Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles

of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena.[1][2] As

one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to
ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in
space—what they are, rather than where they are",[3] which is studied in celestial
mechanics.

Among the subjects studied are the Sun (solar physics), other stars, galaxies, extrasolar
planets, the interstellar medium, and the cosmic microwave background.[4][5] Emissions
from these objects are examined across all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and
the properties examined include luminosity, density, temperature,
and chemical composition. Because astrophysics is a very broad
subject, astrophysicists apply concepts and methods from many disciplines of physics,
including classical mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical
mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, relativity, nuclear and particle
physics, and atomic and molecular physics.

In practice, modern astronomical research often involves substantial work in the realms
of theoretical and observational physics. Some areas of study for astrophysicists include
the properties of dark matter, dark energy, black holes, and other celestial bodies; and
the origin and ultimate fate of the universe.[4] Topics also studied by theoretical
astrophysicists include Solar System formation and evolution; stellar
dynamics and evolution; galaxy formation and evolution; magnetohydrodynamics; large-
scale structure of matter in the universe; origin of cosmic rays; general relativity, special
relativity, and quantum and physical cosmology (the physical study of the largest-scale
structures of the universe), including string cosmology and astroparticle physics.

History
[edit]

Astronomy is an ancient science, long separated from the study of terrestrial physics. In
the Aristotelian worldview, bodies in the sky appeared to be unchanging spheres whose
only motion was uniform motion in a circle, while the earthly world was the realm which
underwent growth and decay and in which natural motion was in a straight line and
ended when the moving object reached its goal. Consequently, it was held that the
celestial region was made of a fundamentally different kind of matter from that found in
the terrestrial sphere; either Fire as maintained by Plato, or Aether as maintained
by Aristotle.[6][7] During the 17th century, natural philosophers such
as Galileo,[8] Descartes,[9] and Newton[10] began to maintain that the celestial and
terrestrial regions were made of similar kinds of material and were subject to the
same natural laws.[11] Their challenge was that the tools had not yet been invented with
which to prove these assertions.[12]

For much of the nineteenth century, astronomical research was focused on the routine
work of measuring the positions and computing the motions of astronomical
objects.[13][14] A new astronomy, soon to be called astrophysics, began to emerge
when William Hyde Wollaston and Joseph von Fraunhofer independently discovered
that, when decomposing the light from the Sun, a multitude of dark lines (regions where
there was less or no light) were observed in the spectrum.[15] By 1860 the
physicist, Gustav Kirchhoff, and the chemist, Robert Bunsen, had demonstrated that
the dark lines in the solar spectrum corresponded to bright lines in the spectra of known
gases, specific lines corresponding to unique chemical elements.[16] Kirchhoff deduced
that the dark lines in the solar spectrum are caused by absorption by chemical
elements in the Solar atmosphere.[17] In this way it was proved that the chemical
elements found in the Sun and stars were also found on Earth.

Among those who extended the study of solar and stellar spectra was Norman Lockyer,
who in 1868 detected radiant, as well as dark lines in solar spectra. Working with
chemist Edward Frankland to investigate the spectra of elements at various
temperatures and pressures, he could not associate a yellow line in the solar spectrum
with any known elements. He thus claimed the line represented a new element, which
was called helium, after the Greek Helios, the Sun personified.[18][19]

In 1885, Edward C. Pickering undertook an ambitious program of stellar spectral

classification at Harvard College Observatory, in which a team of woman computers,
notably Williamina Fleming, Antonia Maury, and Annie Jump Cannon, classified the
spectra recorded on photographic plates. By 1890, a catalog of over 10,000 stars had
been prepared that grouped them into thirteen spectral types. Following Pickering's
vision, by 1924 Cannon expanded the catalog to nine volumes and over a quarter of a
million stars, developing the Harvard Classification Scheme which was accepted for
worldwide use in 1922.[20]

In 1895, George Ellery Hale and James E. Keeler, along with a group of ten associate
editors from Europe and the United States,[21] established The Astrophysical Journal: An
International Review of Spectroscopy and Astronomical Physics.[22] It was intended that
the journal would fill the gap between journals in astronomy and physics, providing a
venue for publication of articles on astronomical applications of the spectroscope; on
laboratory research closely allied to astronomical physics, including wavelength
determinations of metallic and gaseous spectra and experiments on radiation and
absorption; on theories of the Sun, Moon, planets, comets, meteors, and nebulae; and
on instrumentation for telescopes and laboratories.[21]

Around 1920, following the discovery of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram still used as
the basis for classifying stars and their evolution, Arthur Eddington anticipated the
discovery and mechanism of nuclear fusion processes in stars, in his paper The Internal
Constitution of the Stars.[23][24] At that time, the source of stellar energy was a complete
mystery; Eddington correctly speculated that the source was fusion of hydrogen into
helium, liberating enormous energy according to Einstein's equation E = mc2. This was
a particularly remarkable development since at that time fusion and thermonuclear
energy, and even that stars are largely composed of hydrogen (see metallicity), had not
yet been discovered.[25]

In 1925 Cecilia Helena Payne (later Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin) wrote an influential

doctoral dissertation at Radcliffe College, in which she applied Saha's ionization
theory to stellar atmospheres to relate the spectral classes to the temperature of
stars.[26] Most significantly, she discovered that hydrogen and helium were the principal
components of stars, not the composition of Earth. Despite Eddington's suggestion,
discovery was so unexpected that her dissertation readers (including Russell)
convinced her to modify the conclusion before publication. However, later research
confirmed her discovery.[27][28]

By the end of the 20th century, studies of astronomical spectra had expanded to cover
wavelengths extending from radio waves through optical, x-ray, and gamma
wavelengths.[29] In the 21st century, it further expanded to include observations based
on gravitational waves.