Sunday, September 22, 2013

The Women Who Mapped the Universe

Summary: Pickering's Harem is what they were know collectively as; only a few are remembered individually. These are the women that helped to catalog the universe and organized all the astrophotography done at the Harvard observatory in the early days. Pickering used his human computers for largely clerical duties: reducing the photographs, comparing the stars to other already classified stars, or cataloging the pictures themselves. Despite this they did perform the important work that helped the universe be classified.

One of the few individuals to be remembered is Annie Jump Cannon. She is responsible for the system of classifying stars that the International Astronomical Union still uses today. However, she did not actually get any recognition as the system was dubbed the Harvard system of spectral classification.




Smithsonian

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