Payne concludes that stars are mostly hydrogen - and disclaims it

Assembled from 34 blocks · 1 evidence · 21 related

1. Story
2. Cecilia Payne's Radcliffe doctoral thesis Stellar Atmospheres applied Saha ionisation theory to stellar spectra and derived overwhelming abundances of hydrogen and helium. Henry Norris Russell judged the result impossible, and the thesis as submitted states that the enormous abundance derived for those elements is almost certainly not real. Russell reached a compatible result by a different route in 1929 and acknowledged the agreement. Every subsequent statement about stellar fuel supplies and lifetimes depends on the conclusion she had been persuaded to disown.
3. Knowledge
4. Hydrogen fusion: the proton-proton chain and the CNO cycle
5. The Sun
6. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
7. Henry Norris Russell
8. Payne concludes that stars are mostly hydrogen - and disclaims it
9. Connections
10. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
11. Henry Norris Russell
12. The Sun
13. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
14. Henry Norris Russell
15. Hydrogen fusion: the proton-proton chain and the CNO cycle
16. Hydrogen fusion: the proton-proton chain and the CNO cycle
17. Main sequence (core hydrogen burning)
18. The Sun forms and settles onto the main sequence
19. Payne concludes that stars are mostly hydrogen - and disclaims it
20. Neutrinos from the solar CNO cycle are detected
21. Payne concludes that stars are mostly hydrogen - and disclaims it
22. Payne concludes that stars are mostly hydrogen - and disclaims it
23. Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
24. Payne concludes that stars are mostly hydrogen - and disclaims it
25. Hertzsprung and Russell independently plot luminosity against temperature
26. Payne concludes that stars are mostly hydrogen - and disclaims it
27. Initial stellar mass
28. Main sequence (core hydrogen burning)
29. Stellar nucleosynthesis
30. The Sun
31. Payne concludes that stars are mostly hydrogen - and disclaims it
32. Neutrinos from the solar CNO cycle are detected
33. Evidence
34. Applies Saha ionisation theory to stellar spectra and derives overwhelming hydrogen and helium abundances, with the conclusion disclaimed in the submitted text. The thesis was not consulted; the account, including the "almost certainly not real" wording and Russell's intervention, is taken from Harvard Wolbach Library and American Physical Society summaries read via search. The monograph number should be checked before publication.