The first woman, to have a Ph.D. in astronomy: Who is Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin?

During Payne's years at university, women were not even given diplomas. She even had to immigrate to the United States, as women were forbidden to search for stars in England.

Despite the ban, she made more than 3 million observations of the stars, discovered the material content of the sun, and made history as the first woman to receive a doctorate in astronomy: Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.

Cecilia Payne, who was born on May 10, 1900, in Wendover, England, is a woman scientist who made great contributions to science. Cecilia, who was the first to discover the material content of the sun (the chemicals from which it is composed), made more than 3 million observations of the stars. Payne, whose scientific data she discovered was always ignored by male managers, took chemistry, physics, and botany courses at Cambridge University in 1919.

During Payne's years at university, women were not even given diplomas, and the courses Payne took were not of any formal importance. And even in the 1920s, as it was forbidden to search for the stars in England, Payne was forced to immigrate from England to America in 1923. Payne, who was also interested in astronomy, went to Radcliff College and made history as the first woman to receive a doctorate in astronomy.

Henry Norris Russell, who was an astrophysicist and space science expert at the time, pressured Cecila not to publish her article, which discovered that the stars were composed of helium and hydrogen. Russell published a study 4 years later, with different methods, but with the same path.

While Payne should have been remembered for her work and scientists such as Einstein, Galileo, and Newton, her name was unfortunately removed from the history books. The interesting thing is that years later, Payne was awarded the Henry Norris Russell Award... She died on December 7, 1979.