I was on Wikipedia the other night–as I often am–and ended up at this article about Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, an astrophysicist who was active in the first half of the twentieth century.

Did you know that Cambridge University did not award degrees to women until 1948? In fact, Cecilia went to Cambridge on scholarship, completed her studies, but did not get a degree for all her hard work.

She moved to the United States to study at Harvard and was awarded a PhD there in 1925. But Harvard did not allow women to become full professors at the time! She worked for years as a researcher and did not become a full professor at Harvard until 1956.

1956 was really not that long ago!

I also find it absolutely thrilling that Cecilia’s music teacher in high school was Gustav Holst, whose name you might recognize from his orchestra pieces themed on the planets of the solar system (it is literally called The Planets). Gustav Holst, the solar system’s favorite composer, the astronomer’s favorite music teacher. It’s too perfect!