Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist. In her 1925 doctoral thesis she proposed that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected, because it contradicted the science of the time, which held that no significant elemental differences distinguished the Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved that she was correct. Her work on the nature of variable stars was foundational to modern astrophysics.

10 May 1900

Born on the same birth day (10 May): Adebayo Akinfenwa • Al Murray • Bert Weedon • Brittany Broski • Cindy Hyde-Smith • Einar Gerhardsen • Fred Astaire • Gabriella Papadakis • Humberto Suazo • Jim Calhoun • Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper) • Konstantinos Parthenis • Larry Williams • Maybelle Carter • Meng Zhixiang • Montgomery Blair • Ryan Getzlaf • Salvador Pérez • Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri • Tonita Peña • Victoria Rowell

Born in the same month (May 1900): Alain Grandbois • Cai Chang • Eduardo De Filippo • Franz Neumann (political scientist) • George Lennon • Helen Redfield • Karin Juel • Leo Smit (Dutch composer) • Lotte Toberentz • Maria Malicka (actress) • Tommy Ladnier • Uładzimir Žyłka