What does an astrophysicist do?

The best way to learn about what an astrophysicist does would be to spend a day (or two) in the shoes of one, but since we don't have room for everyone who visits our web site to visit our lab, this is the next best thing. In these web pages, you will be given real problems in astronomy and the tools to solve them by traveling through web pages, exploring different options, and learning many different things along the way.

Science is a process of inquiry. Scientists propose hypotheses and test them with experiments. In these pages you will begin with several options for experiments that may lead to the answer you are seeking. Scientists go down many paths that turn out to be dead ends. In these pages, you will encounter some dead ends, too. But often a scientist learns as much from a pursuing the wrong path as they do from finding the correct path. You will find that is true here as well.

Pick an astronomy problem to pursue: