This originally appeared on LinkedIn on August 5, 2024.
Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) was born into a musical family in Hanover, Germany. She was afflicted with typhus at the age of ten which had a lasting effect on her health. Her father tutored her in math, science and music secretly, against her mother’s wishes.
In 1772, Caroline’s brothers, William and Alexander, took her to England. She was first introduced to astronomy through learning about the constellations and about glass and light principles at opticians' shops on her way to Bath. William was an organist, and became interested in the stars later in life. Because neither William nor Caroline had formal training in astronomy, they weren’t influenced by the preconceived notions based on the experts’ popular belief at the time that the stars were mere points of light, and that the only interesting things were solar-system objects (J. Donald Fernie, 2007). Caroline and William were consumed by star-gazing, especially by what appeared to be fainter stars. So William built a large telescope on his own, and then built a smaller one for Caroline.
They began sweeping the skies for the “faint stars” which turned out to be nebulae, and started to document them. These findings piqued King George III’s interest, who decided to support their efforts. With that, the brother and sister made landmark contributions to the discovery and category of comets and nebulae. Because of this brother-and-sister team, the numbers of documented nebulae grew from 100 to 2,500 by the time they finished.
Because of Caroline’s many significant astronomical discoveries, she became the world’s first professional female astronomer, and therefore the first woman in history to receive a salary from the British Court (King George III) for her scientific work in 1787. (Most scientists of those days did not get salaries, which was why they needed patrons to support them.)
Caroline returned to Germany in 1822 after William’s death and completed the catalog of 2,500 nebulae and many star clusters. She lived to be 96 and she remained lively until the end.
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