I’m planning on majoring in astrophysics in college. Whenever I tell people this, they say “So, what exactly does an astrophysicist do?” I’m not majoring in it with a specific career in mind, I’m just in it for the sheer thrill of learning, so to speak. But I feel weird telling people this. So, what does an astrophysicist do, besides working at NASA or an observatory?
I’m not an astrophysicist … but I work with quite a few. I mostly know experimental astro folks in academia (grad students). The research ranges from basic astronomy to general relativity to high energy cosmic rays.
They spend the bulk of their time at the Unviersity (as opposed to at an observatory) either designing / building detectors or analyzing data. The design / building stuff is mostly electronics and a good bit of hoping and praying that the thingie they build will actually work with the observatory that’s on a far corner of the world.
Data analysis is probably the main activity of those I know. The experiments are interesting in that they spend a good long while designing the detector, collect HUGE amounts of data in a relatively short period of time, and then spend what seems like an eternity sifting through it. They’re often quite limited in the time available to collect data as they either have limited telescope time, have fixed length balloon launches, or even think of a new way to analyze data long after the data is collected. What this means for day in / day out activites - lots of time at the computer.
As for what other careers … seeing that I’m still stuck in academia and am surrounded by others that are just as stuck … I think I’ll leave careers for someone else.
I had heard a couple of years ago that Wall Street firms actually heavily recruited people with physics, math, and statistics degrees because of their expertise with number manipulation and modelling. It’s not exactly physics-oriented, but it’s certainly a well-paying job you can get with such a degree, or at least it was a couple of years ago, before the stock market crashed 
Here’s my recommendation: Don’t do it! Major in physics instead. It gives you more career options for the same amount of work. A physics major can still take astrophysics courses for credit and do research work with astronomy professors. A physics major may need to take more theoretical physics courses, but those would be more useful than specialized astrophysics courses in the long run. Even if you end up pursuing a career in astronomy research, a physics degree is just as valuable as an astronomy degree.
Almost all astronomy researchers work in government or university labs. A few are employed by private companies who build and operate astronomical instruments. (The only example that comes to mind right now is Lockheed Martin, which builds many scientific satellites.) In either case, research is just like starting a business - you follow these steps:
[ul]
[li]The proposal. It’s just like a business proposal - you identify a problem that needs to be solved, describe how you plan to solve it, and explain why you have the qualifications to do it. You usually need several - one to pay your rent, one to get a time slot on a telescope, etc. If it’s a proposal for instrument development, you need a pretty detailed design at this stage. You submit it to some branch of the government and if approved, they give you money to do it.[/li][li]The actual work. For observers this mostly involves doing data analysis on the computer. For experimentalists it’s mostly lab work, project management, and endless meetings with engineers.[/li][li]Publishing and publicizing your findings. This is vital for getting your next proposal approved. The review process for getting a paper published is a lot more work than you might imagine. But if you haven’t used up your budget, you also get to travel to nice places for conferences.[/li][/ul]
Huh. Kinda creepy that nobody (other than BA, in his link) has directly mentioned teaching, instead of just research in “academia.” Academia, let us recall, is at least in small part, devoted to education.
The vast majorty of astronomers are astronomy professors*. In addition to pursuing research, they spend a goodly amount of their time teaching classes for non-majors, classes for majors, and teaching and mentoring graduate students.
Podkayne’s got it.
I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with getting a degree in astrophysics as opposed to ‘pure’ physics, especially if astronomy is what you’re more interested in. Astrophysics classes cover topics like stellar physics and the interstellar medium (as a couple of examples) that aren’t usually covered by a physics program. Also, it seems that many astrophysics programs require you to take a large number of physics classes (obviously), so getting a ‘physics’ degree as well usually isn’t too hard.