In a small, dark office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, glass photographic plates filled with dots of light lay scattered on the table, representing the groundbreaking work of Henrietta Swan Leavitt. In the early 20th century, astronomers were uncertain if our galaxy was the entirety of the Universe or merely a fraction of it, as the vast distances beyond a few hundred light-years were nearly impossible to measure. Astronomers could observe celestial bodies but struggled to quantify and prove their findings, until Leavitt, a 'computor' earning 30 cents an hour, discovered a linear relationship in the data that others perceived merely as dots.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt was born in 1868 in Lancaster, Massachusetts, and raised in a strict puritanical environment. Nevertheless, her parents encouraged her intellectual pursuits, and at the age of 17, she began her studies in astronomy. Despite the limitations placed on women in science during her time, Leavitt persevered and secured a position at the Harvard College Observatory, where she would go on to make her monumental contributions. Her work laid the foundation for measuring astronomical distances more accurately and significantly advancing the field of astronomy.

Leavitt's discoveries were pivotal in our understanding of the Universe's scale, allowing other astronomers to approximate the distance to far-off galaxies and ultimately transforming our perception of our place in the cosmos. Her findings did not gain widespread recognition until later, but they opened the door for subsequent advancements in astrophysics, illustrating the profound impact that one woman's groundbreaking work had despite her lack of formal recognition in her own lifetime.