A Wendover Woman Discovered What the Universe was Made of

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Monday, 25 July 2022 15:53

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Wendover born, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (b: May 10, 1900 – d: December 7, 1979) discovered that stars are made of hydrogen and helium.

She was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in 1925 that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium.  

Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time, which held that there were no significant elemental differences between the Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved she was correct. Her work on the nature of variable stars, carried out with her husband, Sergei Gaposchkin, was foundational to modern astrophysics.

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