Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; – ) was a British-born American
astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...
and
astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925
doctoral
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' l ...
thesis that
stars
A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...
were composed primarily of
hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-to ...
and
helium
Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic ta ...
.
Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time, which held that there were no significant elemental differences between the
Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved she was correct. Her work on the nature of variable stars was foundational to modern astrophysics.
Early life
Cecilia Helena Payne was one of three children born in
Wendover
Wendover is a market town and civil parish at the foot of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated at the point where the main road across the Chilterns between London and Aylesbury intersects with the once important road a ...
in Buckinghamshire, England, to Emma Leonora Helena (née Pertz) and
Edward John Payne, a London barrister, historian and musician who had been an
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
fellow.
Her mother came from a
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
n family and had two distinguished uncles, historian
Georg Heinrich Pertz
Georg Heinrich Pertz (28 March 17957 October 1876) was a German historian.
Personal life
Pertz was born in Hanover on 28 March 1795. His parents were the court bookbinder Christian August Pertz and Henrietta Justina née Deppen.
He married twi ...
and the
Swedenborgian
The New Church (or Swedenborgianism) is any of several historically related Christian denominations that developed as a new religious group, influenced by the writings of scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772).
Swedenborgian or ...
writer
James John Garth Wilkinson;
[
] her sister Florence was a pianist.
[ Cecilia Payne's father died when she was four years old, forcing her mother to raise the family on her own.
Cecilia Payne began school in Wendover at a private school run by Elizabeth Edwards. When she was twelve her mother moved to London for the sake of the education of Cecilia's brother Humfry, who later became an archaeologist. Cecilia attended St Mary's College, Paddington, where she was unable to study much mathematics or science, but in 1918 changed schools for ]St Paul's Girls' School
St Paul's Girls' School is an independent day school for girls, aged 11 to 18, located in Brook Green, Hammersmith, in West London, England.
History
St Paul's Girls' School was founded by the Worshipful Company of Mercers in 1904, using part o ...
. There she was urged by Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...
, who taught music at the school, to pursue a career in music, but she preferred to focus on science. The following year she won a scholarship that paid all her expenses at Newnham College
Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge.
The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millice ...
, Cambridge University
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
, where she initially read botany, physics, and chemistry but she dropped botany after her first year.[
Her interest in astronomy began after she attended a lecture by ]Arthur Eddington
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He was also a philosopher of science and a populariser of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the lumi ...
on his 1919 expedition to the island of Príncipe
Príncipe is the smaller, northern major island of the country of São Tomé and Príncipe lying off the west coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea. It has an area of (including offshore islets) and a population of 7,324 at the 2012 Census; in the Gulf of Guinea
The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (zero degrees latitude and longitude) is i ...
off the west coast of Africa to observe and photograph the stars near a solar eclipse
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of the Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs during an eclipse season, approximately every six mon ...
as a test of Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...
's general theory of relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric scientific theory, theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current descr ...
. She said of the lecture: "The result was a complete transformation of my world picture. ..My world had been so shaken that I experienced something very like a nervous breakdown." She completed her studies, but was not awarded a degree because of her sex; Cambridge did not grant degrees to women until 1948.
Payne realized that her only career option in the U.K. was to become a teacher, so she looked for grants that would enable her to move to the United States. After being introduced to Harlow Shapley
Harlow Shapley (November 2, 1885 – October 20, 1972) was an American scientist, head of the Harvard College Observatory (1921–1952), and political activist during the latter New Deal and Fair Deal.
Shapley used Cepheid variable stars to estim ...
, the Director of the Harvard College Observatory
The Harvard College Observatory (HCO) is an institution managing a complex of buildings and multiple instruments used for astronomical research by the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United St ...
, where he had just established a graduate program in astronomy, she left England in 1923. This was made possible by a fellowship to encourage women to study at the observatory. Adelaide Ames had become the first student on the fellowship in 1922; the second was Payne. She was described by Lawrence H. Aller as one of the "most capable go-getters" in Shapley's group.
Doctoral thesis
Shapley persuaded Payne to write a doctoral dissertation, and so in 1925 she became the first person to earn a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and h ...
of Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
. Her thesis title was ''Stellar Atmospheres; A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars''.
Payne was able to accurately relate the spectral classes of stars to their actual temperatures by applying the ionization
Ionization, or Ionisation is the process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive charge by gaining or losing electrons, often in conjunction with other chemical changes. The resulting electrically charged atom or molecul ...
theory developed by Indian physicist Meghnad Saha
Meghnad Saha (6 October 1893 – 16 February 1956) was an Indian astrophysicist who developed the Saha ionization equation, used to describe chemical and physical conditions in stars. His work allowed astronomers to accurately relate the spe ...
