Kirch, Maria

Maria Kirch, original name in full Maria Margaretha Winckelmann, (born Feb. 25, 1670, Panitzsch, near Leipzig, Saxony [Germany]—died Dec. 29, 1720, Berlin, Prussia [Germany]), German astronomer who was the first woman to discover a comet.

Winckelmann was educated by her father, a Lutheran minister, and—after her father’s death—by an uncle. She studied astronomy under Christoph Arnold, a local self-taught astronomer. It was through Arnold that Winckelmann met astronomer Gottfried Kirch, who had studied under astronomer Johannes Hevelius. Winckelmann and Kirch married in 1692. Gottfried, with his three sisters, had been producing calendars that included vital astronomical information such as the phases of the Moon, times of sunrise and sunset, and the positions of the planets. Kirch joined him in this work.

In 1700 Gottfried was offered the post of astronomer royal at the court of the elector of Brandenburg, Frederick III, in Berlin, where a new observatory was to be built. While the observatory (which was not finished until 1711) was being built, the Kirches worked at the private observatory of Bernhard Friedrich Baron von Krosigk, an avid amateur astronomer. Kirch and her husband worked together, taking turns observing the sky. In 1702 Kirch discovered a previously unknown comet. However, Gottfried claimed it as his own discovery, because of his reticence about revealing how closely he and Kirch worked together, and did not admit the truth until 1710. In 1707 Kirch published her observations of the aurora borealis, and in 1709 she published a paper about an upcoming conjunction of the Sun, Saturn, and Venus, which took place in 1712.

Gottfried died in 1710, and Kirch asked the Royal Berlin Academy of Sciences that she and her son Christfried be allowed to continue producing calendars. Kirch noted that during her husband’s illness, she herself had been being doing the work required. The president of the academy, mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, was alone in supporting Kirch’s petition, which was rejected because other academy members felt that a woman’s producing its calendar would be an embarrassment. However, Kirch was allowed to stay in the housing that had been provided to her family. An inexperienced astronomer, Johann Heinrich Hoffmann, was appointed astronomer royal with the responsibility of producing calendars instead. In 1712 Kirch moved to von Krosigk’s observatory. That year she also wrote a paper about an upcoming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 1714. After von Krosigk’s death in 1714, Kirch became an assistant to a mathematician in Danzig. Kirch and Christfried took over Hevelius’s observatory in Danzig at the request of his family. In 1716 the Russian tsar Peter the Great asked Kirch and Christfried to go to Russia, but they refused. That same year Hoffmann died, and Christfried was appointed to the post of astronomer royal. Kirch and two of her daughters, Christine and Margaretha, worked as Christfried’s assistants. In 1717 the Academy reprimanded Kirch for being too prominent in observatory life, especially at public functions. She was removed from residence at the observatory, which ended her scientific career.