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.
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Snyder drove to the nearby home of Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, who went outside to his front porch to see what was going on, according to a Los Angeles County district attorney’s office news release.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2026
In the immediate aftermath of the brutal 1989 crackdown on students who had protested in Tiananmen Square, dissident astrophysicist Fang Lizhi sought refuge in the U.S.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 11, 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
"Only through the combined power of instruments on multiple spacecraft could we understand this event," said Eric Burns, an astrophysicist at Louisiana State University.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 30, 2026
As far back as 1942, a Northwestern University astrophysicist named Ralph B. Baldwin had suggested such a possibility in an article in Popular Astronomy magazine.
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
The creation of these ancient galaxies, which look like bulging footballs compared to our flat disk-like Milky Way, remains a mystery to astrophysicists.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 4, 2024
Some astrophysicists believe that a little more squeezing makes the neutrons break down into their component quarks, creating a quark star.
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.
