ow much do you know about women astronomers?

 Besides Sally Ride, the first American woman astronaut in space, probably not much. Women Astronomers: Reaching for the Stars by Mabel Armstrong, features short biographies of the key female scientists in this area. Women Astronomers: Reaching for the Stars is one of the few books on women in astronomy specifically targeted to young women in high school—but it’s a great read for any age!

You’ll read about:

• Hypatia of Egypt, who worked in the famed Library at Alexandria, invented the astrolabe around 400 B.C. She created it to locate and track the movement of the stars,
  and also labored to produce a detailed table of her observations. Sailors used the astrolabe and her tables for navigation for the next 1200 years.
   
• America’s First Lady of Astronomy was Maria Mitchell, of Nantucket, Massachusetts. She found her first comet in 1847, 61 years after Caroline Herschel of Hanover Germany—the first recorded modern female astronomer.
   
• Women were used as “computers,” doing calculations necessary for astronomy and astrophysics from the 19th to the early 20th century. Females were employed because they could be paid less than male clerks, traditionally hired for such work. Many of America’s greatest female astronomers got their start in this occupation.