Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-04-16
MISS SWOPE AIDS
ASTRAL RESEARCH
General Electric Heads
Daughter Finds More Than
400 Variable Stars.
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press
NEW YORK, April 16.-Miss Henrietta
Swope, who is the daughter of Gerard
Swope, president of the General Electric
Co., and has a reputation of her own
as an astronomer, lectured last night
at the American Museum of Natural
History on Variable Stars in the Milky
Way"
Miss Swppe started working four years
ago, a year after her graduation from
Barnard College, in the Harvard OBJ
servatory, under DR.. Harlow Shapley, its
director
So far. she has to her credit the dis
covery of more than 400 variable stars
''yardstcks," used by astronomers in
measuring the universe. Her discover
les enabled DR.. Shapley to announces
been found to lie within the milky way.
Finds Astronomy Interesting.
Miss Swope has not made up her
mind as yet to follow astronomy as
career, but she does find it inter =sting.
1T has a tremendous appeal to the
imagination, she said today. but then.
and electronS, for instance"
She became interested in astronomy,
she said becausa she had always liked
to look at the stars. She majored in
mathematics at Earnar6-but she has
forgotten all that she says, ana
doesn't use it anyway-put in year OF
social service study at Chicago Univer-
sity, and th5n turned to astronomy.
While working in the Harvard observa-
tory she took her masters degree in
astronomy at Radcliffe.
when l first went to work for DR..
Shaplsy," she said, "he assigned me to
milky way field 185-known among as
tronomers as NJ. w. F. 1S5-one of the
sections into which the milky way is
divided for study. now also have
NJ. w. F. III.
1.-THE variable stars which we study
are called variable because they vary
in brilliance. Some of them go through
eclipses Some of them keep expanding
and contracting so that they are bright
at some times, dim at others.
Those which I have been studying
are about $4,000 light years away.
You can get some idea Of distance by
the fact that one light year measures
$3.50 billion miles.
"Our work is done with camera
plates. Every night, in Cambridge and
at an observatory in Africa, pictures are
taken of the sections of the milky way
under observation. We call it patrolling
the milky way. Then we study the
plates. There are six OF us at Harvard
doing that work.
ITS pretty much of a routine job,
but like it. And now and then, when
you stand of and look at it, it's ex-
tremely interesting. Nobody knows how
many variable stars there are More
than 4.0o0 have been discovered. And
when you stop to think that the vari-
able stars, after all comprise only a
very small percentage of the stars in
the universe-well, it is interesting,
isn't it?
Twenty or 80 years from now Well.
be able to tell a lot more about those
variable stars. At least somebody will
I don't know whether I'll still be look
ing for them or not. though"
Miss Swope used lantern slides to ex-
plain to members Of the Amateur As
tronomers' Association last night how
one hunts for variable stars.
THE whole thing Is rather compli-
Gated" she said today without slides
it is pretty hard to explain"