The word "astronomical" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to describe something that is very large in size or amount, especially when compared to something else. For example, "The cost of housing in this city is astronomical compared to the cost of housing in other cities."
But missing from mainstream analyses is the extent to which the growth that we've had since the Second World War, astronomical levels of growth, have been correlated with two things.
Sara Firth, a former London-based correspondent who resigned in July in protest at its coverage of the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, said presenters' salaries were "astronomical" and the average monthly take home pay for middle-ranking staff was around £4,300 after tax [see footnote].
Online travel forums are full of gripes about astronomical prices combined with poor service in Kazakhstan.
I've always enjoyed the Martin Madness pool because of the astronomical numbers at play.
I would like to see more relief for business rates, which are still astronomical, and less red tape.
Kevin De Bruyne's agent has ruled out a move for the Wolfsburg midfielder in the January transfer window and believes it would take an astronomical offer to persuade them to sell him.
Since only a few of the biggest and oldest have endowments worth mentioning, poor pupils will have to be subsidised by increasing the already-astronomical fees paid by other pupils.
Some of the astronomers at this year's meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), held in Rio de Janeiro from August 3rd to 14th, think it does.
Now 36, McPhatter founded Gangstas Making Astronomical Community Changes, or G-MACC, a group of "violence interrupters" who patrol East Flatbush corners to "get real" with young people about the costs of crime.
Rather than add them all to the list of planets proper, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) instead defined them as "dwarf planets" and, amid a bit of a kerfuffle, lumped Pluto in with the newcomers.New Horizons' encounter with Pluto will be the first close-up view of any of these dwarfs in its normal state but not necessarily of any such dwarf at all.
First results from the encounter, announced at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Pasadena, suggest the asteroid, small though it is, is covered with a layer of dust.In this section Scientists behaving badly A dusty neighbour Making new things Phoning ET Reprints.
