The 4-Foot-3 German Astronomer Who Discovered Eight Comets, Catalogued 561 New Stars, and Was the First Woman Paid a Salary by the British Crown for Scientific Work
Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) was a 4-foot-3 former kitchen servant who became the senior assistant in her brother William Herschel's astronomical observatory at Slough. She discovered eight comets between 1786 and 1797, catalogued 561 new stars and 14 nebulae, and was the first woman in any country paid by a national government as a working scientist — £50 per year from George III from 1787.
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