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About:
Stellar is a feature film that tells the story of one the most important yet unknown female figures of the 20th Century, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.
Logline:
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, one of the most influential female astronomers of the 20th Century, discovered a ground-breaking theory that set to change the world as we know it. Unfortunately, like most women in science, her discovery that the sun was made out of hydrogen was credited to a man. A woman in STEM before women were allowed in STEM, this is her story.
Based on a True Story:
Based on the true story of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, the film explores the life of the British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist. In her 1925 doctoral thesis, called "Stellar Atmospheres," Cecilia proposed for the first time that stars are made mainly of hydrogen and helium. However, her ground-breaking discovery was rejected by astronomer Henry Russell.
It wasn't until 1929, when Russell published his own findings that he acknowledged Payne's earlier work and discovery. Of course, he was generally credited for the conclusions that Cecilia had reached four years earlier.
Despite many setbacks, Cecilia continued to break down barriers facing women in science by becoming the first female professor at Harvard and the first woman to hold a chair position.
Stellar explores the astonishing and overlooked life of Cecilia Payne who was a trail-blazing women in science when women were far from being accepted into this line of work.