Image of Henrietta Swan Leavitt

Henrietta Swan Leavitt

died 103 years ago

12 December 1921

Henrietta Leavitt was an American astronomer who discovered the relation between the luminosity and the period of Cepheid variables. This was a vital step in measuring the distance to remote galaxies.

Find out more at: https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Leavitt/