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Europe > United Kingdom

Socio-cultural movements

Late modern period / Contemporary period > Feminism

Groups by dedication

Scientists > Astronomers

Writers > in > English

Writers > Autobiographers

Character
Fotografía

Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin

Wendover, United Kingdom 10-05-1900 ‖ Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States 07-12-1979

Period of activity: From 1925 until 1978

Geographical classification: America > United States Europe > United Kingdom

Socio-cultural movements

Late modern period / Contemporary period > Feminism

Groups by dedication

Scientists > Astronomers

Writers > in > English

Writers > Autobiographers

Context of feminine creation

Her work is a continuation of the legacy of a long list of women who have dedicated their lives to calculating the trajectories of celestial bodies, such as Hypatia (c. 370–c. 416), Sophia Brahe (1556–1643), Maria Cunitz (1610–1664), Nicole Lepaute (1723–1788), Caroline Herschel (1750–1848), an astronomer who discovered eight comets, and Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868–1921), an astronomer from the USA who was part of the so-called Harvard Computers. This group of women made significant advances in the classification of astronomical data at the Harvard Observatory from 1877 to 1919, led by Charles Pickering (1846–1919). Among these women were, along with Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868–1921), Williamina Fleming (1857–1911), Annie Jump Cannon (1863–1941), and Antonia Maury (1866–1952). The latter two were deaf.

She was preceded by other notable female scientists such as Margaret Cavendish (a prolific writer who authored ten books on natural philosophy, now known as physics), the Englishwoman Katherine Boyle, Lady Ranelagh (1615–1691), the chemist Marie Anne Paulze (1758–1836), known as Mme. Lavoisier in France, and the chemist Julia Lermontova (1847–1919), a pioneer of the periodic table. She follows the genealogy of women scientists that originated with Marie Skłodowska Curie, who worked on radioactivity and the elements of the periodic table. Likewise, she was preceded by Austrian scientist Lise Meitner (1878–1968), who contributed to the discoveries of the element protactinium and nuclear fission, as well as by the English engineer, mathematician, and physicist Hertha Ayrton (1854–1923).

Some contemporary female scientists include Marietta Blau (1894–1970); mathematicians Emmy Noether (1882–1935) and Hilda Geiringer (1893–1973); Nobel Prize-winning physicist Marie Goeppert-Mayer (1906–1972); physicist from the USA Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997), born in China, an expert in radioactivity; and Rosalind Elsie Franklin (1920–1958), a British chemist and crystallographer whose work was fundamental to understanding the molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite.

Other contemporary astronomers of Cecilia Payne are Vera Rubin (1928–2016), Ida Noddack (1896–1978), Margaret Harwood (1885–1979), Joan Feynman (1927–2020), Maria Assumpció Català i Poch (1925–2009), Antonia Ferrín Moreira (1914–2009), Francesca Figueras (1958), Sandra Moore Faber (1944), a physicist and PhD in astronomy dedicated to studying the formation and evolution of galaxies; Margaret Burbidge (1919–2020), Nancy Grace Roman (1925–2018), and Maud Worcester Makemson (1891–1977), a specialist in archaeoastronomy, who directed the Vassar College Observatory from 1936 to 1957. Additionally, Martha Stahr Carpenter (1920–2013), was the only female professor at Cornell University, specialising in galaxy dynamics.

Cecilia Payne was mentored by Annie Jump Cannon and was a fellow student of Margaret Harwood (1885-1979), who supported and worked with the group known as "Harvard Women" at the Harvard University Observatory.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin served as a reference for other astronomers such as Joan Feynman.

Review

Cecilia Payne was an Anglo-American astrophysicist who discovered the composition of stars. At the age of 24, in her thesis in 1925, she identified the amount of hydrogen and helium present in stars and proposed, for the first time, that stars were primarily made up of these two elements, the lightest and simplest in the universe, shaping our current understanding of the universe. At the time, it was considered the most brilliant thesis ever written in astronomy. Her research was fundamental in the development of astrophysics and modern cosmology, laying the foundations for all subsequent work on variable stars and galactic structure. She was a great fighter combating discrimination against women and a role model for other female astronomers.