. She showed that the great variation in stellar absorption lines
A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to identi ...
was due to differing amounts of ionization at different temperatures, not to different amounts of elements. She found that silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic ta ...
, carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon mak ...
, and other common metals seen in the Sun's spectrum were present in about the same relative amounts as on Earth, in agreement with the accepted belief of the time, which held that the stars had approximately the same elemental composition as the Earth. However, she found that helium and particularly hydrogen were vastly more abundant (for hydrogen, by a factor of about one million). Her thesis concluded that hydrogen was the overwhelming constituent of stars (see Metallicity), making it the most abundant element in the Universe.
However, when Payne's dissertation was reviewed, astronomer Henry Norris Russell
Henry Norris Russell ForMemRS HFRSE FRAS (October 25, 1877 – February 18, 1957) was an American astronomer who, along with Ejnar Hertzsprung, developed the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (1910). In 1923, working with Frederick Saunders, he d ...
, who stood by the theories of American physicist Henry Rowland, dissuaded her from concluding that the composition of the Sun was predominantly hydrogen because it would contradict the current scientific consensus that the elemental composition of the Sun and the Earth were similar. In 1914, he had written in an academic article:
The agreement of the solar and terrestrial lists is such as to confirm very strongly Rowland's opinion that, if the Earth's crust should be raised to the temperature of the Sun's atmosphere, it would give a very similar absorption spectrum. The spectra of the Sun and other stars were similar, so it appeared that the relative abundance of elements in the universe was like that in Earth's crust.
Payne consequently described her results as "spurious". A few years later, astronomer Otto Struve
Otto Struve (August 12, 1897 – April 6, 1963) was a Russian-American astronomer of Baltic German origins. In Russian, his name is sometimes given as Otto Lyudvigovich Struve (Отто Людвигович Струве); however, he spent most o ...
described her work as "the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy". Russell also realized she was correct when he derived the same results by different means. In 1929, he published his findings in a paper that briefly acknowledged Payne's earlier work and discovery, including the mention that " e most important previous determination of the abundance of the elements by astrophysical means is that by Miss Payne ... Nevertheless, he was generally credited for the conclusions she reached.
Career
After her doctorate, Payne studied stars of high luminosity to understand the structure of the Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. ...
. Later she surveyed all stars brighter than the tenth magnitude
Magnitude may refer to:
Mathematics
*Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction
*Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object
*Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector
*Order of ...
. She then studied variable star
A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are classified as e ...
s, making over 1,250,000 observations with her assistants. This work later was extended to the Magellanic Clouds
The Magellanic Clouds (''Magellanic system'' or ''Nubeculae Magellani'') are two irregular dwarf galaxies in the southern celestial hemisphere. Orbiting the Milky Way galaxy, these satellite galaxies are members of the Local Group. Because bo ...
, adding a further 2,000,000 observations of variable stars. These data were used to determine the paths of stellar evolution. She published her conclusions in her second book, ''The Stars of High Luminosity'' (1930). Her observations and analysis of variable stars, carried out with her husband, Sergei Gaposchkin, laid the basis for all subsequent work on such objects.[
]
Payne-Gaposchkin remained scientifically active throughout her life, spending her entire academic career at Harvard. When she began, women were barred from becoming professors at Harvard, so she spent years doing less prestigious, low-paid research jobs. Nevertheless, her work resulted in several published books, including ''The Stars of High Luminosity'' (1930), ''Variable Stars'' (1938) and ''Variable Stars and Galactic Structure'' (1954). Shapley had made efforts to improve her position, and in 1938 she was given the title of "Astronomer." On Payne's request, her title was later changed to Phillips Astronomer, an endowed position which would make her an "officer of the university"; in order to get approval for her title, Shapley assured the university that giving Payne-Gaposchkin this position would not make her equivalent to a professor, but privately pushed for the position to be later converted into an explicit professorship as the "Phillips Professor of Astronomy". She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 1943.[
] Her courses were not recorded in the Harvard University catalogue until 1945.
When Donald Menzel
Donald Howard Menzel (April 11, 1901 – December 14, 1976) was one of the first theoretical astronomers and astrophysicists in the United States. He discovered the physical properties of the solar chromosphere, the chemistry of stars, the atmos ...
became Director of the Harvard College Observatory in 1954, he tried to improve her appointment, and in 1956 she became the first woman to be promoted to full professor from within the faculty at Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She was appointed the Phillips Professor of Astronomy in 1958. Later, with her appointment to the Chair of the Department of Astronomy, she also became the first woman to head a department at Harvard. ">4/sup>
Her students included Helen Sawyer Hogg
Helen Battles Sawyer Hogg (August 1, 1905 – January 28, 1993) was an American-Canadian astronomer who pioneered research into globular clusters and variable stars. She was the first female president of several astronomical organizations and a ...
