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I'm a relatively new user and have already noticed a lack of users with interest in Astrophysics, compared to Quantum Mechanics or Quantum Field Theory. I have interest in these more popular areas as well, so I am still enjoying the site, but it would be great to see more Astrophysicists on here! Is there any way we can encourage this?

(By Astrophysics I also refer to basic GR, Cosmology and Structure Formation as well as more typical areas like Galactic Dynamics, because the majority of answers on GR and Cosmology I have seen are also related in some way to QFT.)

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    $\begingroup$ FWIW I would also like to see more astrophysicists on the site. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Commented Apr 14, 2016 at 11:50
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    $\begingroup$ A lot of astrophysics questions wind up on astronomy.stackexchange.com - not unreasonably, although more at the stellar astrophysics end rather than e.g. cosmic rays or cosmology. At the very least the two sites overlap in some areas of astrophysics, which is one factor depressing the number of questions here. Also, QM (and special relativity) tends to capture the interest of people (and of cranks) to a greater degree, so the number of questions here on those topics is inflated by numerous questions of (arguably) low quality. $\endgroup$
    – PhillS
    Commented Apr 14, 2016 at 13:50
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    $\begingroup$ Advertise to the astrophysicists you do know. I tried when I was in grad school, their response was usually "Maybe some other time..." $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Commented Apr 14, 2016 at 14:04
  • $\begingroup$ @Phills Yeah, I guess the stuff I was talking about might fall awkwardly between the focus of astronomy.stackexchange and physics.stackexchange... $\endgroup$
    – Orca
    Commented Apr 14, 2016 at 14:04
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    $\begingroup$ FWIW I'm also an astrophysicist user here. I'd love to see more activity on the topic, but I don't know if there's anything dramatic to be done. Ask question, answer questions, try and contribute to making it happen, I guess. One good trick is to try filtering - search [astronomy] or [astrophysics] or [cosmology] and pick the 'Unanswered' tab (if looking for questions to answer), or try some different sorting criteria to find some good reads of old Q&As. GLHF :) $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Oman
    Commented Apr 15, 2016 at 11:48
  • $\begingroup$ Just ramp up the activity on that site by posting and answering questions on topics that are the subject of recent research. This will catch the attention of people working in the field, of course just a small fraction of them, but's all you need to get more people participating there. $\endgroup$
    – Count Iblis
    Commented Apr 15, 2016 at 19:10
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    $\begingroup$ More (high level) questions about astrophysics ... ? There is very little astrophysics on Astronomy SE (and even fewer astrophysicists) and the questions/answers have a very different flavour. You would rarely get many upvotes for a chapter and verse mathematical explanation of something. $\endgroup$
    – ProfRob
    Commented Apr 15, 2016 at 22:15
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    $\begingroup$ @RobJeffries That's the very thing that keeps me here on Phys.SE. The Astro.SE questions are, on average, rather dull compared to (some of) the astrophysics questions here. Actually, they probably absorb a lot of the chaff that we'd otherwise get here. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Oman
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 17:30
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    $\begingroup$ Offer them the moon sun and stars to join and sing nep-tunes every Friday evening! $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Apr 20, 2016 at 17:27

2 Answers 2

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One simple thing that would help is better tagging things as astronomy and astrophysics. While they are often tagged with things like black-hole or general-relativity, it's really helpful (as an astrophysics person) to just have to search through one or two tags (e.g. astrophysics) instead of all related phenomena. I try to do this when I notice, but I'm honestly not here too often these days.

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FYI I'm an astrophysicist.

I have no idea how much overlap there is between users of Physics SE and Astronomy SE, but it may be possible that there are some astrophysicists on Astronomy SE that are not on Physics SE (and vice versa). Is there any way to determine this and/or invite astrophysicists on Astronomy SE to Physics SE?

As you can probably imagine, the questions asked on Astronomy SE have a pretty full spectrum in the amount of physics involved in asking/answering a question. Some questions are very observational in nature (such as Jupiter appearing odd through a 6" reflector) while others are quite physical (such as Does the radius of the Universe correspond to its total entropy). I don't know how that plays out with the fraction of people on Astronomy SE who would be able to contribute to Physics SE.

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