20th-century Astronomer Quotes

Yet if we go into space, let us do so humbly, in the spirit of cosmic piety. We know very little. We are face to face with the great unknown and have no right to assume that we are alone in the Solar System.

A scientist works largely by intuition. Given enough experience, a scientist examining a problem can leap to an intuition as to what the solution 'should look like.'... Science is ultimately based on insight, not logic.

Guy Consolmagno
Guy Consolmagno
When theory runs too far ahead of what can be measured, a field becomes more philosophy than science.

To look into space is to look back into time, and telescopes are time machines we can ride nearly all the way back to creation itself.

The world of man lies midway in scale between the inner space of atoms and particles, and the outer space of stars and galaxies. The exploration of both these regions stretches our imagination to its limits.

To be a true scientist is only to have an inkling of the full extent of man's ignorance.

Seeing a partial eclipse and saying that you have seen an eclipse is like standing outside an opera house and saying that you have seen the opera; in both cases you have missed the main event.

Donald Howard Menzel
Donald Howard Menzel
The human brain is by far the most complex physical object known to us in the entire cosmos.

The face of the sun is not without expression, but it tells us precious little of what is in its heart.

From the stars has come the matter of our world and of our bodies, and it is to the stars that we will someday return.

Ultimately, the origin of the universe is, and always will be, a mystery.

Of course, if one ignores contradictory observations, one can claim to have an "elegant" or "robust" theory. But it isn't science.

Halton Arp
Halton Arp
The discovery of spiral arms and — later — of molecular clouds in our Galaxy, combined with a rapidly growing understanding of the birth and decay process of stars, changed interstellar space from a stationary "medium" into an "environment" with great variations in space and time.

Hendrik C. van de Hulst
Hendrik C. van de Hulst
If all the potentially threatening asteroids were discovered, however, the risk to Earth would no longer be a matter of chance. We would know whether a collision is imminent. The time of impact could be predicted centuries in advance, and the place of impact could be predicted fairly accurately decades in advance.

Eugene Merle Shoemaker
Eugene Merle Shoemaker
The orbital analysis leads, therefore, to a perturbing mass of only 1.6 times the mass of Jupiter. We shall interpret this result as a companion of Barnard's star, which therefore appears to be a planet.

If the universe is a universe of thought then its creations must have been an act of thought.

Whenever we look in nature we can see spiral forms in the uncurling fern, the snail, the nautilus shell, the hurricane, the stirred cup of coffee, the water that swirls out of a wash bowl. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised to see spirals in the great star systems whirling in space. Yet they remain a great, intriguing question.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
The wastage of the skills and talents of our capable young scientists is a disgrace to the world. The resources exist to put them all to work doing constructive things. Instead of that the substance of the earth is expanded on frivolities, on all kinds of power wasting devices and gas guzzling cars. Worst of all is the expenditure of technical expertise, energy and money on the arms race. Despite the wherewithal to wipe man off the face of the earth, ten times over, there is clamor to squander even more.

"Have we discovered our Galaxy yet?" And I think the answer to this question is "No, not quite". There is plenty of work ahead for the next generation of astronomers.

The new and the old methods complete one another on numerous points, and their simultaneous use will increase our knowledge of the outer atmosphere of the Sun much more rapidly.

I may go down in history as the guy who killed Pluto.

Michael E. Brown
Michael E. Brown
Only Galileo and I really knew how to use a small telescope.

Ridicule is not a part of the scientific method and the public should not be taught that it is

I may be a minority of one in advocating that one should NOT separate science and politics—partly because I am old enough to remember the Weimar Republic before 1934...

If eternity is silliness, then infinity of space is sheer madness.

Edward Robert Harrison
Edward Robert Harrison