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Ele Willoughby, PhD

Happy birthday to American Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921) who set the scale of our Universe. In her day, women scientists were regularly hired to do menial chores like counting images on photographic plates as a "computer". In studying these plates, in 1908 she was able to deduce a ground-breaking theory, which allowed Hubble's later insight about the age and expansion of the universe.
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Her period-luminosity relation for Cepheid variable stars radically changed modern astronomy, an accomplishment for which she received little recognition during her lifetime.⁠

⁠ Cepheid variables are a class of pulsating star. They are named for the star Delta Cephei in the Cepheus constellation. The relationship between a Cepheid variable's luminosity & pulsation period is quite precise.

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It had not been obvious to tell whether a star was dim because it was less luminous, or whether it was merely further away. Swan Leavitt's discovery lets astronomers use Cepheids as "standard candles". They allow astronomers to determine distances to celestial objects & form the foundation of the Extragalactic Distance Scale.⁠

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