With the encouragement of her huisband and their friends, Mary published her first paper "The magnetic properties of the violet rays of the solar spectrum" in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in 1826. She followed that up with her translation of Laplace's "Mécanique Céleste" the following year. Not satisfied with simply translating the work, however, Mary explained in detail the mathematics used by Laplace which was unfamiliar to most mathematicians in England at that time. With a recommendation from John Herschel, the publisher John Murray produced the book titled, "The Mechanism of the Heavens." It was an instant success. Her next book, "The connection of the physical sciences" was published in 1834.
Recognizing her talent, Mary was elected to the Royal Astronomical Society in 1835 (at the same time as Caroline Herschel). She was also elected to honorary membership of the Société de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Genève in 1834 and, in the same year, to the Royal Irish Academy.
In 1838 with her husband's health deteriorating Mary moced the family to Italy. There, she spent most of the rest of her life. She continued her writing and in 1848 published her most influential work, "Physical Geography" which was used until the beginning of the 20th century in schools and universities.
Furing those later years, she was elected to the American Geographical and Statistical Society in 1857 and the Italian Geographical Society in 1870. That same year, she received the Victoria Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society.
Mary published her last scientific book, "Molecular and Microscopic Science," in 1869 at the age of eighty-nine. It summarized the most recent discoveries in chemisty and physics. That same year she finished her autobiography. She died peacefully the age of ninety two while still writing. The following year, her daughter, Martha, published Mary's autobiography, "Personal Recollections of Mary Somerville."
Somerville College in Oxford was named after her in 1879.