Abstract

Many of the concepts of statistics had roots in Astronomy. In the 17th century, Galileo's analysis of telescopic data contained the rudiments of a theory for parametric modeling using the sum of absolute deviations as a fitting criterion. Scientists like Gauss and Laplace wrestling with problems in celestial mechanics played a central role in the development of the theory of errors and least squares in the 19th Century. Despite centuries of close association, the intimate connection between the two fields has weakened in the last 100 years. Modern observational astronomy has been characterized by an enormous growth in data acquisition, stimulated by the advent of new technologies in telescopes, detectors and computation. The complexity of data has also increased, giving rise to innumerable statistical problems. The growth of enormous methodological problems in astronomy, motivated the first cross-disciplinary conference, "Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy" in 1991 at Penn State, and the publication of a book entitled, "Astrostatistics" in 1996. A brief review of the emerging field of Astrostatistics will be presented.