Retired astronomers

[Andrew Thornett]

Now I am officially retired, here are some retired astronomer jokes....

Here are 20 astronomy-themed retirement jokes—perfect for someone hanging up the stethoscope, toolkit, or telescope:

1. Retirement: finally enough time to observe the universe… and still fall asleep at the eyepiece.
2. You know you’re a retired astronomer when your “daily schedule” is more unpredictable than a variable star.
3. Retired astronomers don’t age—they just redshift.
4. Congratulations on retirement! Your workload has officially gone supernova… into nothingness.
5. After retiring, I realised I had more free time than a photon escaping a black hole.
6. Retirement is great: now you can stare into space professionally again.
7. Retiring from astronomy? Don’t worry—you’ll still be able to see stars whenever you stand up too fast.
8. Retired astronomers don’t oversleep. They just have very long exposure times.
9. Retirement: when your calendar becomes as empty as intergalactic space.
10. I asked a retired astronomer how he passes the time. He said, “I drift—like a rogue planet.”
11. Retiring from radio astronomy means one thing: no more interference from work.
12. Retirement lets you focus on the important things—like aligning the telescope properly this time.
13. Retired astronomers don’t get lost; they just go on long, meandering orbits.
14. Retirement is like dark matter—you know it’s there, but you’re not quite sure what it does.
15. In retirement, every day is clear skies… except the ones when you actually want to observe.
16. Retired astronomers don’t slow down—they just cool down like a white dwarf.
17. Retirement is the perfect time to write that paper proving your neighbour’s security light is the real centre of the universe.
18. After retirement, I finally became a morning person—mostly because I go to bed at 9.
19. Retired astronomers have one major hobby: explaining the Moon phases to grandchildren incorrectly for fun.
20. Retirement: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the comfortably-pajama’d astronomer.

Here are 20 radio-astronomy-themed retirement jokes, tuned precisely to the right frequency:

1. Retirement: finally a life with no more RFI… except the neighbours’ Wi-Fi, the microwave, the car charger, and the fridge.
2. Retired radio astronomers don’t nap—they perform long-baseline integrations.
3. In retirement, your daily schedule becomes as random as cosmic noise.
4. Congratulations on retiring! Your stress level has officially dropped below the system temperature.
5. Retirement is great: at last you can spend all day listening to the universe instead of people.
6. You know you’re a retired radio astronomer when “signal processing” means finding your keys.
7. Retirees don’t get up early—they just switch to a lower sampling rate.
8. Retirement: where your only calibration is whether the kettle is on or off.
9. Retired radio astronomers don’t lose fitness—they just experience natural attenuation.
10. In retirement, every day is a clear sky day… except the one time you set up the array properly.
11. Retired? Perfect. Now you can finally solve that interference source—turns out it was your own hearing aid.
12. Retirement turns you into a pulsar: slow, steady, and oddly predictable.
13. Retired radio astronomers don’t forget things—they just have a slightly longer integration time.
14. Retirement is like background radiation—always there, slightly warm, and easy to ignore.
15. In retirement, “high-gain antenna” means cupping your hand around your ear.
16. Retired radio astronomers never argue—they’ve mastered low-noise communication.
17. After retiring, I upgraded my domestic setup: built an array of tea mugs around the house.
18. Retirement is wonderful—you can finally process your backlog… of unlabelled hard drives.
19. Retiring from radio astronomy means one thing: your home becomes the control room.
20. Congratulations! You’ve reached the quietest part of the spectrum—no work signals detected.