Another of the Harvard computers was
Henrietta Leavitt. This isn't a well known name, even though she made one of the most important discoveries of 20th century astronomy. Previously, astronomers could only measure distances up to 100 light years, but her work extended that to 10 million light years. Edwin Hubble used this discovery to show that the Andromeda Nebula was actually a another galaxy, not part of the Milky Way.
Leavitt was also the discoverer of over half of the variable stars known in her lifetime. Yet her life left almost no footprints on history. Her biography
Miss Leavitt's Stars contrasts the solidity of her professional accomplishment with the butterfly touch of her life.