Google celebrated the legacy of famed German astronomer Caroline Herschel, the first woman ever to discover a comet, today (March 16) with an animated Google doodle gift for her 266th birthday.
Born in Germany in 1750, Herschel was one of ten children and the sister of another famed astronomer William Herschel - who went on to discover the planet Uranus. Caroline and William would eventually work to catalogue star clusters and nebulas that led to the New General Catalogue that gave the NGC moniker to non-stellar objects. On Aug. 1, 1786, Caroline spotted a slowly moving object in the night sky, and tracked over subsequent nights, becoming the first woman ever to discover a comet.
The folks behind Google's doodles lauded Herschel's astronomical discoveries in their blog post on her science legacy, which we've included below:
"Caroline Herschel was diminutive in stature--she stood only 4'3"—but her contributions to cosmological science were monumental.The late astronomer's parents presumed she would spend her life as a housemaid, but her considerable musical talent and formidable intellect intervened. With the help of her brother Isaac, Herschel left Germany in 1772 for Bath, England, where she took work as a soprano in the Royal Court."
"Her brother — also a skilled musician — started a small business making telescopes in his spare time, and the two took a deep interest in astronomy and observational cosmology. Herschel was a keen observer of the universe. She discovered hundreds of stars, eight comets (six of which still bear her name), and became the first female astronomer enlisted by the British monarchy. Today's Doodle by Juliana Chen celebrates Herschel's remarkable scientific achievements, which include the publication of Catalogue of Stars and a Gold Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society. Today would have been her 266th birthday."
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