Why is astronomy interesting? Chandra likes Wigner’s answer

The questions “Why is astronomy interesting; and what is the case for astronomy?” have intrigued me; I have often discussed these questions with my friends and associates. Granted that physical science, as a whole, is worth pursuing, the question is what the particular case for astronomy is? My own answer has been this: Physical science deals with the entire range of natural phenomena; and nature exhibits different patterns at different levels; and the patterns of the largest scales are those of astronomy. (Thus Jeans’ criterion of gravitational instability is something which we cannot experience except when the scale is astronomical.) Of the many other answers to my questions, I find the following of Wigner most profound: “The study of laboratory physics can only tell us what the basic laws of nature are; only astronomy can tell us what the initial conditions for those laws are.”

from A Scientific Autobiography: S. Chandrasekhar (2011) by edited by Kameshwar C. Wali