, Joseph Ashbrook, Frank Drake
Frank Donald Drake (May 28, 1930 – September 2, 2022) was an American astrophysicist and astrobiologist.
He began his career as a radio astronomer, studying the planets of the Solar System and later pulsars. Drake expanded his interests ...
, Harlan Smith and Paul W. Hodge, all of whom made important contributions to astronomy. She also supervised Frank Kameny.
Payne-Gaposchkin retired from active teaching in 1966 and was subsequently appointed Professor Emerita of Harvard. She continued her research as a member of staff at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, as well as editing the journals and books published by Harvard Observatory for twenty years. She edited and published the lectures of Walter Baade
Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade (March 24, 1893 – June 25, 1960) was a German astronomer who worked in the United States from 1931 to 1959.
Biography
The son of a teacher, Baade finished school in 1912. He then studied maths, physics and astr ...
as ''Evolution of Stars and Galaxies'' (1963).
Legacy
Payne's career marked a turning point at Harvard College Observatory. Under the direction of Harlow Shapley and Dr E. J. Sheridan (whom Payne-Gaposchkin described as a mentor[
]), the observatory had already offered more opportunities in astronomy to women than did other institutions, and notable achievements had been made earlier in the century by Williamina Fleming
(15 May 1857 – 21 May 1911) was a Scottish-American astronomer. She was a single mother, hired by the director of the Harvard College Observatory to help in the photographic classification of stellar spectra. She helped develop a common d ...
, Antonia Maury
Antonia Caetana de Paiva Pereira Maury (March 21, 1866 – January 8, 1952) was an American astronomer who was the first to detect and calculate the orbit of a spectroscopic binary. She published an important early catalog of stellar spectra us ...
, Annie Jump Cannon, and Henrietta Swan Leavitt
Henrietta Swan Leavitt (; July 4, 1868 – December 12, 1921) was an American astronomer. A graduate of Radcliffe College, she worked at the Harvard College Observatory as a "computer", tasked with examining photographic plates in order to measu ...
. However, with Payne's PhD, women entered the mainstream.
The trail she blazed into the largely male-dominated scientific community was an inspiration to many. For example, she became a role model for astrophysicist Joan Feynman
Joan Feynman (March 31, 1927 – July 21, 2020) was an American astrophysicist. She made contributions to the study of solar wind particles and fields, sun-Earth relations, and magnetospheric physics. In particular, Feynman was known for develo ...
. Feynman's mother and grandmother had dissuaded her from pursuing science, since they believed women were not physically capable of understanding scientific concepts.[
][
] Feynman was later inspired by Payne-Gaposchkin when she came across some of her work in an astronomy textbook. Seeing Payne-Gaposchkin's research published in this way convinced Feynman that she could, in fact, follow her scientific passions.[
]
While accepting the Henry Norris Russell Prize from the American Astronomical Society, Payne spoke of her lifelong passion for research: "The reward of the young scientist is the emotional thrill of being the first person in the history of the world to see something or understand something. Nothing can compare with that experience ..The reward of the old scientist is the sense of having seen a vague sketch grow into a masterly landscape."
Personal life
In her autobiography, Payne tells that while in school she created an experiment on the efficacy of prayer
The efficacy of prayer has been studied since at least 1872, generally through experiments to determine whether prayer or intercessory prayer has a measurable effect on the health of the person for whom prayer is offered. A study in 2006 indicate ...
by dividing her exams in two groups, praying for success only on one, the other one being a control group. She achieved the higher marks in the latter group. Later on, she became an agnostic.
In 1931, Payne became a United States citizen. On a tour through Europe in 1933, she met Russian-born astrophysicist Sergei I. Gaposchkin in Germany. She helped him get a visa to the United States, and they married in March 1934, settling in the historic town of Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is 10 miles (16 km) from Downtown Boston. The population was 34,454 as of the 2020 census. The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans, and was firs ...
, a short commute from Harvard. Payne added her husband's name to her own, and the Payne-Gaposchkins had three children: Edward, Katherine and Peter. Payne's daughter remembers her as "an inspired seamstress, an inventive knitter, and a voracious reader". Payne and her family were members of the First Unitarian Church in Lexington, where Cecilia taught Sunday school.
She was also active with the Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
. She died at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 7, 1979, aged 79.
Shortly before her death, Payne had her autobiography privately printed as ''The Dyer's Hand''. It was later reprinted as ''Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections''.[
Payne's younger brother, ]Humfry Payne
Humfry Gilbert Garth Payne (19 February 1902 – 9 May 1936) was an English archaeologist, director of the British School of Archaeology in Athens from 1929 to his death.
Personal
Born at Wendover, Buckinghamshire, Payne was the only so ...
(1902–1936), who married author and film critic Dilys Powell
Elizabeth Dilys Powell, CBE (20 July 1901 – 3 June 1995) was a British film critic and travel writer who contributed to ''The Sunday Times'' for more than 50 years. Powell was known for her receptiveness to cultural change in the cinema and ...