Activities

English

Spanish

Justifications

  • Her studies enabled the understanding of the composition of stars, particularly that hydrogen and helium are the most abundant elements in stars and, therefore, in the universe.
  • Her research was fundamental in the development of modern astrophysics and cosmology.
  • The observations and analyses of variable stars laid the foundation for all subsequent work on them and their use as indicators of galactic structure.
  • She was a great astronomer and a fierce fighter against discrimination towards women, a role model for other female astronomers.
  • She made forays into textile art with the embroidery of Cassiopeia A, reflectig the stellar imagery

Biography

Cecilia Helena Payne was born on May 10, 1900, in England. Her discoveries about the composition of stars were fundamental to the development of astronomy. In 1919, she received a scholarship to study at Newnham College, part of Cambridge University. She focused her studies on botany, physics, and chemistry, but although she completed her studies, she was not awarded the degree she deserved due to the discrimination women faced at the time at Cambridge University: women were not awarded any degree, even if they completed all their studies. This university did not accept awarding degrees to women until 1948. Due to the impossibility of obtaining a degree there, she left England in 1922 intending to study at Harvard University and live in the United States, whose nationality she eventually obtained in 1931.

In 1923, she began her graduate studies at the Harvard College Observatory and Radcliffe College in Cambridge. When Payne joined the observatory, all the astronomers and students were men. Between 10 and 20 women also worked at the observatory. They were the “computers,” a term used to designate the laboratory assistants who performed calculations, although some of these women were highly talented scientists. Payne, with a graduate scholarship, developed a different kind of work from that of the women in this group.

In 1925, she became the first person to earn a doctorate in astronomy from Radcliffe College, part of Harvard University. She presented her doctoral thesis "Stellar Atmospheres, A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars". At the time, it was considered the most brilliant thesis ever written in astronomy. That work was a true revolution in astronomy. In it, she identified the amount of hydrogen and helium present in stars and proposed, for the first time, that stars were primarily made up of these two elements, the lightest and simplest in the universe, shaping our current understanding of the universe. The observations and analyses of variable stars laid the foundations for all subsequent work on them and their use as indicators of galactic structure.

At first, her contemporaries were sceptical, as the prevailing theory at the time was that the metallic elements in the solar atmosphere had the same proportions as those on Earth. The famous Princeton (USA) astronomer Henry Norris Russell, one of the foremost stellar astronomers of all time, was one of her most vocal critics. He radically opposed her theory and defended the idea that the composition of stars was similar to that of Earth. He persuaded Payne not to include that conclusion in her dissertation, and she partially obeyed: although she included her groundbreaking discovery in the thesis, she stated that the conclusion was probably wrong. Years later, in light of new experiments, Norris Russell changed his mind and even published papers supporting Cecilia Payne’s discovery.

In March 1934, she married Russian astrophysicist Sergei I. Gaposchkin, and they had three children.

Payne remained at the Harvard Observatory throughout her career, though she was not named astronomer until 1938. Unfortunately, from 1927 to 1938, she held no official position and received a low salary. At that time, women at the Harvard Observatory received less recognition than men, as they were not officially considered scientists. However, among these women were prominent astronomers such as Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921), Mina Fleming (1857-1911), Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941), and Antonia Maury (1866-1952). Despite their decisive contributions to astronomy, these women scientists were slow to have their work recognized. In 1956, she was appointed full professor at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Later, in 1958, she was appointed Phillips Professor of Astronomy. She became the first woman to head the Department of Astronomy at Harvard. Payne-Gaposchkin retired from active teaching in 1966, being named professor emeritus at Harvard. She continued conducting research at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, editing journals, and publishing books for the Harvard Observatory for twenty years. Her research was fundamental to the development of astrophysics and modern cosmology, laying the foundations for all subsequent work on variable stars and galactic structure.

