3 answers
Cale
Student
Elk River, Minnesota
3
Questions
Asked
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What does a day in the life of an astrophysicist/cosmologist look like?
What does one do during the day? Would you study research that has come out about new materials and other things, try to come up with theories, or try to find flaws in theories that have been brought up?
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3 answers
Karin P.
Lecturer
375
Answers
Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Updated
Karin’s Answer
Hi Cale,
I am so excited that you are interested in astrophysics/cosmology! Finding out what's happening "out there" is among the most fascinating fields one can pick!
The day-to-day work would be quite varied. If you work at a university as a professor, part of your work is teaching. You also need to keep up with the literature, i.e. what other researchers have published. But the other part of your role would be as a researcher, i.e. you would design experiments or develop theories to generate new knowledge yourself and write about it and present at conferences.
Have a look at the videos from Dr Becky on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/IVQ3yH-Zusg?si=0V7kGvaIVqAYLzoL
or this one:
https://youtu.be/8icydzuxd84?si=R6C46Q-diyjxWZmp
Good luck!
KP
I am so excited that you are interested in astrophysics/cosmology! Finding out what's happening "out there" is among the most fascinating fields one can pick!
The day-to-day work would be quite varied. If you work at a university as a professor, part of your work is teaching. You also need to keep up with the literature, i.e. what other researchers have published. But the other part of your role would be as a researcher, i.e. you would design experiments or develop theories to generate new knowledge yourself and write about it and present at conferences.
Have a look at the videos from Dr Becky on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/IVQ3yH-Zusg?si=0V7kGvaIVqAYLzoL
or this one:
https://youtu.be/8icydzuxd84?si=R6C46Q-diyjxWZmp
Good luck!
KP
Thank you for the resources, and for increasing my awareness of jobs and responsibilities possible in the fields.
Cale
Andrew Au
Professor of Mathematics & Statistics, Retired
183
Answers
Updated
Andrew’s Answer
The daily routines of an astrophysicist/cosmologist cannot be that different from any others except for the work engagement.
The aspiration of a research scientist is to advance the limit of knowledge, hopefully, into terra incognito. However, most of time, it is filling up gaps in existent knowledge or pushing the frontier of knowledge centimeter by centimeter, instead of major breakthroughs.
The aspiration of a research scientist is to advance the limit of knowledge, hopefully, into terra incognito. However, most of time, it is filling up gaps in existent knowledge or pushing the frontier of knowledge centimeter by centimeter, instead of major breakthroughs.
Thank you very much for the information.
Cale
Joseph Neilson
Radiation Detection Physicist
224
Answers
Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Updated
Joseph’s Answer
I studied astrophysics at undergraduate level before finding I had more affinity with nuclear physics and heading in that direction instead; so I think I picked up at least some idea about what the astrophysicists around me were doing.
As Karin noted, astrophysics (and in fact most research science) tends to be varied. Your exact day to day also depends on what particular role and projects you're looking into, so there's not a singular answer - in fact, there's been similar questions on here before each with a slightly different set of answers, you might also benefit from reading answers on some of the other questions linked below.
In terms of the specific tasks you mentioned, they're all part of the job of a research astrophysicist, along with plenty of other tasks.
Studying other's research is a big part of the work. I would say you're less likely to be looking at new materials research - that would be more the domain of materials scientists, engineers, or chemists than astrophysicists, but certainly any research relating to the field of astrophysics you're working in, and probably other areas of interest, you'll be reading journal and preprints on places like the ArXiv ("archive") to find what other researchers are coming up with.
Coming up with ideas and theories is certainly also part of the job, although I'd say it's often not a big task of its own, it's more something you do alongside other things. You're often looking at data and wondering how you might explain some weird thing, which triggers an idea that might gradually develop into a theory over time, rather than spending hours "trying to come up with a theory". That's not to say highly theoretical astrophysics isn't a thing; there are some people who spend time pondering theories like Hawking did, but most science is more data-driven.
Finding flaws in others theories - sometimes, but usually either more as a friendly thing between colleagues trying to improve and refine an idea; or perhaps later in your career acting as a peer reviewer on behalf of a research journal. You don't tend to go out of your way to deliberately try to shoot down other's work - but if you do spot something, it's definitely something to look into - and perhaps write up a paper yourself with the new better explanation.
In terms of other day-in-the-life aspects, I'd also strongly agree with Karin's video recommendations - Dr Becky is an astrophysicist posting to YouTube and is really informative - there's one of her videos specifically about "day in the life" which I'll add to the recommendation. Karin's other suggestion is from one of Brady Haran's channels - he puts out a wealth of great science communication on various subjects, and for astrophysics I'd recommend his SixtySymbols and DeepSkyVideos channels too.
Review some of the answers on other questions like: https://www.careervillage.org/questions/777963/questions-about-astrophysics; https://www.careervillage.org/questions/647194/what-are-your-day-to-day-goals-as-an-astronomer; and https://www.careervillage.org/questions/607842/whats-it-like-to-be-an-astronomer-what-was-the-process-of-becoming-an-astronomer
Have a look through online videos about the work of astronomers like https://www.careervillage.org/questions/607842/whats-it-like-to-be-an-astronomer-what-was-the-process-of-becoming-an-astronomer and those linked by Karin
As Karin noted, astrophysics (and in fact most research science) tends to be varied. Your exact day to day also depends on what particular role and projects you're looking into, so there's not a singular answer - in fact, there's been similar questions on here before each with a slightly different set of answers, you might also benefit from reading answers on some of the other questions linked below.
In terms of the specific tasks you mentioned, they're all part of the job of a research astrophysicist, along with plenty of other tasks.
Studying other's research is a big part of the work. I would say you're less likely to be looking at new materials research - that would be more the domain of materials scientists, engineers, or chemists than astrophysicists, but certainly any research relating to the field of astrophysics you're working in, and probably other areas of interest, you'll be reading journal and preprints on places like the ArXiv ("archive") to find what other researchers are coming up with.
Coming up with ideas and theories is certainly also part of the job, although I'd say it's often not a big task of its own, it's more something you do alongside other things. You're often looking at data and wondering how you might explain some weird thing, which triggers an idea that might gradually develop into a theory over time, rather than spending hours "trying to come up with a theory". That's not to say highly theoretical astrophysics isn't a thing; there are some people who spend time pondering theories like Hawking did, but most science is more data-driven.
Finding flaws in others theories - sometimes, but usually either more as a friendly thing between colleagues trying to improve and refine an idea; or perhaps later in your career acting as a peer reviewer on behalf of a research journal. You don't tend to go out of your way to deliberately try to shoot down other's work - but if you do spot something, it's definitely something to look into - and perhaps write up a paper yourself with the new better explanation.
In terms of other day-in-the-life aspects, I'd also strongly agree with Karin's video recommendations - Dr Becky is an astrophysicist posting to YouTube and is really informative - there's one of her videos specifically about "day in the life" which I'll add to the recommendation. Karin's other suggestion is from one of Brady Haran's channels - he puts out a wealth of great science communication on various subjects, and for astrophysics I'd recommend his SixtySymbols and DeepSkyVideos channels too.
Joseph recommends the following next steps: