Posted by Kronos

Cecilia Payne's work on the nature of variable stars showed that the wide variation in stellar spectra is due mainly to the different ionization states of the atoms and hence different surface temperatures of the stars, not to different amounts of the elements. Concluding that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking work from almost 100 years ago, was initially rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time, which held that there were no significant elemental differences between the Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved she was correct. More