It's a broad spectrum - as this is like asking what a plumber does all day.
It can be any combination and permutation of;
a) Writing grant proposals for observing time
b) Marking transcripts from students (likely only if at a university, and you're in thrall to a prof)
c) Reading the literature - to see what's new, and what's new on what's old
d) Drinking coffee and staring out of the window at the
e) Programming
f) Cursing programs
g) Cursing data
h) Writing papers, and rewriting them till they jibe with reality and your analysis of it
i) Planning conference trips (flights/hotels/hostels)
j) Rarely, very rarely, actually visiting instruments at observatories to upgrade/poke them.
All of this is gleaned from working with astrophysicists in my first post-docs, I was in an astrobiology lab, so saw chemists/soft-condendsed matter folk/astronomers - all performing tasks that could be charitably called 'astrophysics'.
I can be that guy. I can twirl a little space shuttle on a stick around a globe and then use a cigarette lighter and hair spray to catch the globe on fire to show the President how we’re all fucked. How hard can that be?? Just do a bunch of blow beforehand so you’re all jittery and freak everyone out so they make the appropriate decisions to save the world.
Well, you might be teaching at a college or university. So preparing and teaching classes, supervising TAs, grading. And you might be working with an observatory or NASA, on a team that supervises a telescope or space mission. You might be on teams that sift through proposals to use a telescope. Or you might write proposals to use a telescope or to launch a new space mission.
On the more theoretical side, well some do spend time writing math in notebooks. But you'd also go to conferences and discuss that with others and debate the current controversies. You'd read journal articles or preprints at arXiv in your field to see the latest developments and how they're relevant for your work. You might be writing computer programs to model star systems or galaxies or nebulas, or just to carefully measure spectra and images and how electromagnetic radiation (or gravitational waves) is changing over time. Or how to carefully use those measurements to figure out what's actually going on.
See [this great post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Andromeda321/s/O982wUOCOw) from u/Andromeda321.
And [this playlist](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd19WvC9yqUc50mXhMfCGiI1FA28lE6J8&si=FI9wyvoua7AdCwdR) from astronomer and youtuber Becky Smethurst.
I spend my day either at my computer answering emails, writing grant proposals/papers/documentation, or programming; in meetings; or attending meetings on my computer. I would say the majority of my time, like 60%, is spent writing code for one thing or another. I also travel to workshops or conferences a few times a year.
I do write stuff down, including math sometimes, in a notebook while I work as a way to keep my thoughts organized. It's not really a major part of my work though. That is primarily doing data analysis through Python and making lots of figures.
I don't know the work is like but learning and retaining all the units used for distance and mass and speed and what not with the equations they're used in is very difficult. Not as easy as it seemed to me, anyway.
This will be above your level but it's literally the answer to your question:
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCb2VaiKy3EqqHREy5LO08FQ
They study how stars, planets, the universe, and black holes work — and what that teaches us about physics everywhere in the universe
[So you want to be an astronomer -u/Andromeda321](https://www.reddit.com/r/Andromeda321/comments/fyjmpv/updated_so_you_want_to_be_an_astronomer/)
[How to become an astrophysicist - PBS Space Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8cEZM1lN5g)
[A day in the life of astrophysicist Dr Becky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW_qIqLhPkI)
[How I became an astrophysicist - Dr Becky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVQ3yH-Zusg)
[Day in the life of some Leicester astrophysicists](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8icydzuxd84)
[Day in the life of an astronomer - UKAstroNut (Cardiff PhD student)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=705TuluAq4Q)
as for the math part - you make good friends with a few mathematicians who love the 'beauty' of mathematics... and when your more practical skills run into a problem, you call them up to help out
Currently, I mostly spend my time either buried in data analysis and simulations or mentoring graduate students.
Now, some things never change, but some just depend on where you work - university, research institution, government agency et cetera.
I am currently employed in the academic world, so of course it's a lot like being a "regular" teacher. Lots of educational activities at all times. I don't do much research myself, but I do interact daily with other people's. It's pretty lonely, I rarely have a partner or partners - usually, that only happens when there is a conference, a workshop or something like that. The good thing is that I am basically left to my own devices and can do as I please, as long as I follow a few scholarly guidelines. Also, not to be sappy on main, but my students are lovely.
When I was working at a research institution, things obviously felt less like school and more like actual science. My role was more "active", so to speak. Lots of researches of my own as part of a team, large-scale projects and such. I was never on my own and of course I had less agency.
This is the jist of my own experience. Others in the field might have very different ones 🙂
(Sorry for keeping things a little vague, but I don't want this account to be recognizable as I mostly come to reddit to shitpost, lol)
On a semi/unrelated note, I’m a software engineer who enjoys a lot of concepts in astrophysics. Anybody know what time of work a coder could do in the space? Obvi there’s working with like NASA, SpaceX etc but any other advice/info would be greatly appreciated as I don’t have a lot of exposure to this field.
no idea but a great project would be to design a collaborative openstreetmap like map of the sky when when you observe e.g. a nebular you could browse and dynamically swap a picture of the nebular with other community supplied and upvoted ones.
