When starting out for a PhD, we all think (or at least wish) that we are going to make a paradigm shifting discovery. Unfortunately, this is usually not the case, but it has been known to happen. In 1925, Cecilia Payne obtained a PhD with her thesis entitled “Stellar Atmospheres: A contribution to the observational study of high temperature in the reversing layers of stars.” Prior to this work it had been generally accepted that stars were just bigger, hotter versions of earth, made of all the same stuff.