Maria Mitchell
Maria Mitchell
Maria Mitchell was an American astronomer who, in 1847, by using a telescope, discovered a comet which as a result became known as "Miss Mitchell's Comet". She won a gold medal prize for her discovery which was presented to her by King Frederick VI of Denmark. On the medal was inscribed "Non Frustra Signorum Obitus Speculamur et Ortus" in Latin. Mitchell was the first American woman to work as a professional astronomer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth1 August 1818
CountryUnited States of America
A traveller, lost on a desert plain, feels that the recognition of one star, the Pole star, is of itself a great acquisition.
The eye that directs a needle in the delicate meshes of embroidery will equally well bisect a star with the spiderweb of the micrometer.
I am just learning to notice the different colors of the stars, and already begin to have a new enjoyment.
There is something of the same pleasure in noticing the hues of the stars that there is in looking at a flower garden in autumn.
The greatest benefit derived from the study of science is that it lifts you out of and above the littleness of daily trials. We learn to live in the universe as a part of it; we cannot seperate ourselves from it - our every act connects us with it - our every act affects the whole. Standing under the canopy of stars and remembering their presence you could scarcely do a petty deed, or think a wicked thought.
Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to take in the vastness of the universe.
When we are chafed and fretted by small cares, a look at the stars will show us the littleness of our own interests.
Even astronomers who are as well cared for as are those of Cambridge have their annoyances, and even men as skilled as they are make blunders.
I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it, think some thoughts better than we think, catch some inspiration from heights above our own.
I have just gone over my comet computations again, and it is humiliating to perceive how very little more I know than I did seven years ago when I first did this kind of work.
I am just through with a summer, and a summer is to me always a trying ordeal.
When that door closed and the County Commission door opened, Don encouraged me to take the position,
Yesterday I had a Shaker visitor, and to-day a Catholic; and the more I see and hear, the less do I care about church doctrines.
The best that can be said of my life so far is that it has been industrious, and the best that can be said of me is that I have not pretended to what I was not.