In 1925 , Cecilia Payne put forth her Ph . 500 thesis deal one of the most central topics in all of astrophysics : the physical composition of the stars .
The 25 - year - old had entered her field of view more or less by hazard . After feeling unsure about which science track to act on at Cambridge , Payne happened to wait on a speech at whichArthur Eddingtonrelayed the findings of a recent expedition . He annunciate that his observations of a solar occultation proved Einstein ’s hypothesis of General Relativity , which had been published years earlier without physical evidence . After this skirmish with the thrill of astrophysics , Payne was hooked .
Eddington ultimately help lead Payne ’s foray into uranology . But it was difficult for women to advance in British academia , so Payne moved to the United States and became a graduate cuss at Harvard College Observatory .
In the years that espouse , Payne was able to decode the stellar spectra and determine chemical constituent of star . Her determination — that they were almost alone comprised ofhydrogenand atomic number 2 , with only2%of their mickle coming from other , cloggy ingredient — flew in the face of conventional wisdom . Until then , scientists believe the composition of the Earth and star were similar .
The determination was so rotatory that when Payne showed her supervisor , Harlow Shapley , he consulted a colleague at Princeton who reply that the termination was impossible , despite the fact that no flaw could be found in her work . As a precautionary measure , Payne include a line in her dissertation that stated the results were “ almost certainly not veridical . ”
But of course , they were . In time , Payne ’s fellow , the field of astrophysics , and the world come to recognize her accomplishment , though that did n’t mean her struggle for acknowledgment was over . It took until 1956 for Payne to be made a full professor ( the first female person at Harvard to receive that statute title ) and chair of the Astronomy Department . She was award the Henry Norris Russell Prize by the American Astronomical Society in 1976 .
During her acceptance speech for the awarding , Payne said : “ The reinforcement of the young scientist is the worked up thrill of being the first soul in the history of the world to see something or to see something … The reward of the sometime scientist is the sensory faculty of having seen a vague cartoon grow into a masterly landscape painting . ”
[ h / tAmerican Museum of Natural History ]