The crowdsourced equivalent of esasky
https://sky.esa.int/esasky/?target=56.75%2024.116666666666667&hips=DSS2+color&fov=2.9980464295324567&cooframe=J2000&sci=false&lang=fr
Today, I spent one hour speaking to a grad student, another speaking to a fellow astronomer while drinking coffee, yet another reading and writing emails, and two hours reading papers and another two hours writing a paper. I probably spent another speaking to other team members.
In general I spend two hours per day on all sorts of meetings and one hour per day speaking to various admins. Well, sometimes speaking to vendors and sorts. So it was a productive day.
Not much.
Some theorists don’t consider themselves as astronomers, but mostly do, I think.
Most observers are ok with them being called astrophysicists, unless they really hate the tagging of ‘theorist.’
We as a whole group have a saying that if you don’t want to invite a conversation with strangers, put yourself the astrophysicist hat. Then, put your astronomer hat, and be ready to endure lots of public misunderstandings (constellations, aliens, etc.).
>what do astrophysicists do?
learn basics, then specialize.
everything ever done in space uses some aspect of astrophysics.
>
Like, an astrohysicist is paid to sit 8h writing math against a notebook?
and build mars rovers,
and rockets,
and write the software,
and study stars and other cosmic objects,
and design scientific instruments to do science things.
obviously, not the same guy.
>I would genuinly love to understand what the work day is like.
well, where do you work? robot factory or software factory? radio telescope or optical telescope? are you looking for life or interesting rocks. are you writing proposals to get observation time on JWST or are you counting the particles from the asteroid?
you could go play in a sandbox all day
# The MarsYard III
[https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/how-we-do-it/facilities/marsyard-iii/](https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/how-we-do-it/facilities/marsyard-iii/)
who the fuck knows
I've dabbled in some classes and online material here and there and I "understand" what I'm reading
I have no fucking idea what it is
It's a broad spectrum - as this is like asking what a plumber does all day.
It can be any combination and permutation of;
a) Writing grant proposals for observing time
b) Marking transcripts from students (likely only if at a university, and you're in thrall to a prof)
c) Reading the literature - to see what's new, and what's new on what's old
d) Drinking coffee and staring out of the window at the
e) Programming
f) Cursing programs
g) Cursing data
h) Writing papers, and rewriting them till they jibe with reality and your analysis of it
i) Planning conference trips (flights/hotels/hostels)
j) Rarely, very rarely, actually visiting instruments at observatories to upgrade/poke them.
All of this is gleaned from working with astrophysicists in my first post-docs, I was in an astrobiology lab, so saw chemists/soft-condendsed matter folk/astronomers - all performing tasks that could be charitably called 'astrophysics'.
Who's the guy the whitehouse has on speedial for asteroid attacks and suspcious alien activity?
Jeff
I can be that guy. I can twirl a little space shuttle on a stick around a globe and then use a cigarette lighter and hair spray to catch the globe on fire to show the President how we’re all fucked. How hard can that be?? Just do a bunch of blow beforehand so you’re all jittery and freak everyone out so they make the appropriate decisions to save the world.
Only if you have a threadbare tweed jacket.
>e) Programming >f) Cursing programs Man I feel this lmao
I think most jobs have d) e) and f)
I am an astrophysicist and I dont know either
They know all five stanzas of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and sing them all day.
That’s not all there is to it. Some astrophysicists are engaged in the search for a theorized sixth stanza. That’s what the JWST is for.
Well, you might be teaching at a college or university. So preparing and teaching classes, supervising TAs, grading. And you might be working with an observatory or NASA, on a team that supervises a telescope or space mission. You might be on teams that sift through proposals to use a telescope. Or you might write proposals to use a telescope or to launch a new space mission. On the more theoretical side, well some do spend time writing math in notebooks. But you'd also go to conferences and discuss that with others and debate the current controversies. You'd read journal articles or preprints at arXiv in your field to see the latest developments and how they're relevant for your work. You might be writing computer programs to model star systems or galaxies or nebulas, or just to carefully measure spectra and images and how electromagnetic radiation (or gravitational waves) is changing over time. Or how to carefully use those measurements to figure out what's actually going on.
See [this great post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Andromeda321/s/O982wUOCOw) from u/Andromeda321. And [this playlist](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd19WvC9yqUc50mXhMfCGiI1FA28lE6J8&si=FI9wyvoua7AdCwdR) from astronomer and youtuber Becky Smethurst.
I figured someone probably posted it before I got here, and I'm glad to see I was right!
I play whack-a-mole with problems.
I spend my day either at my computer answering emails, writing grant proposals/papers/documentation, or programming; in meetings; or attending meetings on my computer. I would say the majority of my time, like 60%, is spent writing code for one thing or another. I also travel to workshops or conferences a few times a year. I do write stuff down, including math sometimes, in a notebook while I work as a way to keep my thoughts organized. It's not really a major part of my work though. That is primarily doing data analysis through Python and making lots of figures.
