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Portrait of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Science · Maths, astronomy, medicine & more

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

1900–1979 · British-American

Astronomy — stellar astrophysics

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, born in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, was inspired to take up astronomy by Arthur Eddington's lecture on the 1919 eclipse expedition while at Newnham College, Cambridge. Moving to Harvard College Observatory, she wrote the 1925 thesis Stellar Atmospheres, which showed that stars are made overwhelmingly of hydrogen and helium, a result initially dismissed by Henry Norris Russell. In 1956 she became the first woman promoted to full professor at Harvard and then the first woman to chair a Harvard department.

How to spot them

  • ▸Thesis Stellar Atmospheres (1925): stars are mostly hydrogen and helium
  • ▸Otto Struve called it 'the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy'
  • ▸Inspired by Eddington's lecture on the 1919 eclipse; Newnham College, Cambridge
  • ▸Henry Norris Russell dissuaded her from accepting her hydrogen result, then confirmed it himself in 1929
  • ▸First woman full professor at Harvard (1956); married astronomer Sergei Gaposchkin

Key discoveries & works

Stellar Atmospheres (1925)

Doctoral thesis applying Saha's ionisation theory to stellar spectra, the first astronomy PhD from Harvard Observatory

Discovery that stars are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium (1925)

Showed hydrogen is by far the most abundant element in stars, overturning the belief that they resembled Earth

The Stars of High Luminosity (1930)

Monograph on the most luminous stars

An Introduction to Astronomy (1954)

Textbook based on the undergraduate astronomy course she taught at Harvard

Key ideas

  • Differences in stellar spectra reflect temperature (ionisation), not chemical composition
  • The chemical composition of stars is broadly uniform, and hydrogen dominates the universe
  • Her career became a symbol of the barriers faced by women in science: for decades she held low-paid posts without the title of professor

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born 10 May 1900 in Wendover, Buckinghamshire; died 7 December 1979 in Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • •Won a scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1919, first studying botany before switching to physics and astronomy
  • •Cambridge did not then award degrees to women, so she moved to Harvard College Observatory under Harlow Shapley in 1923
  • •Her PhD was awarded by Radcliffe College in 1925
  • •Married the Russian astronomer Sergei Gaposchkin in 1934; they worked together on variable stars
  • •In 1976 became the first woman to receive the American Astronomical Society's Henry Norris Russell Lectureship
  • •English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque at her teenage home, 70 Lansdowne Road, Notting Hill, in April 2026

Drill it — 6 cards

1 / 6new card

Sources