astrophysicist
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Explanation
An astrophysicist is a scientist who specializes in studying space, stars, planets, and the universe. If you want to be an astrophysicist one day, you'll have to pay close attention in your physics class. Today the terms astrophysicist and astronomer tend to be used interchangeably — if you make a career of being an expert on space, you'll need to know a lot about the physics of celestial bodies. The prefix astro- comes from the Greek word astron, "the stars," and physicist is rooted in physics, or "natural science," from ta physika, "the natural things" in Greek.
Vocabulary lists containing astrophysicist
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astro, aster
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Back in 2010, UC Berkeley theoretical astrophysicist Dan Kasen proposed that the answer was a newborn magnetar.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 6, 2026
These discoveries could fundamentally change our understanding of the structure of our universe, said astrophysicist Julie McEnery, who led the Roman project.
From Barron's ● Apr. 22, 2026
Among them was astronomer and astrophysicist Ernst Öpik.
From BBC ● Apr. 20, 2026
They included novelist King, astrophysicist Tyson and numerous book and magazine writers of varied eminence.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2026
As Caltech astrophysicist Kip S. Thorne has written: "The speed of light turned out to be the same in all directions and at all seasons."
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
The “NOVA” presentation, bookended by takeoff and splashdown footage, isn’t for astrophysicists.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 14, 2026
He hired astrophysicists, cryptographers and speech-recognition experts — no Wall Street experience allowed.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 15, 2025
With his passing on Tuesday, India lost one of its most celebrated astrophysicists.
From BBC ● May 23, 2025
Although astrophysicists have been able to calculate very precisely that the universe is made up of 26.8% dark matter, its true characteristics remain elusive.
From Salon ● Dec. 26, 2024
In 1965 several astrophysicists at Princeton University were calculating what would have happened right after the big bang.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
