Early female Astronomers (pre-16th century)
Here I am going to introduce you to several women astronomers and their important contributions to the scientific study of celestial objects prior to the Newtonian era.
Hypatia — lived between 350–370 A.D. and 415 A.D.
Hypatia lived in Alexandria, Egypt part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was the daughter of Theon of Alexandria, who was the head of a prestigious school and who edited a widely accepted version of Euclid’s Elements.
She was a respected philosopher, mathematician, teacher, and wrote scientific commentaries, including a response to Diophantus’s Arithmetica and Apollonius of Perga’s treatise on conic sections. She may have also edited the surviving text of Ptolemy’s Almagest.
She lectured on Plato and Aristotle and would wear a tribon, a philosophers cloak, in public and lecture in the streets of Alexandria.
She was also known as a wise counselor, however shortly after advising the Roman prefect of Alexandria, Orestes, she was accused of preventing him from settling a dispute with Cyril and murdered by a mob of Christian zealots.
Sophia Brahe — lived 1559 to 1643
She was born in Knudsturp, Denmark. The youngest child to parents who worked for the Danish king and queen, as an advisor and head of household. Her oldest brother Tycho Brahe, taught her horticulture and chemistry, but discouraged her from studying astronomy. Despite this, she taught herself astronomy by studying from books and started assisting him at the age of 17.
Working along side her brother she helped record and compile astronomical measurements that would become the source for future studies in planetary orbits. She was also interested in medicine and horticulture, and experimented with remedies and created an impressive garden. She continued to assist her brother throughout her life and even helped him write horoscopes.
Near the end of her life she documented the genealogy of Danish noble families in a 900-page chronicle, which is still an important source of early Danish history.
Maria Cunitz — lived 1610 to 1664
She was from Silesia, which is a historical region in modern-day Poland and Czech Republic. Maria’s tutor who later became her husband encouraged her to study astronomy. Together they made many observations including Saturn and Jupiter.
During the Thirty Year’s War (1618-1648) they took refuge in a convent in Olobok, Poland. There she observed, documented, and created astronomical tables with all known planets and their positions at any moment in time. After the war she published Urania propitia in which she simplified Kepler’s Rudophine Tables.
Using data from Tycho Brahe, Kepler surmised a heliocentric planetary system with elliptic orbits. Maria refined and simplified Kepler’s Area Law used to predict a planets position on an elliptical path. She corrected some of Kepler’s errors and refined his calculations into simpler, more elegant algorithms.
Near the end of her life a fire destroyed many of her books and records of astronomical observations.
Elisabeth Hevelius — lived 1647 to 1693
Elisabeth was born in Poland to a rich merchant family. She had an early interest in astronomy and was able to meet famous international astronomer Johannes Hevelius. He later became her husband and together they observed and recorded the positions of a vast number of celestial objects.
After Johannes’ death she published Prodromus astronomiae in 1690 which catalogued 1,564 stars and their positions. It contained references to each star from Tycho Brahe’s observations and then the observations made by Johannes and Elizabeth. Their observations were so precise that they were used as a reference for 18th century celestial globes. They included the observations from Edmond Halley in 1679 to cover the southern hemisphere. All observations where made by the naked eye using tools such as the octant or sextant, which were measuring devices.
At the time of her death she was well respected for her vast body of observational work and calculations.
Maria Margaretha Kirch — lived 1670 –1720
She was born in Germany and received an education from her father, a lutheran minister, similar to that of boys at the time until age 13. She then studied and became an apprentice to Christoph Arnold, a farmer and amateur astronomer. She married famous astronomer Gottfried Kirch and continued learning astronomy from him. She was able to study astronomy relatively freely because the work took place outside of the university setting, where women were forbidden.
She and her husband worked as a team observing the sky, documenting discoveries, and creating calendar systems and almanacs. She conducted nightly observations, sometimes while her husband slept. On one of these evenings alone she discovered the “Comet of 1702” (C/1702 H1).
She was the second woman in recorded history to publish in scientific journals using her own name. She published findings on the Aurora Borealis, pamphlets on the conjunction of the sun with Saturn and Venus(1709), the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn(1712), and the prediction of a comet.
After her husband’s death she petitioned to take his place at the Royal Academy of Sciences. Though it was agreed that she was qualified, the other members feared it would set a precedent for other women seeking positions in the academy. Late in life she worked as an assistant to her son at the academy observatory and privately.
Thank you for reading!
Additional resources and sources: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_female_scientists_before_the_20th_century
