Toward a History of Astronomical Data

Astronomical data has become a byword forthe ever-increasing volume of information in today’s sciences, and a model for ‘data-driven’ science: astronomy has “always been among the sciences most oriented towards data collection.” Florence Hsia (Hist of Science) reassesses astronomy’s ‘data-driven’ exemplarity along three lines: changing conceptions of the relation between theory and data; shifts in the moral and labor economy of astronomical work; and evolving practices of data cumulation.