Women Scientists in Astronomy and Space by Nancy Dickmann

Author:Nancy Dickmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gareth Stevens Publishing LLLP

“A straight line can readily be drawn among each of the two series of points corresponding to maxima and minima, thus showing that there is a simple relation between the brightness of the variables and their periods.”

IMPORTANT BREAKTHROUGH

Back at Harvard, Henrietta continued her previous work of analyzing variable stars. She found and cataloged 1,777 variable stars in the same section of the sky. These became known as Cepheid variable stars. Henrietta noticed that the brighter stars seemed to change brightness on a longer cycle. In 1912 she published data that proved the brightness of a star was related to the speed of its pulsing.

This was a huge breakthrough. At that time, astronomers had no clear idea of how big the universe was, or how far away many stars were. In fact, no one yet knew that the universe extended beyond our own galaxy.

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