The Woman who Measured the Heavens with a Span

The story of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, an often overlooked figure in the history of astronomy, who made a seismic contribution to our understanding of the size of the universe and how we measure it, while being employed as a lowly lab assistant - a 'computer', as they were called. She was one of several women paid 25 to 30 cents per hour to extract data from thousands of photographic plates. A short story from the award-winning author Sara Maitland, with an afterword from Dr Tim O'Brien.


Genre: Historical