Arthur Eddington

Hello. My name is Arthur Eddington. When I was a little boy, I loved to look up at the big night sky. The stars twinkled like tiny diamonds, and I always wondered what they were. When I grew up, I became a star-gazer, which is also called an astronomer. It was my job to learn all about the stars.

My very smart friend, Albert Einstein, had a giant idea. He thought that the big, heavy Sun could actually bend the light from faraway stars as it passed by. To see if he was right, I had to take pictures of the stars during the daytime. The only way to do that was during a solar eclipse, when the Moon moves in front of the Sun and makes the sky dark. In 1919, I went on a big adventure. I sailed on a boat to a faraway island called Príncipe. When the sky turned dark, I took my pictures. And guess what? Albert was right. The starlight had bent, just like he thought.

I spent my life learning the secrets of the universe. I helped figure out that stars are not just little sparkles, but giant, super-hot balls of gas that shine very brightly. I loved sharing everything I learned with people. I lived to be 61 years old. Today, people remember me for helping prove one of the biggest ideas in science and for helping us understand what stars are really made of. So the next time you look up at the night sky, remember that there are amazing secrets waiting to be discovered.