Stellar Spectroscopy | Astrophysics History | Women in Astrophysics скачать в хорошем качестве

Stellar Spectroscopy | Astrophysics History | Women in Astrophysics

Stars. These objects are the wonders of the universe. We have always know quite a bit about them (where they're located, their names, etc). But beginning in the late 1890s, we learned a lot more about these wonders of the universe. In this time period, Harvard Observatory began a the Henry Draper Memorial Project. This project saw Harvard astronomers take pictures of many stars' spectrums, which were then analyzed by "computer analysts." These computer analysts were no ordinary analysts. Harvard Observatory Director Edward Pickering hired women to do this analysis (at a fraction of the wage that would be paid to men). And these analysts made amazing discoveries about these wonders of the universe. Annie Jump Cannon was able to classify stars into the modern system we use (OBAFGKM), in order based on temperature. Henrietta Leavitt discovered a direct relationship between the period and the luminosity of stars that was used in the Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram to organize stars and also used by Edwin Hubble to theorize the expansion of the universe. And Cecilia Payne tied astronomy with quantum mechanics to discover that the lines on a star's emitted light spectrum correspond to ionization energies in the chemical element of the star and that the main two chemical constituents of nearly every star are hydrogen and helium. These amazing discoveries gave us so much more insight on these wonders of the universe. They were made possible by two developments in this time period: (1) the integration of astronomy with physics and chemistry to use techniques like spectroscopy to learn more about celestial objects like stars and (2) the opening up of science to half of the workforce.