Women's History Month 2013 - Day 14

For you British blog followers, let me give you a little background information about a star not very far from here. In fact, in recent centuries it was discovered that out humble little planet actually revolves around it. To the rest of the world it provides heat and light. To us it’s that yellow disc-shaped phenomenon that is often seen for a couple of days in April and then September and usually prompts a selling-out of sausages in Sainsburys and a hosepipe ban.

Wry British weather-based humour aside, today I want to showcase a splendid dame who’s work in astronomy and astrophysics revealed some of the most important secrets of our universe, including what stars, including our own elusive sun is made of. The male astrophysicists of the day may have eclipsed this woman’s achievements and discoveries, but her contributions to the field are some of the most important in understanding how are universe works, so it really is time to give her some credit and give her a day in the sun.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin 

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was born in Wendover, UK, in 1900. One of three children, her barrister father died when Cecilia was four leaving her mother to raise Cecilia and her two brothers alone. Unsurprisingly there was money to send her two brothers to college but not her, but Celilia, being so bright, won a scholarship to Cambridge, where she read botany, physics and chemistry, and sparked a life long passion in astronomy. Although she completed her studies, Cambridge did not award degrees to women – of course not – so her work went uncredited.

Realising the limitations of the British academic system for her gender, Cecilia headed to America. Harlow Shapley, the then director of Harvard College Observatory picked up on the talents of this bright young girl and encouraged Cecilia to write a doctoral dissertation. So in 1925 she became the first person to embark on a PhD in astronomy. Her thesis “Stellar Atmospheres, A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars” drew acclaim from her peers, and was quoted to be, by fellow astronomer Otto Struve “undoubtedly the most brilliant Ph.D thesis ever written in astronomy”.

It was at Harvard that she suggested that silicon, carbon, and other common metals seen in the sun were found in about the same relative amounts as on Earth, but helium and particularly hydrogen were vastly more abundant, concluding that hydrogen was the main constituent of stars. So with this star finding, how is it that you’ve never heard of her? She wasn’t fully credited with the discovery at the time because her male superiors convinced her to retract her findings on stellar hydrogen and publish a far less definitive statement, and Cecelia was worried about her academic career if she argued. Within a few years, however, she was proven to be correct. Not only was it shown that that all stars are essentially the same, her work also allowed astronomers to determine the temperature of any star from its spectrum.

Cecilia remained working in the scientific field for all of her life, spending her entire academic career at Harvard. Initially, she had no official position, merely serving as a technical assistant, with a meagre salary. Efforts were made to improve her position when she threatened to leave, and in 1938 she was given the title of "Astronomer". None of the courses she taught at Harvard were recorded in the catalogue until 1945. By the time she was awarded her PhD, she had published six papers on stellar atmospheres. By the time of her death she had published over 150 papers and monographs. To this day, women in science fight for the recognition of her name, and a call to have one of the major telescopes named after her.