Annie Jump Cannon Research Paper

“Oh, be a fine girl/guy kiss me,” or maybe not. Learning this phrase has helped multiple astronomers to educate themselves on the spectral classification of stars and continues to do so in today’s time. Annie Jump Cannon’s legacy will carry on lasting a lifetime! The first letters of each word in the phrase represents the seven main types of stars. Starting with ”‘O,” these stars are very young, blue, hot, massive and extremely bright star. This type of star is very uncommon similar to the “B” and “A” stars. These stars get their energy from nuclear fusion, as they convert Hydrogen to Helium. As these massive stars begin to die once they’ve worn out their hydrogen and are now very old stars, they turn into giants/supergiants (old, large stars), resting just above the main sequence stars. This is where the “F” and “G” stars are located. The hotter they are, the brighter they are demonstrating the Sun being a G star. Next, the core contracts as the outer layers expand. This is leading to the explosion of stars eventually becoming a planetary nebula or supernova, …show more content…
Cannon’s interest in astronomy started then. Cannon started her study on physics and astronomy at Wellesley College, which was one of the top schools for women at the time. It was doing her college years that she learned spectroscopy, which became the establishment of her categorizing stars. During this time, she had gotten sick with scarlet fever leading to her becoming completely deaf, likely due to the fever. Even so, she managed to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1884, returning home to Dover, Delaware. At the time with such limited career paths for women, Cannon learned photography. She even traveled to Europe in 1892 to take pictures of the solar eclipse. When her mother passed in 1894, she begins a teaching role in physics at Wellesley College with one of her former teacher’s Sarah Frances