User:Oliviasevy/Carolyn Hurless

Many of Hurless' contributions throughout her career dealt with the discovery and observation of variable stars, a status that categorizes stars whose visibility varies based on either the brilliance of the star itself (intrinsic) or on the amount of emitted visible light that reaches Earth's atmosphere (extrinsic). Her first variable observation captured SS Cygni, a dwarf nova star in the constellation Cygnus.

Dwarf novae are a class of intrinsic variable stars of the cataclysmic variety, meaning their brilliance changes as a result of the fluctuating nature of the energy generated by thermonuclear interactions. Since SS Cyg's discovery in 1896, it has undergone an estimated 800 cataclysmic outbursts. Hurless observed one such outburst in 1941 with a considerably large magnitude of 8.1-12.0.