, became director of the British School of Archaeology at Athens
, image = Image-Bsa athens library.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, image_upright=
, alt=
, caption = The library of the BSA
, latin_name=
, motto=
, founder = The Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, called the foundation meeti ...
, where he died in 1936, aged 34. Payne's granddaughter Cecilia Gaposchkin is a professor of late medieval cultural history and French history at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
.
Honors and awards
* Elected member of Royal Astronomical Society
(Whatever shines should be observed)
, predecessor =
, successor =
, formation =
, founder =
, extinction =
, merger =
, merged =
, type = NG ...
while still a student at Cambridge 1923
* Became one of 250 scientists added to the 4th edition of American Men of Science
''American Men and Women of Science'' (the 40th edition was published in 2022) is a biographical reference work on leading scientists in the United States and Canada, published as a series of books and online by Gale. The first edition was publish ...
(1927)
* Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy
The Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy is awarded annually by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) to a woman resident of North America, who is within five years of receipt of a PhD, for distinguished contributions to astronomy or for similar ...
(1934) – first recipient
* Member of the American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
(1936)
* Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
(1943)
*Award of Merit from Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and h ...
(1952)
*Rittenhouse Medal The Rittenhouse Medal is awarded by the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society for outstanding achievement in the science of Astronomy. The medal was one of those originally minted to commemorate the Bi-Centenary of the birth of David Rittenhouse on April ...
from the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society at the Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...
(1961)[
]
* Professor Emerita of Harvard University (1967)
* Henry Norris Russell Lectureship The Henry Norris Russell Lectureship is awarded each year by the American Astronomical Society in recognition of a lifetime of excellence in astronomical research. The idea for the lectureship came from then society President Harlow Shapley in 1945, ...
of the American Astronomical Society (1976)
*The American Physical Society's Doctoral Dissertation Award in Astrophysics renamed the Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Doctoral Dissertation Award in Astrophysics (2018)
* Honorary Degrees from Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...
, Wilson College, Smith College, Western College, Colby College
Colby College is a private liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine. It was founded in 1813 as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, then renamed Waterville College after the city where it resides. The donations of Christian philant ...
, and the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania
A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...
* Asteroid 2039 Payne-Gaposchkin
2039 Payne-Gaposchkin, provisional designation , is a carbonaceous Themistian asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 14 kilometers in diameter. The asteroid was discovered on 14 February 1974, by astronomers at the ...
named after her
* The Payne-Gaposchkin Patera (volcano
A volcano is a rupture in the Crust (geology), crust of a Planet#Planetary-mass objects, planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Ear ...
) on Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...
is named after her.
* One of the ASAS-SN
The All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) is an automated program to search for new supernovae and other astronomical transients, headed by astronomers from the Ohio State University,
including Christopher Kochanek and Krzysztof Stanek. ...
telescopes deployed in South Africa was named after her.
* Institute of Physics
The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application.
It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physic ...
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Medal and Prize
The Institute of Physics awards numerous prizes to acknowledge contributions to physics research, education and applications. It also offers smaller specific subject-group prizes, such as for PhD thesis submissions.
Bilateral awards
* The Max B ...
named in her honor in 2008.
Selected bibliography
Published academic books:
* ''The Stars of High Luminosity'' (1930)
* ''Variable Stars'' (1938)
* ''Variable Stars and Galactic Structure'' (1954)
* ''Introduction to Astronomy'' (1954)
* ''The Galactic Novae'' (1957)
Significant research papers:
*
*
*
*
*
See also
* Harvard Computers
The Harvard Computers was a team of women working as skilled workers to process astronomical data at the Harvard Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The team was directed by Edward Charles Pickering (1877 to 1919) and, follow ...
, a number of women working as skilled workers to process astronomical data at Harvard Observatory
The Harvard College Observatory (HCO) is an institution managing a complex of buildings and multiple instruments used for astronomical research by the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United St ...
under the direction of Edward Charles Pickering
Edward Charles Pickering (July 19, 1846 – February 3, 1919) was an American astronomer and physicist and the older brother of William Henry Pickering. Along with Carl Vogel, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary stars. He wrote ' ...
(1877 to 1919)
* " Sisters of the Sun", eighth episode of '' Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey'', 2014 American science documentary television series
* Timeline of women in science
This is a timeline of women in science, spanning from ancient history up to the 21st century. While the timeline primarily focuses on women involved with natural sciences such as astronomy, biology, chemistry and physics, it also includes women f ...
References
Further reading
*Chapman, Emma (December 20, 2020).
The life-changing and long-lasting influence of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
Science Focus Magazine
*
*
*Moore, Donovan (2020) ''What Stars Are Made Of: The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.
's'' series on women in science (in French)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia