Astronomer Essays

  • Why Astronomers Get Paid?

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    an astronomer. Astronomy is basically the study of the universe. I think it is an interesting job, while others might think it is boring. I'd rather look at the sky all night than watch TV all day! But what do astronomers do and how to I become one? To begin, how much do astronomers get paid? Well, the annual salary of an astronomer is about $110,980.00, and can be higher or lower depending on the astronomy job, as there are many different jobs in astronomy. Most people think astronomers sit

  • Ptolemy of Alexandria, the Influential Astronomer

    520 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ptolemy of Alexandria, the Influential Astronomer Ptolemy of Alexandria was the most influential astronomer of the ancient world. The books and theories Ptolemy developed served as a major basis for future astronomers. It was during the Renaissance period that his work became thoroughly studied and revised. Ptolemy collected all ancient knowledge of astronomy and geography including it in his book Almagest around 140 A.D. It follows, he then wrote a four volume astrological study

  • Analysis of Gerrit Dou's Painting, Astronomer by Candlelight

    711 Words  | 2 Pages

    Analysis of Gerrit Dou's Painting, Astronomer by Candlelight Surprisingly small compared to other works, “Astronomer by Candlelight” by Gerrit Dou could be easily overlooked by a casual stroller. However, as I approached it to have a closer look, other paintings quickly lost interest for me. The closer I got, the more detail appeared; the scene came alive with the play of light and dark. The astronomer, eternally still, pulsed with life, pondering over his books. Within a foot of the painting

  • Kay Boyle Astronomers Wife

    2694 Words  | 6 Pages

    Astronomers Wife – Just a Simple Complex Tale      Kay Boyle's literary piece titled "Astronomers Wife", is a mental exercise. Every word and every line has an important meaning to it. Interpretation is a critical skill in understanding everything Boyle's story has to offer. Although this piece has a lot of sophistication to it, the story line is rather simple. The time period is the early 1900's and the story is regarding a rather young husband and a wife, in there late twenties

  • Analysis of The Astronomers Wife by Kay Boyle

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    there were different kinds of men, and therefore she did not realize that she and her husband were mismatched. Furthermore, in her awakening, Mrs. Ames also discovers that she, like the plumber, occupies as valuable a place in society as the astronomer, for she does the "dirty" work to free people like her husband to have time to think and to discover. The scene in question takes place after Mrs. Ames has already noticed that the plumber has a few physical characteristics that match her own

  • Comparing Stories: The Astronomers Wife & The Chrysanthemums

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    Recently, I saw a movie about female tennis champion – Billie Jean King, and although I have never been into the feminism (neither can I say that I quite understand it), her character woke up some other kind of sensitivity in me. After this – to me significant change – I could not help myself not to notice different approaches of John Steinbeck and Kay Boyle to the similar thematic. They both deal with marital relationships and it was quite interesting to view lives of ordinary married couples through

  • The Beauty of Walt Whitman's When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

    2254 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Beauty of Walt Whitman's When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer My father is an amateur astronomer. It is his passion, after he comes home from work at the office, to wait outside in the fields surrounding our house with his 10" LX200 F6.3 telescope until all hours of the morning, waiting for the perfect shot of galaxies like NGC 7479 or M16. The next evening at dinner, despite being awake for over thirty hours, he speaks non-stop about how he finally got the perfect shot after five hours of

  • Astronomy

    1026 Words  | 3 Pages

    predicting solar eclipses. They believed that a solar eclipse was a dangerous warning. Chinese astronomers were executed if they failed to predict an eclipse. Over the years there have been many more important figures in astronomy. One extraordinary astronomer was Galileo Galilei who invented the first refractor telescope in which light is bent to enlarge an image of the sky (“Galileo Project”). The next great astronomer to follow him was Isaac Newton. Newton had made a great amount of contributions to astronomy

  • Quasars and Active Galaxies

    1289 Words  | 3 Pages

    Quasars and Active Galaxies The astronomical world is full of phenomena beyond the average person’s imagination. The technical tools and analytical methods astronomers use are very complex. The enormous numbers and distances are mind boggling. Theories behind astronomical phenomena are based on yet another theory. In order to understand the concept of quasars and active galaxies, one must first have a feel for the astronomical numbers involved. Secondly, a basic knowledge of the tools of the

  • The Difficulty of Picking a Pleasant and Favorable Career to Pursue

    940 Words  | 2 Pages

    environments can be formed for life develop (“Astrophysics”). The work in this career path can be very tedious, depending on where you work. Some apply to colleges and universities and others work in observatories, government agencies, and planetariums (Astronomer Job Description). Education is key in this field. It is required for a student to take courses in Physics and Astronomy. Classes in computer science can be very helpful too. Professional astrophysicists are expected to know at least one major coding

