News and Views | Nature

THE Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society has been awarded to Prof. Ejnar Hertzsprung, of Leyden Observatory, for his determination of the distance of the Magellanic Clouds and other

pioneering work in stellar astronomy. Prof. Hertzsprang's work is characterised by definiteness and originality; it includes researches in photometry; study of change of period in variable

stars; investigations of the spacial distribution of Cepheids and other bodies; special studies of clusters; and researches in celestial spectroscopy. He was the first (1906) to emphasise

the evidence for distinction between giant and dwarf stars. His work on the relation between colour, proper motion, and apparent magnitudes of stars has been a noteworthy contribution. His

early application (1906) of the theory of radiation to considerations of stellar temperatures led him to be among the first to estimate the angular diameters of stars. He found the key by

which Cepheid variables can be used to determine stellar distances. Miss Leavitt at Harvard had found a relationship between the apparent magnitude and period of Cepheid variables in the

lesser Magellanic Cloud. Hertzsprung saw that this implied a relationship between actual luminosity and period. He then by means of solar motion deduced the parallax of thirteen bright

Cepheids and thus their absolute luminosity, and the constant of the period luminosity relation. He derived the distance of the lesser Magellanic Cloud as 10,000 parsecs. This work was

published in 1913, and the method has since been extensively employed by Shapley, Hubble, and others in the determination of the distances of remote clusters and nebulae.

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: