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Henrietta Swan Leavitt – Female Astronomer

My choice of topic is about a women astronomer, Henrietta Swan Leavitt.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt was an American astronomer, whose work revolutionized human understanding of the

relative variability and brightness of the stars. Henrietta’s greatest achievement was in finding out the period-

luminosity relationship of variable stars – stars whose brightness keeps changing over regularly occurring periods.

This important discovery became the basis for the astronomer’s ability to calculate the distance of stars from the

Earth.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt was the daughter of Henrietta Swan (Kendrick) and George Roswell Leavitt, who was a

congregational church minister. Henrietta was born on July 4, 1868 in Lancaster, Massachusetts. Henrietta entered

the Oberlin College in Ohio in 1885 and in 1892 she graduated from the Society for the Collegiate Instruction for

Women, now Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, which is part of the Harvard University. Leavitt became

sick after her graduation from college. She did recover from her sickness; however it left her profoundly deaf.

Henrietta’s interest in astronomy began during her senior year in college. In 1895, Leavitt became a volunteer

research assistant at the Harvard College Observatory. In 1902, Leavitt was given a permanent position by a noted

astronomer who was the head of the Harvard College Observatory, Edward Pickering. Leavitt’s salary was 30 cents

per hour. Henrietta was one of the group of women working at the Harvard College Observatory who were known

as “computers”. Interestingly, Henrietta also worked with Annie Jump Cannon, another great astronomer during her

years at Harvard. Henrietta observed stars and watched how variable stars changed in brightness. Henrietta Swan

Leavitt is well known for her discovery of a type of variable stars, called Cepheid variables. Cepheid variables are

stars that go through cycles of darkness and brightness. Leavitt noticed that when observing a Cepheid, she could

connect the length of the brightness cycle to the size of the star. With this discovery, Leavitt was able to decide the

distances between the stars and the Earth. In 1904, using a laborious process called superposition; Leavitt discovered

59 variables in the Small Magellanic Clouds (SMC) and 152 variables in the large Magellanic Clouds (LMC). The

next year, Henrietta reported in the Small Magellanic Clouds 843 new variables. In 1907, Edward Pickering

announced plans to re-determine stellar magnitudes by photographic techniques. The photographic magnitudes of a

group of stars near the north celestial pole were to act for other stars as standards of reference. Henrietta was

selected to measure these magnitudes known as the ‘north polar sequence’. The results were published in the Annals

of Harvard College Observatory in 1917. Leavitt also spent a lot of time measuring secondary stellar magnitudes,

based on the north polar sequence.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt died in 1921 at the age of fifty – three from cancer. Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s death was seen

as a “near calamity” by her colleagues. One of Henrietta’s colleagues remembered her as “possessing the best mind

at the Observatory”.

Henrietta made monumental contributions to the advancement of astronomy. During the course of her work,

Henrietta discovered 2,400 new variable stars and as well as four novae. Henrietta’s main research interest was

photographic photometry --- the problem of determining the magnitude or brightness of a star from a photographic

image. Henrietta spent a lot of time searching Harvard photographic plates for variable stars in the Magellanic

Clouds. Leavitt also studied Algol - type eclipsing binaries and asteroids. She was also a member of the American

Association of University Women, the American Astronomical and Astrophysical Society, the American

Association for the Advancement of Science, Phi Beta Kappa, and an honorary member of the American

Association of Variable Star Observers. Leavitt’s important contribution to scientific advancement was

acknowledged internationally, when the Swedish Academy of Sciences nominated her for the Nobel Prize in 1925.

The Leavitt crater on the moon and the asteroid 5383 Leavitt are named in her honor.

Henrietta’s Swan Leavitt’s research resulted in many advances within the field, the effects of which extended

beyond her lifetime. Henrietta found out a means to rank the magnitudes of stars using photographic plates, which

became a standard in the field. Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovered more variable stars than any other astronomer in

her time. Henrietta was not allowed to continue her own topics of study, but researched what the observatory head

assigned. Leavitt didn’t have the opportunity to use her intellect to the fullest because of the prejudices of those

days.

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