The Lightest Element

"Nothing compares with being the first person in the history of the world to see something, but timing is everything. The world has to be ready for you."

Boston 1956.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, one of the most eminent astronomers of the twentieth century, is about to be appointed Chair of Astronomy and the first woman to head a Harvard department. Only two things stand in her way: a covert investigation aimed at exposing her as a communist sympathiser, and the entrenched conservatism of her male colleagues.

When a student journalist asks to profile her, it feels like an opportunity to control her own narrative —assuming, of course, that the invitation is actually what it seems…