Cannon, Annie Jump (1863-1941), was considered the leading American female astronomer of her generation. In 1896, she joined the staff of the Harvard Observatory. Working with other astronomers there, Cannon developed a system of classifying stars by the spectra of their light and applied the system to over 350,000 stars. She discovered 300 variable stars, five novae (types of exploding stars), and a binary star. In 1925, Cannon became the first woman awarded an honorary doctorate of science by Oxford University. Cannon was born on Dec. 11, 1863, in Dover, Delaware. She died on April 13, 1941. 
