Maria Mitchell was an American astronomer who died on this date in 1889. Now, normally this just might be a footnote in history, and for most people it is. Except for this: Maria Mitchell was a woman and she was an astronomer. Those two qualities in one person were something quite extraordinary over hundred years ago.

Maria's parents were Quakers in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and Quakers had this crazy notion for the time that children, both boys and girls, should be afforded equal education. Her father, William Mitchell, noticed his daughter was strong in the areas of math and astronomy and so encouraged her to pursue them. Go figure!

This love for learning and education persisted as she assisted her dad in his teaching and then took on the role of librarian in Nantucket. But even as a librarian, her passion for astronomy continued.

On the night of October 1, 1847, armed with telescope, Maria was on the roof of the Pacific National Bank on Main Street in Nantucket where her father then worked. The 29-year-old Maria scanned the northern skies and saw there a blurry object that she knew was not normally amongst those stars. Those of you who do any backyard astronomy know that when you see a blurry object in a part of the sky that you know has no blurry objects, that you have probably just found a comet.

And a comet it was.

This seemingly small discovery of "Miss Mitchell's Comet" had an extraordinary effect on her future. Just the next year the American Academy of Arts and Sciences voted her in as their first woman member. (There was not another woman voted in until 1943.) In 1850, the Association for the Advancement of Science voted her into their organization.

By 1865 she ended up, to no one's surprise, as an educator, taking on the position of Professor of Astronomy at the brand new Vassar College in New York State. There she not only taught, but studied the surface features of Jupiter and Saturn and practiced the new art of astrophotography.

She worked at Vassar for more than two decades, retiring only because of ill health. She died on 28 June 1889, at the age of 70, and was buried next to her beloved father.

Maria Mitchell's life can show us at least two things; that good parents can play a huge and wonderful role in shaping a child's future, and that the love and wonder of the skies ought not be limited by one's gender - the study of the heavens is for everyone.