Image of Henrietta Swan Leavitt

Henrietta Swan Leavitt

was born 156 years ago

4 July 1868

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/