December 11

Do you ever get bored? I do. A lot! Boredom can be oppressive at times, if you let it. However, there is a bright side to boredom, though at times it can be extremely difficult to find that aspect of it. There is a small, unassuming crater on the Moon that is called the Cannon Crater. This crater was named after Annie Jump Cannon who was born on the 11th in 1863 in Dover, Delaware. While attending school at Wellesley College in Massachusetts she caught scarlet fever during one particularly harsh winter. The effects of this illness left Cannon almost completely deaf. Upon graduating in 1884, with a degree in physics, she returned home to Delaware. She found herself adrift socially and personally because she was virtually without hearing, and was older and better educated than the other women she encountered in Dover. She became both bored and restless. In 1893, Cannon wrote to one of her professors at Wellesley, to find out if there were any openings at the school. The result of this letter, written out of sheer boredom, was that Sarah Frances Whiting, a professor of physics and astronomy hired Cannon to be her assistant. The position allowed her to pursue graduate courses and Whiting nudged her into studying spectroscopy and photography. As it developed these were areas for which Annie was particularly well suited. During her career, Annie would discover 300 variable stars, 5 novae and a binary star. In 1925, Oxford University in England awarded her an honorary doctorate, making her the first woman ever accorded such an honor.