The Invention of Star Luminosity Mapping to Measure Immense Distances in Space
5 years ago
Henrietta Leavitt, a brilliant scientist who worked at the Harvard Observatory discovered the true size of the universe because of her ability to objectively measure the true brightness of stars. Leavitt became enamored and fascinated by a type of star referred to as a “cepheid variable” which means a “star which pulses within the night sky”. Leavitt’s revolutionary breakthrough occurred when she realized that the intensity of brightness is precisely linked to how quick or slow at which the star blinks. If 2 points of light blink at the same rate but with different intensities, it would stand to reason that the brighter star is closer to the observer than the dimmer one. This allowed Leavitts to measure the distance to stars which lay far beyond the reaches of parallax distance
Share This Interesting Fact: The Discovery of the Expanding Universe and the Geometry of Space-Time: The Astronomical Discoveries Which Transformed Human Understanding of the Universe and the Mathematical Frameworks Which Revealed the Structure of Space‑Time – The View of the Solar System Prior to the 16th Century, the First Person to Propose Stars Being Placed at Variable Distances, English Mathematician Thomas Digges Expanding Upon the Work of Polish Mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus, the Development of Stellar Parallax (Distance From Earth’s Orbit of the Sun) to Measure the Distance of Objects Within Space, How Stellar Parallax Measurement Works, German Astronomer Friedrich Bessel’s Idea to Improve Stellar Parallax Measurement, Bessel Calculating the Distance of the 61 Cygni Star, the Reason Stellar Parallax Measurement is Limited in its Capabilities, the Person Who Discovered the True Size of the Universe, the Star Classification U.S. Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt Became Enamored 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