In addition to being a great astronomer, she was a great fighter in combating discrimination against women. She became the key to change at Harvard University and an inspiration to thousands of great women scientists. Her deep passion for astronomy made her a tireless scientist.

The studies carried out by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin served as motivation for other women, such as astronomer Joan Feynman (1927-2020).

At the end of her life, at 75, she created a cross-stitch image of the X-ray image of the Cassiopeia supernova remnant, which was published on the cover of Scientific American journal in 1975. A genuine confluence of science and textile art.

Works

Stellar atmospheres, The Observatory, 1925; Harvard College Observatory, Monographs, no. 1. This book is her PhD thesis which was submitted to Radcliffe College in 1925.

Payne Gaposchkin, Cecilia Helena (1930). The Stars of High Luminosity. Harvard Observatory monographs; no. 3. New York; London: published for the Harvard Observatory by McGraw Hill.

Payne Gaposchkin, Celilia Helena (1936). "On the Physical Condition of the Supernovae." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), nº 22, pp. 332-336. 

Whipple, Fred L. y Payne Gaposchkin, Cecilia Helena (1936). "On the Bright Line Spectrum of Nova Herculis." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), nº 22, pp. 195-200.

Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia (1952). Stars in the making, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia (1954). Variable Stars & Galactic Structure. London: University of London; Athlone Press.

Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia (1957). The Galactic Novae. Series in astrophysics. Amsterdam; New York: North-Holland; Interscience Publishers.

Payne Gaposchkin, Cecilia Helena (1964). The Galactic Novae. Nueva York: Dover Publications.

Payne Gaposchkin, Cecilia Helena (1975).  Bordado de Cassiopea A. En  Philip A. Charles y J. Leonard Culhane, "X Rays from Supernova Remnants". Scientific American (vol. 233, no. 6, páginas 38-47).

https://mujeresconciencia.com/2017/10/20/cassiopeia-a-bordada-por-cecilia-payne-gaposchkin/ . ( Website consulted on 04/02/2025).

Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia (1979). Stars and clusters, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia (1979). The Dyer's Hand

Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia Helena (1996). An Autobiography and Other Recollections (2ª ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography

Hogg, F. S. (1938) "Review of Publications - Variable Stars by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and Sergei Gaposchkin" Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, nº 33, pp. 164. 
Hogg, H. S. (1955) "Review of Publications- Variable Stars and Galactic Structure by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin" Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, nº 49, pp. 207.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: “La astrónoma que descubrió la composición de las estrellas”,  https://mujeresconciencia.com/2017/04/12/cecilia-payne-gaposchkin-la-astronoma-descubrio-la-composicion-las-estrellas/. (Website consulted on 04/02/2025).

Kruesi, Liz 2-1- 2025, National Geographic <https://www.nationalgeographic.es/espacio/2025/01/cecilia-payne-que-estan-hechas-estrellas-cambio-fisica>(Website consulted on 04/02/2025)

Cassiopeia A, bordada por Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin,  <https://mujeresconciencia.com/2017/10/20/cassiopeia-a-bordada-por-cecilia-payne-gaposchkin/>. (Website consulted on 04/02/2025).

Haramundanis, Katherine (ed.) (1984). Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: an autobiography and other recollections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Rubin, Vera C. (2006). “Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin”, en  Nina Byers & Gary Williams (eds). Out of the Shadows: Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harvard Square Library, Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia (1900-1980), https://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/cecilia-payne-gaposchkin-3/ . (Website consulted on 04/02/2025)

Rubin, Vera C. (2006). "Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin". En Nina Byers y Gary Williams (eds.). Out of the Shadows: Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Didactic approach

In Physics and Chemistry, when studying matter and the periodic table. 

In Art and Visual and Plastic Education, as a model for embroidering images of stars. An interesting confluence between science and textile art.

In Ethical and Moral Values Education and Guidance, to reflect on the kind of difficulties faced by women in science throughout history.

In Literature, as a model for the autobiography of a woman in science.

Documents