Faith Curriculum Library: Curricula and Resources for Co-creating Lifespan Faith Engagement

For the Love of Stars Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin

By Gail Forsyth-Vail

the silhouette of a person, taken from some distance, under a bright night sky with the Milky Way stars in bright colors.

Once there was a little girl named Cecilia who fell in love with the universe. She felt her heart leap with joy every time she learned something new about the wonders of the far-off sky. Cecilia would grow up to be an astronomer, a scientist who studies the stars.

Throughout her life, she observed the night sky, asking: What are stars made of? How are they born? Do they die?And how do we know? Throughout her life, her heart sang with each discovery, each bit of new understanding.

When Cecilia was a small child in England, still being pushed in a pram, which is an old-fashioned stroller, she saw a meteorite blaze across the sky. Her mother taught her a rhyme to remember what she had seen:

As we were walking home that night
We saw a shining meteorite.

From that moment, Cecilia knew she would grow up to be a student of the stars—an astronomer. She learned the names of Orion, the Big Dipper, all the constellations. She had a natural ability to notice details. By age 12, she could measure things and do math problems very precisely.

Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin

Astronomer and Unitarian Universalist Cecilia Payne-Goposchkin studied the mysteries of the stars.

At Cecilia’s school, the teachers had an interesting way of increasing students’ powers of observation. Once a week, students had to find with their eyes (not touching) three little brass tacks scattered somewhere in the school garden. For Cecilia, always a keen observer, this education strengthened her resolve to be a scientist.

When Cecilia was a teenager, however, few adults would help a young woman become a scientist. Persistent, she got people to teach her science at school. In her family’s home library, she found two lonely science books to study: one about plants and the other containing Sir Isaac Newton’s observations about planets and gravity. Cecilia learned the chemical elements that make up the world. She practiced identifying all kinds of plants. In a laboratory, which she called her chapel, she conducted “a little worship service of her own,” in awe before the magnificence of the natural world.

In 1919, Cecilia entered college to study botany (the study of plants was an acceptable course for a woman in those days). But she also studied physics, which in those days included astronomy. Here she found “pure delight.”

When Cecilia learned that all motion is relative, she did not sleep for three nights. Leaving botany behind, she persuaded the college to allow her to choose physics.

After finishing her degree, Cecilia Payne came to the United States to study as an astronomer at Harvard University. She spent two years investigating what stars are made of, and concluded that most stars are primarily hydrogen. Today, we know this is true, but in 1925, no one believed her. Nonetheless, Cecilia presented her findings and became the first person—ever—to be awarded a Ph.D. in astronomy.

When she was 34, Cecilia arranged for the rescue of Russian astronomer Sergei Gaposchkin, who had been exiled from his own country. She later married him. They researched together and raised three children, who went to Sunday School at First Parish in Lexington, Massachusetts, a Unitarian Universalist church.

Cecilia had many struggles as an astronomer because she was a woman. Not until 1956—after 23 years of working—was she named a professor, the first woman to become a full professor at Harvard.

Near the end of her life, Cecilia wrote that while other women were not allowed to be “in direct touch with the fountainhead, whether you call it God or the Universe,” she had been—always. Her love for the wonder of the universe lasted, and guided, her entire life.

Adapted from Stories in Faith by Gail Forsyth Vail, a Tapestry of Faith Toolkit book (Boston: UUU, 2007).