September 11 – Happy Birthday, Mary Watson Whitney

nPosted on September 11, 2019

Key Points

nAbout a quarter of a bajillion years ago, I featured American astronomer Maria Mitchell.
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Today’s famous birthday, born on this date in 1847, was another American astronomer. Like Mitchell, Mary Watson Whitney was a woman who managed to get a much better education than most women and who managed to do valuable work in a field completely and almost totally dominated by men: astronomy.
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nIt turns out, Whitney met and was taught by and worked with Mitchell!
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nBorn in Massachusetts, Mary Whitney had a father with enough wealth that she was able to get a great education compared with most girls and women. After attending a local school, Whitney had a private tutor for a year and then went to Vassar College, where Mitchell was a professor.
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nWhitey obtained Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Vassar, and she was able to attend some courses in Harvard (only as a guest – women weren’t allowed to attend Harvard for credits then!). She went to Switzerland for three more years of study, although she apparently didn’t obtain a PhD.
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nWhen Whitney returned to the U.S., she became a high school teacher. However, she soon became an assistant to Mitchell at Vassar and, when Mitchell retired, became a professor and the director of the observatory.
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nWhitney’s astronomical research dealt with double stars, variable stars, asteroids, and comets; and under her direction more than 100 articles were published at the observatory.
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Double stars are stars that circle around one another.

Variable stars change in brightness.
Some variables change in cycle through
expansion and contractions, swelling and
shrinking, with the temperatures and
brightness cycling along with the size.

Asteroids are chunks of rock ranging in size from
600 miles (1,000 km) across to particles of
dust; they circle the Sun, many of them in the
“asteroid belt” located between Jupiter and Mars.

Comets are bodies made of ice and dust that circle the
Sun in long elliptical orbits; when near the Sun, a “tail” of
gas and dust particles point away from the Sun.

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