13 min listen
Who was Henrietta Leavitt?
ratings:
Length:
16 minutes
Released:
Jan 29, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Much of post 1920s astronomy rests on her shoulders. Without her, we wouldn’t have a three-dimensional sky. Leavitt’s Law allowed us to measure distances in other galaxies as early as 1912. But how many people have ever heard of Henrietta Leavitt? We wanted to know about this ‘hidden woman’ of astronomy, so in this episode of the Big Questions podcast we ask Dr Becky Smethurst from the University of Oxford’s Department of Physics “Who was Henrietta Leavitt?”.
Released:
Jan 29, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Why does Uranus smell like farts?: Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, has the poetic name of the Greek god of the heavens. In the English language, it is, unfortunately, the literal butt of every astronomy joke. And last year the new discovery about the seventh planet’s odour... by Oxford Sparks Big Questions