Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin revealed stars’ composition and broke gender barriers
What Stars Are Made OfDonovan MooreHarvard Univ., $29.95 It was 1924, and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was on the verge of a breakthrough. Faint rainbows of starlight, recorded on photographic glass, held secrets to how the universe was put together. If only she could read the starlight’s story. As with every other challenge in her life, Payne-Gaposchkin would not stop. She once went without sleep for 72 hours, struggling to understand what the stars were telling her. “It was an impatience with the ordinary — with sleep, meals, even friendships and family — that had driven her as far back as she could remember,” journalist Donovan Moore writes in his book celebrating the life of Payne-Gaposchkin (who added “Gaposchkin” to her name upon marriage in 1934). After her death in 1979, other scientists would go on to remember her as “the most eminent woman astronomer of all time.” During a time when science was largely a men’s club, she had figured out the chemical makeup...