1/4 Dollar 'Washington Quarter' Dr. Vera Rubin

Vera Rubin spent decades fighting for telescope time that male colleagues received as a matter of course, and her observational work on galactic rotation curves in the 1970s — conducted largely at Kitt Peak and Lowell Observatory — produced the most compelling early evidence for dark matter. The astronomical establishment was slow to credit it. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize repeatedly and never received one; she died in 2016 before the committee acted.

This .999 silver version was struck for the collector market alongside the standard clad circulation issue, part of the American Women Quarters Program authorized by Congress in 2021.