Henrietta Swan Leavitt

Henrietta Swan Leavitt was born on July 4, 1868. She was born in Lancaster Massachusetts. She went to two colleges. The first was called Oberlin. Then she changed schools. The second school was called Radcliffe College. Right before she graduated (MP4) from Radcliffe she took a class in astronomy (MP4). She liked it.

Right after she graduated Ms. Leavitt got really sick. She was sick for a long time. While she was sick she became deaf.

When she got better she decided to learn more about astronomy. She volunteered at the Harvard College Observatory. Years later the director decided Ms. Leavitt should work there all the time. She was in charge of the photograph (MP4) department. She used pictures to study stars. She was very good at her job.

Her biggest accomplishment (MP4) was the discovery (MP4) of the period-luminosity law. Using this law she could figure out how far a star was from earth by how bright the star was.

Ms. Leavitt did not receive much credit (MP4) for her work until after she died. A teacher from Sweden wanted to nominate (MP4) Ms. Leavitt for the Nobel Prize for her discovery of the period-luminosity law. He had not heard yet that she had died.