Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Astronomer

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, 1900-1979. English-American astronomer. She was the first to state that the sun, and the stars in general, were mainly composed of hydrogen. The prevailing theories of the time stated that the sun was made of relatively the same elements as the earth. She was the first person to earn a Ph.D. from Radcliffe. Payne left England for the United States in 1923. Her doctoral thesis was titled Stellar Atmospheres, A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars'. She is considered a woman pioneer in astronomy in what was an exclusively male profession

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Astronomer Cecilia Composition English-american Payne

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