I find the level of information that astronomers wring from their numbers to be astounding. But it’s all just using physics and chemistry to interpret the results of data. Again, how else could you possibly state it or think about it?
And just to add, sometimes important conclusions are drawn – and new research directions indicated – from what we don’t see. Edwin Hubble brilliantly concluded from galactic red shifts that the universe is expanding, but his original scale of the universe turned out to be based on overly simplistic calibrations from the period-luminosity relation of Cepheid variable stars, from which he calculated the distance to the Andromeda galaxy to be 750K light-years. If the scale was correct, certain of the Cepheid variables in Andromeda should have been of a magnitude sufficient to be visible in the then newly commissioned 200-inch Hale telescope, one of the first research tasks to which the telescope was put. But they weren’t. The fact that they weren’t showing up on the photographic plates as expected eventually led Walter Baade and others to conclude that there were two distinct populations of variables, that Andromeda was actually 2.5 million light-years away, and completely changed our conception of the scale of the universe.
That’s true, but it’s still amazing, and a testament to the brilliance of all the scientists who put those discoveries together, that we are able to do this.
I used to love reading Isaac Asimov’s histories of science. He really made you understand what it took for the knowledge that we take for granted to be learned.