Not a paper, but The Extravagant Universe by Robert Kirschner describes decades worth of observation and data collection in astronomy, coming together with expe

Not a paper, but The Extravagant Universe by Robert Kirschner describes decades worth of observation and data collection in astronomy, coming together with experimental discoveries from particle colliders and evolving theory in order to eventually converge upon the now-standard ΛCDM model in cosmology. Also includes an enormous background on the century worth of discoveries that eventually resulted in the type-1A supernova becoming a sufficiently reliable standard candle to measure the distance to galaxies far enough away that the redshift demonstrated accelerating expansion of the universe. So many things they needed to work out, from dust diffraction patterns to the differences in how spectrum evolves over the two weeks or so from the initial explosion event to figure out exactly when in the timeline each observation is taking place. Combine that with the logistics of telescope scheduling and the sparsity of observations when you're looking at something as large as the entire universe and your telescope can only cover so much at any one time. It gives you a tremendous appreciation for the sheer amount of work and patience that goes into this, slowly collecting evidence over decades, waiting for technology to develop before certain evidence is even possible to collect, and eventually seeing lines of evidence all point in the same direction, but only after a literal lifetime of work to get there. Nothing else has ever made me appreciate how hard science really is and how little the general public understands it.