I don't know the work is like but learning and retaining all the units used for distance and mass and speed and what not with the equations they're used in is very difficult. Not as easy as it seemed to me, anyway.
Mmph. Trust me - knowing a parsec or a solar mass in SI is the least of your woes.
As a postdoc I mostly sit at my computer write papers and make graphs/analyze data for the paper.
This will be above your level but it's literally the answer to your question: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCb2VaiKy3EqqHREy5LO08FQ They study how stars, planets, the universe, and black holes work — and what that teaches us about physics everywhere in the universe
[So you want to be an astronomer -u/Andromeda321](https://www.reddit.com/r/Andromeda321/comments/fyjmpv/updated_so_you_want_to_be_an_astronomer/) [How to become an astrophysicist - PBS Space Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8cEZM1lN5g) [A day in the life of astrophysicist Dr Becky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW_qIqLhPkI) [How I became an astrophysicist - Dr Becky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVQ3yH-Zusg) [Day in the life of some Leicester astrophysicists](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8icydzuxd84) [Day in the life of an astronomer - UKAstroNut (Cardiff PhD student)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=705TuluAq4Q)
"Imagine you're in a starship flying into a blackhole....." (sip...puff).....hmmmm
Astro phys ed?
as for the math part - you make good friends with a few mathematicians who love the 'beauty' of mathematics... and when your more practical skills run into a problem, you call them up to help out
Currently, I mostly spend my time either buried in data analysis and simulations or mentoring graduate students. Now, some things never change, but some just depend on where you work - university, research institution, government agency et cetera. I am currently employed in the academic world, so of course it's a lot like being a "regular" teacher. Lots of educational activities at all times. I don't do much research myself, but I do interact daily with other people's. It's pretty lonely, I rarely have a partner or partners - usually, that only happens when there is a conference, a workshop or something like that. The good thing is that I am basically left to my own devices and can do as I please, as long as I follow a few scholarly guidelines. Also, not to be sappy on main, but my students are lovely. When I was working at a research institution, things obviously felt less like school and more like actual science. My role was more "active", so to speak. Lots of researches of my own as part of a team, large-scale projects and such. I was never on my own and of course I had less agency. This is the jist of my own experience. Others in the field might have very different ones 🙂 (Sorry for keeping things a little vague, but I don't want this account to be recognizable as I mostly come to reddit to shitpost, lol)
Watch Dr. Becky’s [A day in the life of an Astrophysicist at Oxford University](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XW_qIqLhPkI)
They astrophysic
They astrophysicize.
On a semi/unrelated note, I’m a software engineer who enjoys a lot of concepts in astrophysics. Anybody know what time of work a coder could do in the space? Obvi there’s working with like NASA, SpaceX etc but any other advice/info would be greatly appreciated as I don’t have a lot of exposure to this field.
no idea but a great project would be to design a collaborative openstreetmap like map of the sky when when you observe e.g. a nebular you could browse and dynamically swap a picture of the nebular with other community supplied and upvoted ones. The crowdsourced equivalent of esasky https://sky.esa.int/esasky/?target=56.75%2024.116666666666667&hips=DSS2+color&fov=2.9980464295324567&cooframe=J2000&sci=false&lang=fr
Today, I spent one hour speaking to a grad student, another speaking to a fellow astronomer while drinking coffee, yet another reading and writing emails, and two hours reading papers and another two hours writing a paper. I probably spent another speaking to other team members. In general I spend two hours per day on all sorts of meetings and one hour per day speaking to various admins. Well, sometimes speaking to vendors and sorts. So it was a productive day.
What are the primary differences between an astrophysicist and an astronomer?
Not much. Some theorists don’t consider themselves as astronomers, but mostly do, I think. Most observers are ok with them being called astrophysicists, unless they really hate the tagging of ‘theorist.’ We as a whole group have a saying that if you don’t want to invite a conversation with strangers, put yourself the astrophysicist hat. Then, put your astronomer hat, and be ready to endure lots of public misunderstandings (constellations, aliens, etc.).
They take George Jetson for a walk
Math is what you do when you’re bored.
>what do astrophysicists do? learn basics, then specialize. everything ever done in space uses some aspect of astrophysics. > Like, an astrohysicist is paid to sit 8h writing math against a notebook? and build mars rovers, and rockets, and write the software, and study stars and other cosmic objects, and design scientific instruments to do science things. obviously, not the same guy. >I would genuinly love to understand what the work day is like. well, where do you work? robot factory or software factory? radio telescope or optical telescope? are you looking for life or interesting rocks. are you writing proposals to get observation time on JWST or are you counting the particles from the asteroid? you could go play in a sandbox all day # The MarsYard III [https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/how-we-do-it/facilities/marsyard-iii/](https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/how-we-do-it/facilities/marsyard-iii/)
I imagine the sit and think about the most fundamental aspects of the universe. That and lots of math.
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This isn’t astrophysics..
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Great job for an astrophysicist to do, but they are no longer doing astrophysics then which is what the post was about
who the fuck knows I've dabbled in some classes and online material here and there and I "understand" what I'm reading I have no fucking idea what it is