What sort of statistical tests do astronomers use and how do they use them?

[tenbyfifty]

...and what has astronomy learned from them?

Probably a question for pro-astronomers this one.

I've been curious for a while coz I studied stats during my psychology degree and astronomy is bound to be heavily

statistical, in fact I'm assuming there must be something called statistical astronomy.

[Astroman]

The only things I can think of off the top of my head would be extrapolating results to the entire universe. For instance, cataloging a small section of space for galaxies and using the density as a sample, extrapolating to the rest of space. Similar studies do the same with exoplanets, star class densities, supernova remnants and so on. This is one reason astronomers are generally satisfied with results with error bars of an order of magnitude. :?

[tenbyfifty]

Didn't think I'd get many bites with this one.

I'll do a bit of googling and report back.

[GazOC]

I read somewhere a few years back of a stats/ maths method of estimating the likelyhood that stars were binaries based on how close they were from our point of view.

[tenbyfifty]

I read somewhere a few years back of a stats/ maths method of estimating the likelyhood that stars were binaries based on how close they were from our point of view.

I would imagine that type of thing is the tip of the iceberg.

I'll ask those cornell boffins and post their response here.

[lunator]

I read somewhere a few years back of a stats/ maths method of estimating the likelyhood that stars were binaries based on how close they were from our point of view.

There are several methods to analyse if visual doubles are physical or optical. There is a an interesting article in the latest edition Journal of Double Star Observing

http://www.jdso.org/

The most well known is the Aitken criteria but most there are alreast 6 differnet methods.

I am in correspondence with Francisco Rica Romero (who wrote the article) about some of these methods.

Cheers

Ian