Marcia Neugebauer

Marcia Neugebauer (born September 27, 1932) is an American geophysicist who made contributions to space physics. Neugebauer's research was among the first that yielded the first direct measurements of the solar wind and shed light on its physics and interaction with comets.

Career Neugebauer was an investigator of the Mariner 2 plasma analyzer that made the first extensive measurements of the solar wind and discovery of its properties. She also developed analytical instruments that orbited Earth, some set up on the moon by the Apollo astronauts, and others that flew by Halley's Comet on the European Giotto mission.

In 2010 Neugebauer was awarded the George Ellery Hale Prize of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society "for her seminal contributions to the discovery of the solar wind and her extensive and ongoing contributions to solar-heliospheric physics."

Personal life and education Neugebauer was born in New York City. She attended Burr and Burton Academy (then Burr and Burton Seminary) in Manchester, Vermont, where she played basketball and learned how to ski. She received a B.A. in physics from Cornell University in 1954, followed by an M.S. in physics from the University of Illinois in Urbana in 1956.