Henrietta Leavitt

By discovering the relation between brightness and period in Cepheid variable stars (large, pulsating, luminous stars), Leavitt is responsible for one of the most astonishing breakthroughs in astronomy. Born in 1868, she was quickly recognized as a prodigy and excelled in a mathematics course at Harvard. Later, she applied for a non-paying position at Harvard's observatory, where she recorded an impressive number of variable stars. With further study, she observed that brighter stars had longer periods, which was of great importance to the study of stellar distances because their periods are related to brightness. Years later, she became the director of such an observatory, but much of her expertise was overlooked throughout her life. Only years after her death did scientists appreciate her work and the doors it opened in science.

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