  • Resulting Structures of Galactic Collisions

    2320 Words  | 5 Pages

    period of time (possibly a few billion years as opposed to several billion years). Galaxy interactions cause gravitational instabilities in interstellar gas clouds, which compress the gas in the clouds and trigger star formation (Mouri 2003). When astronomers look at an ongoing starburst in a distant galaxy, they see the starburst as a bluer region than the surrounding parts of the host galaxy. That is due to the extremely hot and energetic, yet short lived, O-type stars produced in the burst, which

  • Enigmatic Lights On The Moon

    577 Words  | 2 Pages

    wonder to skywatchers since the earliest times. And yet, as astronomer Peter Grego points out, despite a wealth of detailed observations we seem no closer to an understanding of what these anomalous flashes are. Not long after the telescope was invented at the beginning of the 17th century, astronomers came to realise that the Moon, our only natural satellite, was not as dynamic a world as the Earth. The dark lunar tracts which early astronomers had somewhat optimistically called "maria" (seas) turned

  • Astronomy, why is the sky dark

    544 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Why is the night sky dark?”(Hienrich) For thousands of years this question, also known as Olber’s paradox, has been asked. Astronomers are constantly growing closer to the answer but still no one has yet found a finite answer. As scientists relentlessly collect data hoping to find some clue as to the answer to this riddle we seem to realize that the answer may be because of something that is too mind blowing for us to comprehend. Several explanations have been considered over the years. But as of

  • Pluto

    1523 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the outer limits of our solar system there is a planet unlike any other, Pluto. Pluto was discovered in February of 1930 by an American astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh. It is the only planet to have been discovered by an American. All though we have known of the existence of Pluto for over thirty years now, there are still many mysteries surrounding this celestial body. Being the farthest planet has made it difficult to study Pluto, Adding to the obscurity of this strange planet is that the capability

  • Contact

    951 Words  | 2 Pages

    b) Why are astronomers using radio telescopes looking for far stars instead of a telescope? First of all, what is a radio telescope? The first non-visual spectral region that was used extensively for astronomical observations was the radio frequency band. Telescopes observing at these wavelengths are commonly called radio telescopes. Radio telescopes may be made much larger than optical/infrared telescopes because the wavelengths of radio waves are much longer than wavelengths of optical light. A

  • The Small but Vast Field of Astronomy

    1116 Words  | 3 Pages

    universe. The road to becoming an astronomer is not easy, as one must get an excellent education, hope that there are actual job openings, and then obtain a steady position. In order to be an astronomer, it is required to have a doctorate’s degree in either astronomy or physics (“Physicists and Astronomers”). After finishing their studies, an astronomer can really only hope to be lucky and secure a position working for the government, a university, or a college (“Astronomer Job Description”). If they

  • Ptolemaic Theory vs Copernican Theory

    1908 Words  | 4 Pages

    he wrote his letter to Foscarini in 1615 was due to the inability of anyone to prove the superiority of either the Copernican or Ptolemaic/Aristotelian theory to the other. Both theories of the universe, although “saving the appearances” made by astronomers over the years, offered a different explanation of celestial mechanics. The Aristotelian theory held that the earth is motionless at the center of the universe, and that the sun, planets, and stars revolve daily around it. It was the most easily

  • Edwin Hubble

    537 Words  | 2 Pages

    after teaching at the high school Edwin went to Yerkes Observatory to be an astronomer. He was the very first person to try a two hundred inch telescope. Edwin Hubble served for two years in the military. Edwin also served in WWI, and met the rank of a major. In 1919, for the rest of his life Edwin would go to and worked at Mount Wilson Observatory in California in. Edwin Hubble had many great accomplishments as an astronomer in his lifetime. Some of Edwin Hubble's greatest accomplishments were: Edwin

  • Absence of True Love in Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper and Boyle's Astronomer's Wife

    868 Words  | 2 Pages

    Absence of True Love in Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper and Boyle's Astronomer's Wife Most people in today's society have been in love or will be in love sometime in their life. I am not talking about little crushes that we call love; I am talking about that love that makes us tingle when we think about it, true love. Most people are looking for their true love, but what they are basing this love on is their idea of the ideal love. Ideal love is what we think love should be or what it should

  • megellanic clouds

    896 Words  | 2 Pages

    Clouds are usually the last things astronomers want to see in the sky, but for those who observe in the southern hemisphere there is a notable exception to that celestial rule. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are among the highlights of the southern night sky. Only within the last century were astronomers able to verify their true nature. Although they seem to be two foggy patches possibly torn from the Milky Way, astronomers believe these are actually small galaxies gravitationally bound to