{"id":7335,"date":"2026-09-03T12:07:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/?p=7335"},"modified":"2026-09-03T12:07:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:07:20","slug":"caroline-herschel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/women-who-built-the-future\/caroline-herschel\/","title":{"rendered":"CAROLINE HERSCHEL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>SHE SPENT HER NIGHTS LOOKING INTO THE DARK AND FOUND THINGS NOBODY HAD SEEN BEFORE<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For much of history, Caroline Herschel was described as the assistant to her famous astronomer brother William.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That's a rather inadequate description of a woman who <strong>discovered eight comets<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Born in Hanover in 1750, Caroline originally came to England to join her brother and pursue a career as a singer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead, the stars got in the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">William became obsessed with astronomy and Caroline joined him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Night after night she recorded observations, performed calculations and helped catalogue the heavens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then she began searching the sky herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And finding things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1786, Caroline discovered her first comet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over roughly a decade, she discovered <strong>eight comets<\/strong>, as well as contributing enormously to astronomical cataloguing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">King George III awarded her a salary for her astronomical work \u2014 an extraordinary achievement for a woman in the eighteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In <strong>1828<\/strong>, when Caroline was in her late seventies, the Royal Astronomical Society awarded her its <strong>Gold Medal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then in 1835, Caroline Herschel and Mary Somerville became the first women admitted as honorary members of the Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Caroline lived until the age of <strong>97<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is something wonderfully steampunk about her story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before electronics. Before computers. Before digital telescopes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A woman standing beneath the night sky with brass instruments, handwritten calculations and a telescope, searching the darkness for something nobody else knew was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And finding it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Women Who Built the Future \u2014 Steampunk Australia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Leading to the launch of <strong>Wrinkles in the Fabric with Dr Kathryn Spurling<\/strong>, conversations with remarkable women over 55.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because sometimes the most interesting part of someone's story comes <strong>after the world expects them to have finished telling it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Royal Society records Herschel's eight comet discoveries and her astronomical work, while the Royal Astronomical Society records her 1828 Gold Medal and 1835 honorary membership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recognition at 96<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-women-who-built-the-future"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7338,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7335\/revisions\/7338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}