Question

Mention one person who belongs to the minority/underrepresented groups (people of color, women, lgbtqia community etc.) who has made significant contributions to the field of astronomy. include a picture of that person and briefly explain their achievements in your own words.

Answer 1

Henrietta Swan Leavitt, a hearing-impaired astronomer, made groundbreaking contributions to astronomy by discovering the 'Leavitt Law,' crucial for measuring cosmic distances.

Step-by-step explanation:

One person from an underrepresented group who has made significant contributions to the field of astronomy is Henrietta Swan Leavitt. Despite facing the challenge of hearing impairment, Leavitt's work was crucial in the development of a method to measure the distance to stars.

Her discovery of the relation between the luminosity and the period of Cepheid variable stars, known as the 'Leavitt Law,' allowed astronomers to measure the scale of the universe. This was a pivotal step that would later enable Edwin Hubble to establish that the universe is expanding.

Leavitt's achievements are celebrated as a milestone in astronomy and have greatly influenced modern astrophysics.