British astronomer and astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was born #OTD in 1900.
In 1925 she proposed that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected, because it contradicted the science of the time, which held that no significant elemental differences distinguished the Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved that she was correct.
Books by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin are coming soon at PG.
Interview of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin by Owen Gingerich on 1968 March 5, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA
Student years at University of Cambridge, 1919-1923; move to Harvard University in 1923, and subsequent career. Comments on being a woman studying physics at Cambridge in the 1920s; influences of Ernest Rutherford, Arthur Eddington and Edward Milne on her career choice; some of her early research.
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