Mankind has long gazed toward the heavens, searching to put meaning and order to the universe around him. Although the movement of constellations patterns imprinted on the night sky were the easiest to track, other celestial events such as eclipses and the motion of planets were also charted and predicted.

Definition of astronomy: Astronomy is the study of the sun, moon, stars, planets, comets, gas, galaxies, gas, dust and other non-Earthly bodies and phenomena. In curriculum for K-4 students, NASA defines astronomy as simple the study of stars, planets and space. Astronomy and astrology were historically associated, but astrology is not a science and is no longer recognized as having anything to do with astronomy. Below we discuss the history of astronomy and related fields of study.

Historically, astronomy has focused on observations of heavenly bodies. It is a close cousin to astrophysics. Succinctly put, astrophysics involves the study of the physics of astronomy and concentrates on the behavior, properties, and motion of objects out there. However, modern astronomy includes many elements of the motions and characteristics of these bodies, and the two terms are often used interchangeably today.

Modern astronomers tend to fall into two fields: the theoretical and the observational.

Observational astronomers in the observational field focus on direct study of stars, planets, galaxies, and so forth.

Theoretical astronomers model and analyze how systems may have evolved.

Unlike most other fields of science, astronomers are unable to observe a system entirely from birth to death; the life of worlds, stars, and galaxies span millions to billions of years. As such, astronomers must rely on snapshots of bodies in various stages of evolution to determine how they formed, evolved, and died. Thus, theoretical and observational astronomy tend to blend together, as theoretical scientists use the information actually collected to create simulations, while the observations serve to confirm the models or to indicate the need for tweaking them.

Astronomy is broken down into a number of subfields, allowing scientists to specialize in particular objects and phenomena.

Planetary astronomers, for instance, focus on the growth, evolution, and death of planets, while solar astronomers spend their time analyzing a single starour sun. Stellar astronomers turn their eyes to the stars, including the black holes, nebulae, white dwarfs, and supernova that survive stellar deaths.

Galactic astronomers study our galaxy, the Milky Way, while extragalactic astronomers peer outside of it to determine how these collections of stars form, change, and die.

Read this article:

What is Astronomy? Definition & History