Merle Eleanor Gold (née Tuberg) (7 March 1921- 29 September 2017) was an American astrophysicist, best known for her study of the Sun with Nobel Laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.^[1]

Merle Gold was born on 7 March 1921 and grew up in Rochester, Minnesota to Nathaniel and Eleanor Tuberg.^[2] She graduated high school in 1939 as Valedictorian of her class.^[2] She trained as a medical secretary at Mayo Clinic for two years before undertaking her undergraduate degree at University of Chicago.^[2] After graduating, she went on to complete her PhD in astrophysics under Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar at Yerkes Observatory.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} Her thesis was on how absorption lines detected from the Sun vary across the solar disk.^[3]

In 1946, Merle was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at University of Cambridge.^[2][1] She published one research paper after her thesis on the lifetimes of clusters of nebulae outside the Milky Way.^[6][1] In 1971, she became an editor at Cornell School of Agriculture where she worked until her retirement.^[2]

She married astronomer Thomas Gold in 1947 and they had 3 children together before divorcing in 1971.^[1][2] Merle died in Ithaca, New York on 29 September 2017.^[2]

• Merle Tuberg. (November 1943). "On the Lifetime of Clusters of Extragalactic Nebulae". Astrophysical Journal. 98. 501–503. doi: 10.1086/144582
• Merle Tuberg. (March 1946). "The Variations of Absorption-Line Contours across the Solar Disc". Astrophysical Journal. 103. 145. doi:10.1086/144799