ASTRONOMER

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

1900 - 1979

Photo of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

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Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; (1900-05-10)May 10, 1900 – (1979-12-07)December 7, 1979) was a British-American astronomer and astrophysicist. In her 1925 doctoral thesis she proposed that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected by leading astrophysicists, including Henry Norris Russell, because it contradicted the science of the time, which held that no significant elemental differences distinguished the Sun and Earth. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin has received more than 1,475,764 page views. Her biography is available in 51 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 46 in 2019). Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin is the 145th most popular astronomer (down from 108th in 2019), the 1,199th most popular biography from United Kingdom (down from 1,061st in 2019) and the 17th most popular British Astronomer.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin is most famous for being the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University. Her dissertation was on the composition of the stars, and she was able to show that they were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium.

Memorability Metrics

  • 1.5M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 58.12

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 51

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 3.23

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 5.09

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among ASTRONOMERS

Among astronomers, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin ranks 145 out of 644. Before her are Giovanni Battista Hodierna, Henry Draper, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld, August Kopff, Johann Daniel Titius, and Carolyn S. Shoemaker. After her are Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, Mariam al-Asturlabi, George Biddell Airy, Eugène Joseph Delporte, Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi, and Abu-Mahmud Khojandi.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1900, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin ranks 74. Before her are Katina Paxinou, Agnes Moorehead, Camille Chamoun, Wilhelm Rediess, William Heinesen, and Jean Arthur. After her are Carmen Polo, 1st Lady of Meirás, Robert Desnos, George Uhlenbeck, Marc Allégret, Eduardo De Filippo, and Joseph Needham. Among people deceased in 1979, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin ranks 62. Before her are Charles W. Morris, Nereo Rocco, Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, Richard Rodgers, Elizabeth Bishop, and Konstantin Simonov. After her are Yukio Tsuda, Jacques Mesrine, Louis Durey, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Aleksei N. Leontiev, and Yuen Siu-tien.

Others Born in 1900

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Others Deceased in 1979

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In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin ranks 1,199 out of 8,785. Before her are Rob Roy MacGregor (1671), James Lind (1716), George Young (1946), George Fox (1624), Annie Chapman (1841), and Dave Murray (1956). After her are Ally McCoist (1962), Hugh Lofting (1886), John Boorman (1933), Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (1287), James Mirrlees (1936), and Spencer Perceval (1762).

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Among ASTRONOMERS In United Kingdom

Among astronomers born in United Kingdom, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin ranks 17. Before her are George Darwin (1845), Adelard of Bath (1075), William Huggins (1824), Mary Somerville (1780), William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse (1800), and James Dunlop (1793). After her are George Biddell Airy (1801), John Russell Hind (1823), Edward Walter Maunder (1851), James Glaisher (1809), Norman Lockyer (1836), and Williamina Fleming (1857).

British born Astronomers

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