y turned urned toon in 1913 alking und accent—not quite Britis not quite not—t h him for life.
ter claimed to of tury practicinglaucky, in fact eacball coacedly attaining orate and passing briefly tice and almost certainly never fired in anger.)In 1919, noy, o California and took up a position at tilson Observatory near Los Angeles. Sly, and more ttle unexpectedly, outstanding astronomer of tietury.
It is to consider just tle time. Astronomers today believe the visible universe.
t’s a o suppose. Ifgalaxies orium—tonGarden, say, or t rop named Bruce Gregory uallycomputed t put o t o us ly one: tto be eit of tself or one of many distant, peripheral puffs of gas.
rated belief was.
Over t decade, ackled t fundamental questions of t, and o ans is necessary to knoain galaxies are and t is knoy). t gives t doesn’t tell us o begin you need andard candles”—stars ed and used asbenco measure tness (and ive distance) of otars.
o come along soon after an ingenious a St a o do so. Leavitt tory asa computer, as ters spent tudying pograpes ofstars and making computations— tle more t it to real astronomy at tymucem, ain unexpectedbenefits: it meant t minds available ed to tracted little reflective attention, and it ensured t ion of tructure of t often eluded terparts.
One er, Annie Jump Cannon, used itive acquaintance ars to devise a system of stellar classifications so practical t it is still in use today.
Leavitt’s contribution a type of star knoellation Cep first ified) pulsated ellar beat. Cepe rare, but at least one of to most of us. Polaris, tar, is a Cepheid.
e no Cepars t tronomers, and become redgiants. try of red giants is a little ion for ties of singly ionized oms, among quite a lot else), but putsimply it means t t produces a very rening and dimming. Leavitt’s genius o realize t by comparing tive magnitudes of Cep different points in t o eacandard candles”—a term sill in universal use. tive