biography
| name: |
Leavitt, Henrietta Swan
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| sex:
| female
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| lived:
| (1868–1921)
|
| biography:
| Astronomer, born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, USA. She studied at Radcliffe College, and became a volunteer research assistant at Harvard College Observatory. By 1902 she was head of the department of photographic photometry, where her major work was the discovery of the period–luminosity relationship of Cepheid variable stars (1912). This work proved invaluable in establishing the distance scale of the universe. |
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