To mark International Women’s Day 2017, we’ve collaborated with The Royal Society to celebrate and record the stories of groundbreaking women of science. While many great men of science have memorials and statues in their honour, the achievement of women has been less widely told.

Here are 5 out-of-this-world women who made cosmic waves in the world of astronomy:  

Caroline Herschel

Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) Credit: Agnes Clerke’s The Herschels and Modern Astronomy (1895)

Caroline Herschel was the first woman to discover a comet, the first woman to be awarded a prize by the Royal Astronomical Society (1835), and the first woman to be paid for her contribution to astronomy.

19 New King Street, Bath, where Caroline and William Herschel worked. Grade II* listed. © Stephen Richards via wiki commons.

Herschel was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1750. At age 22, with little education and only a few words of English…