, at which Shapley argued “island universes” were located inside our Milky Way Galaxy. But in the 1920s when Edwin Hubble sent him evidence these “nebulae” were way beyond our galaxy, Shapley pivoted to the view he had opposed. For decades afterward, Shapley pushed scientific work on galaxy distribution and spread public knowledge of this unfolding universe.