Dr. Cecilia Payne and the Composition of the Universe

Once again, a woman is robbed of her scientific glory by a dude

In the movie Highlander, Scottish actor Sean Connery playing an Egyptian with the last name Ramirez asks the question “Are the stars just pin holes in the curtain of night? Who knows?” The scene takes place in the middle of the sixteen century, and Polish astronomer Nicolas Copernicus already had a pretty good idea about what stars were and that Earth revolved around ours. But when it comes to what stars are made of, it wouldn’t be until the early twentieth century that astrophysicist Cecilia Payne figured it out. And because she was a woman, the establishment said yeah you’re full of shit Cecilia. STFU.  

Born in Buckinghamshire, England, in 1900, the composition of those totally not night curtain pin holes was the subject of Payne’s 1925 PhD thesis, which she had to do in America. She had to go to the United States because, despite completing all her courses (on a full ride scholarship) at Cambridge University, they wouldn’t give her a degree. Why not? Because they were sexist assnuggets. Cambridge didn’t grant degrees to women until 1948.

And so, Payne went to the Harvard College Observatory, a leading force in the study of astronomy at the time, which wouldn’t grant her a PhD either because boy’s club bullshit. But she did get her doctorate at their sister institution, Radcliffe College, which is now part of Harvard University. Dr. Payne became the first person of any gender to earn an astronomy doctorate via the Harvard Observatory.

And that doctoral thesis told us what the universe is made of.

Using spectral analysis, she said yeah there is all sorts of stuff in these stars like silicon and carbon and other metals in about the same relative amounts as on Earth. But there is also a lot more helium, and an absolute assload of hydrogen. It was Cecilia Payne who discovered that hydrogen is by far the most abundant element in the universe. And a dozen years later that element would blow the shit out of the airship Hindenburg, but that’s another story.

Anyfuckingway, the men at Harvard literally told her to downplay the shit out of her results because they couldn’t have a woman unlocking the secrets of the universe. Henry Russell, a professor of astronomy at Princeton, said yeah Cecilia your data is fucked this is all wrong. Russell was a firm believer in the idea that stars were basically made of all the same shit as our planet and in the same relative amounts, just nuclear hellfire hotter. Guess he didn’t like his prevailing beliefs to be questioned by a twenty-five-year-old woman.

And because Russell was a total cockwagon about it, Payne was forced to significantly water down her conclusions in her thesis. She relied upon the male establishment for approval and employment and didn’t have much choice in the matter.

After completing her PhD, Payne moved into a different area of astronomical study, and then Russell kinda stole her work.

Four years later, in 1929, Henry Russell published On The Composition of the Sun’s Atmosphere, and his was the only name on the paper. I say Russell only kind of stole her work because he did cite her by name several times in the paper, but he definitely stole her glory. Russell had been a leading force in telling Payne to shut the fuck up and basically say her conclusions were all wrong. Then he went and said yeah those conclusions were right our sun is mostly hydrogen. And he became the guy famous for it. Fucker.

Dr. Cecilia Payne continued to make many more contributions to the study of astronomy, and would eventually be granted a full professorship at Harvard, the first woman to be honored with such a title. She is recognized as having broken through a number of glass ceilings for women in astronomy, inspiring many to pursue careers in science.

Cecilia Payne died in 1979, but it would be decades before the world came to recognize her for her discovery of what the universe is made of.

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Thank you, Mandy, for suggesting I write about this topic.