Studies and Discoveries

Women were not allowed to attend universities in Germany, but the real work of astronomy and observing the skies took place largely outside the academic context. Thus Kirch became one of the few women active in astronomy in the 1700s. It was not unheard of in the Holy Roman Empire for a woman to be active in astronomy: many were those active in the seventeenth century. She worked at the Academy as an unofficial assistant. He made observations and calculations to produce calendars and ephemeris, and record meteorological information. With its data, calendars and almanacs were produced and were also very useful for navigation. On April 21, 1702, Maria Kirch discovered the so-called "comet of 1702". Kirch continued to carry on her astronomy work, publishing in German under her own name and with due acknowledgment. Her publications, which included her observations of the aurora borealis in 1707, the pamphlet on the conjunction of the sun with Saturn and Venus in 1709, and the approaching conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 1712 made a fundamental contribution to astronomy. In 1709 the president of the Berlin Academy of Sciences introduced her to the Prussian court, where she explained her sightings of sunspots. At the time women couldn't graduate, so she was rejected at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. In 1711 she published a well-received pamphlet predicting a new comet, followed by a pamphlet on Jupiter and Saturn. In 1712 Kirch accepted the patronage of an enthusiastic amateur astronomer and began work at her observatory. She trained her son Christfried Kirch and daughters Christine Kirch and Margaretha Kirch to act as her assistants in the family's astronomical work, continuing the production of calendars and almanacs and making observations. When she returned to Berlin she continued to work privately, and died of a fever in Berlin on 29 December 1720.

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