Space

How a Harvard maverick forever changed our concept of the stars

She didn’t receive credit for her discovery for years, but that’s changing

A black and white photograph of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, the British-American astronomer and Harvard professor who used spectral analysis to determine the composition of stars.

Despite her work’s impact, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (pictured at Harvard College Observatory) had not received adequate appreciation for decades.

Smithsonian Institution Archives/Science Service Records

By Elise Cutts

Astronomy is the oldest science, and the sky is among our first laboratories. Long before the written word, people erected stone circles to frame the first dawn rays of the summer solstice, etched lunar calendars in bone and wove the planets into their myths.