Are there different kinds of jobs for astronomers?
Most definitely yes, and it’s a good thing considering there are so few traditional jobs for astronomers! Ph.D. astronomers can be employed in a variety of technical fields, since astronomy itself is so multi-disciplinary. Many astronomers in the 1970’s found themselves employed by the defense and aerospace industries. Those radiative transfer courses on understanding the Martian atmosphere come in handy when trying to detect enemy tanks behind a smoke screen! But, defense and aerospace are downsizing these days, and these alternatives are not as available as they once were. The numerical modeling techniques used by astronomers to predict the properties of a physical system like stars in a galaxy are the same as those used by financial programmers on Wall Street to predict the behavior of the stock market. Because of versatility like this, Ph.D. astronomers continue to be well qualified to pursue careers in computing, industry, and education.
