Harlow Shapley

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Harlow Shapley
November 1885 - October 1972
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• Major Discovery Milky Way Galaxy exponentially
  larger than previously believed
• Focus on globular clusters
• gigantic spheroidal agglomerations of stars that
  orbit the Milky Way

Before, the Milky Way was believed to have a
diameter of 15 - 20,000 light years Now, Shapley
concluded that its diameter was, in fact, nearly
300,000 light years with the Sun located near the
edge
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• Error although the Milky Way is much larger
  than anyone imagined, his estimate of its
  diameter was too large by an approximate factor
  of 3.
• As a result, his belief that the Milky Way was
  so enormous that the spiral nebulae must be mere
  satellites around it, spiral counterparts of the
  globularwas false.

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The Great Debate Date April 26th,
1920 Players Heber D. Curtis vs. Harlow
Shapley Location National Academy of Sciences
in Washington Controversy the nature of spiral
nebulae and galaxies the size of the
universe Shapley (left) Sun not at
center of Galaxy Globular clusters and spiral
nebulae are within the Milky Way Curtis (right)
Sun near the center of our Galaxy Belief in
external universes or the island universe
hypothesis
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Shortly after the famed Debate, Harlow Shapley
has the opportunity to replace Edward Charles
Pickering as director of Harvard College
Observatory. He works there from 1921 -
1952. During this part of his career, he hires
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin -- a woman who holds the
distinguished honor of being the first person to
earn a doctorate at Harvard University in the
field of Astronomy.
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Recognition Awards

• - Henry Draper Medal (1926)
• - Gold Medal of Royal Astronomical Society (1934)
• - Bruce Medal (1939)
• Henry Norris Russel Lectureship (1950)
• - Shapley Crater on the moon
• - Asteroid 1123 Shapleya
• - Harlow Shapley Visiting Lectureships in
  Astronomy
• - American Astronomical Society

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Harlow Shapleys Fun Facts

• Shapleys famed interest myrmecology (otherwise
  known as the study of ants)
• Grandfather to Tracey Shapley, a best-selling
  author and to Christopher Shapley, a Pulitzer
  Prize Winning Accountant