Henrietta Swan Leavitt
Henrietta Swan Leavitt (July 4th 1868, Lancaster, Massachusetts - December 12th 1921, Cambridge, Massachusetts) was an American Astronome re-elected for his work concerning the variable stars.
It carried out studies with the Oberlin College and with the Society for Collegiate Instruction off Women (Radcliffe College) where it discovered astronomy tardily. At the end of its studies, in 1892, it followed other courses of astronomy.
Starting from 1895, it joined the Harvard College Observatory as a volunteer. Its qualities and its quickness of mind enabled him to be allowed in the permanent staff of the observatory under the direction of Charles Pickering. It had only little possibility there of carrying out theoretical work but it was quickly named with the head of the photographic department of photometry responsible to study the photographs of star S in order to determine to them magnitude.
She discovered and catalogued variable stars located in the Nuages of Magellan. In 1912, starting from its catalog, it discovered that the luminosity of the variable céphéides was proportional to their period of variation of glare.
This relation period-luminosity is at the base of a method evaluation of the distances from the stellar Amas S and Galaxie S in the Univers.
The Astéroïde (5383) Leavitt was named in its honor.
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