Henrietta Swan Leavitt
Personal Information
Born: 1868
Died: 1921
Country of Birth: USA
Nationality: USA
Ethnicity: White
Education
Oberlin College classes then transferred to Radcliffe; Radcliffe College BS 1892; Harvard University Graduate studies, no degree
Professional Life
Field of Study: Astronomy
Institution/Corporation: Harvard University
Degrees & Memberships: Member: Phi Beta Kappa, American Association of University Women, American Astronomical & Astrophysical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science. Honorary Member of American Association of Variable Star Observers
Awards & Achievements
Awards: Asteroid 5383, crater on the Moon & one of the ASAS-SN telescopes at the McDonald Observatory, Texas are named after her
Achievements: discovered what is known as the period-luminosity relationship, which allowed astronomers to measure the distance to specific stars based on the way their light pulses; had progressive hearing loss as a result of an illness she had at 17
She gave us the tools necessary to map out the stars in the universe, the period-luminosity relationship which allowed astronomers to measure the distances to stars
She was almost totally deaf due to an illness contracted after graduating from college
She gave us Leavitt's Law which relates the luminosity of a Cepheid to its pulsation period
Edwin Hubble used her discoveries to establish that the universe is expanding
Because she was financially independent, she was an unpaid volunteer at the Harvard College Observatory
She worked with Annie Jump Cannon, who was also deaf, at the Observatory
She discovered 1,777 variable stars
1913, discovered T Pyxides, a recurrent Nova in Pyxis