Cecilia Payne, an exceptional and forgotten woman

Every student is taught that Isaac Newton discovered gravity or that Charles Darwin discovered evolution, but when it comes to the universe's makeup, the texts simply state, "It turned out that the most abundant atom is hydrogen," without mentioning that Cecilia Payne made the discovery.

By using original analytical techniques that she had developed on her own, Cecilia computed the abundance of chemical elements in stars from the observation of their spectra, demonstrating that stars are mostly comprised of hydrogen and helium. It was a ground-breaking finding!

Prior to 1925, many scientists held the belief that stars, like the planet's nucleus, were primarily made of iron. However, a young English astronomer called everything into question and permanently altered the way she viewed the celestial bodies.

In 1900, Cecilia was born in Wendover, England. She was left an orphan by her father at the age of 4 and grew up with her two brothers and mother Emma, who made sure that all of her kids received a good education. Little Payne shows an initial interest for science, so it should come as no surprise that her favorite subjects are chemistry, algebra, geometry, and mathematics.

He relocated to London with his family when he was 12 years old. Cecilia, however, is a young woman who is impatient with school and required learning; she desires to study more, particularly in the sciences. As a result, he started studying alone until he got to St. Paul and eventually the University of Cambridge.

At first obsessed with physics, she soon finds astronomy, which she would devote her entire being to, but without being able to earn a degree because she is a woman. In reality, Cambridge University won't start awarding degrees to women until 1948. Cecilia is determined to become an astronomer regardless of how society views her, therefore this does not deter her.

The doctoral candidate at Radcliffe College wrote a thesis on the makeup of stars that completely upended all preconceived notions at the time. She was the one who demonstrated through her studies that hydrogen and helium, which make up 98% of stellar mass, are actually the major elements in stars rather than iron, which is often assumed to be the case.

After receiving criticism for her efforts from the scientific community, Cecilia was compelled to abandon the greatest revolution of the age. However, Henry Norris Russell, an astronomer who had long interfered with Payne's research, reached the identical result in 1929 and was for a long time thought to be the discovery's inventor.

Cecilia, how about her? She has kept studying the stars despite discovering throughout her work all the challenges of being a woman in a society that is exclusively male. She was able to become the president of the astronomy department at Harvard and an ordinary professor there thanks to her determination and stubbornness. At the American University, a woman received such high recognition for the first time that year, in 1956.

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