Unearthing the legacy of Harvard's female 'computers'

In a cramped Harvard University sub-basement, a team of women is working to document the rich history of women astronomers. More than 40 years before women gained the right to vote, female "computers" at Harvard College Observatory were making major astronomical discoveries. Between 1885 and 1927, the observatory employed about 80 women who studied glass plate photographs of the stars. They found galaxies and nebulas and created methods to measure distance in space. They were famous - newspapers wrote about them, they published scientific papers under their own names.