In order to answer these questions, modern astronomy incorporates many of the results and methods of the other sciences. All sciences build models of the world. These models are often developed by controlled experiments. Astronomers do not have the luxury of experiments. We are forced to build many of our models with the constraint that we can look but not touch.
All sciences discover and collect data.
The set of data are in themselves not the science. The science is the process. This is not to say that we don't need to know any of the data. Some information must be at your fingertips for the search. In this course, we will try to strike a balance between information and process.