Astronomer Quotes

"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 cardinal truth emerging from these inquiries is that of the extreme isolation of the solar system. A skiff in the midst of a vast unfurrowed ocean is not more utterly alone.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Agnes Mary Clerke
Dying visions of angels and Christ and God and heaven are confined to credibly good men. Why do not bad men have such visions? They die of all sorts of diseases; they have nervous temperaments; they even have creeds and hopes about the future which they cling to with very great tenacity; why do not they rejoice in some such glorious illusions when they go out of the world?

We live in an era when it seems legitimate to try everything conceivable within the known laws of physics, particularly in the absence of data.

Thus, the very chance and randomness that prevent man from predicting the future are the tools that nature uses to insure not only the emergence of life in each expansion cycle of the universe but also the approach to perfection and complete harmony as more and complex forms of life evolve.

All nature is one, but for convenience of classification we have divided our knowledge into a number of sciences which we usually regard as quite distinct from each other.

The sky is beautiful and vast and harbors many secrets. Inventory of Cosmic Mysteries

We must make it clear that the scientific vision of the world is neither a rival nor an alternative to any other point of view, but is an essential part of learning to be at home in this mysterious universe.

Moreover, I desire that with the plan of the wise rulers and with their authority, pious and learned men at some time be called together both from our own churches and the churches of other nations in order that there might be a deliberation about all these controversies, and that one consenting form of doctrine, true and clear and without any ambiguity, might be handed down to posterity.

Philip Melanchthon
Philip Melanchthon
We became astronomers thinking we were studying the universe, and now we learn that we are just studying the 5 or 10 percent that is luminous.

Well beyond the tropostrata There is a region stark and stellar Where, on a streak of anti-matter Lived Dr. Edward Anti-Teller.

Needle-like grains tend to spin end-over-end, like a well-kicked American football.

The radio sky is no carbon copy of the visible sky; it is a new and different firmament, one where the edge of the universe stands in full view and one which bears the telltale marks of a violent past.

Happy is genius, when it lights on a profession entirely consonant to its powers, where the objects successively presented to it are so exactly suited to its nature, that it clings to them as the loadstone to its kindred metal among piles of foreign ores.

Denison Olmsted
Denison Olmsted
If a little kid ever asks you just why the sky is blue, you look him or her right in the eye and say, "It's because of quantum effects involving Rayleigh scattering combined with a lack of violet photon receptors in our retinae."

Phil Plait
Phil Plait
There is no observatory in this land, nor in any land, probably, of which the question is not asked, "Are they doing anything? Why don't we hear from them? They should make discoveries, they should publish."

Maria Mitchell
Maria Mitchell
We do not know the truth. But sometimes we get a glimpse of the shadow of the truth. And where there is a shadow, somewhere there must be light.

A certain King of Castile, a great mathematician, (but not much troubled with religion) said, that, "had God consulted him when he made the world, he would have told him how to have framed it better."

Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X of Castile
It is no secret that our lives are patterned by personal experience, and by our observations of the experience of others. So it is with the entire human family, staring outward from a place that we know to others that we do not. Our knowledge of home helps us to understand the ways of planets beyond our ken.

Here, in the dark unknown immensity of the heavens, we shall meet the glories beyond description and witness scenes of inexpressible splendor. In the great black gulfs of space and in the realm of the innumerable stars, we shall find mysteries and wonders undreamed of.

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.

Hail! then, ye eyes that penetrate the inmost recesses of the heavens, and gazing upon the bosom of the sun with your sight-assisting tube, have dared to point out the spots on that eternal luminary !

To account for these phenomena, the explanation that at once suggests itself is, that a direct transference of water takes place over the face of the planet, and that the canals are so many waterways.

Percival Lowell
Percival Lowell
Every object in the Universe with a temperature above absolute zero radiates in the infrared, so this part of the spectrum contains a great deal of information.

A theory can never be proven absolutely true, therefore there is no end to scientific endeavor. A true scientific theory is always open to be disproved, and the burden of proof is continually placed on the scientist.