Professional Astronomy

"The primary mission of our department is twofold: the performance of cutting-edge research in astronomy and astrophysics, including theory, observation, and experiment, as well as the education of undergraduate and graduate students and training of postdoctoral research associates who will comprise the scientists and leaders of tomorrow."

This is how the Caltech Astronomy Department defines its purpose, as given on its website. This is, of course, a pretty broad definition, so it can include a lot of different people doing a lot of different things. Furthermore, the teaching faculty page breaks down the astrophysics faculty into theoretical, observational, and experimental astrophysicists; each may encompass a different aspect of what astronomers do (though the more literal-minded among us may consider only observational astrophysics to "really" be astronomy).


So, if one defines a professional astronomer as a person who has a faculty position in astrophysics, the above definition may be pretty sound. But this is not the only avenue for astronomy. For example, I did research this summer with scientists at the Spitzer Science Center. Though the Center is affiliated with and on the campus of Caltech, the people who do research there are not professors; they do not teach courses. So one can be an astronomer outside of (albeit still close to) academia.


The only astronomy research I am personally familiar with is observational. Last summer, as I've mentioned before, I used data from bright, infrared galaxies to draw conclusions about infrared power sources. And a year before that, I used photometry to calculate the rotational periods of asteroids. As a result, I don't really know much about the more theoretical side of astronomy. Learning more about that is one of my main goals for my time here at Caltech.