What Stars Are Made Of: The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Donovan Moore Harvard University Press £23.95  HB

Before Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, it was generally assumed that stars were made of much the same material as Earth. As this book shows, Payne changed all that, discovering and proving that the most abundant elements in stars were helium and hydrogen.

Incomprehensibly, it is still rare to find

commercial history of science books focusing on women’s lives, and so this book stands out as one such rare example. Payne comes across as a fascinating woman, navigating the various gender-based obstacles in her way to build a life and career in a new

subject (astrophysics) in a new country.

The book follows her life from early childhood, via her training at Cambridge to her successful career in America. The excellent, evocative foreword by Jocelyn Bell Burnell, which compares her own and contemporary female scientists’ experience with that of Payne, is likely to have many women nodding in recognition.

Moore’s book is very readable, broken down into short, engaging chapters that take us chronologically through Payne’s life. There are interesting descriptions of her working relationships with various better-known male scientists. Her voice comes through too, as does her excitement, energy and enthusiasm.

While the archival evidence is fascinating, the book does lack the broader perspective offered by the last 30 years of scholarship on women in science. Without this perspective, Payne ends up being frequently praised as “not like other girls”, suggesting a rather low opinion of other women. Beyond

this omission, I found this an entertaining,

engaging and informative read. ★★★★★

Emily Winterburn is author of The Quiet Revolution of Caroline Herschel: The Lost Heroine of Astronomy