1
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The purpose of astronomy is to ask, I think, some of the deepest questions that humans can ask, like what is the nature of the cosmos and how do we fit into it?

2
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So, astronomy is asking the deepest natural philosophy questions and being inspired to do so by looking up and seeing a vast sweep of space that we can now see deeper and deeper.

3
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I think that it raises the entire human spirit and the endeavor of searching for knowledge to the highest frontiers, as it were, and that it has inspired much of the scientific development and progress of humanity because it goes beyond the specific state of human beings eking out existence on the planet: it is looking up and trying to figure out where we fit in and what is happening up there.