"Didn't you see that glass ceiling?" Salary: $50,000 

One day, stargazing out in the country, you got a little too excited about a certain star cluster and slammed your binoculars into the sunroof while looking through them. Now there are two ring-shaped bruises around your eyes and you're the laughing stock of the department.

iPhone or spectrograph? Salary: $80,000 

You worked your way through college and grad school, and were halfway through the Ph.D. program before experiencing what is known far and wide as "burnout syndrome." You took a few years off to #Instagram the #world. Now you're back on the ladder, but a few rungs down from where you'd like to be.

The "et al" credit. Salary: $100,000 

You broke into the field by working with some brilliant and well-respected leaders in astrophysics, and worked on some groundbreaking studies. Your name was in there, but it was sort of in the footnotes. The cover read "Stephen Hawking, et al." Winning.

"Yes, master—I mean, Professor." Salary: $130,000 

Having secured tenure and departmental title of Little Golden Star Child, you can now dedicate your time to pushing our understanding of neutrino physics, in the context of supernovae, to the next level.

Laureate of Arabia. Salary: $185,000 

You always suspected that you were special; that Nobel prize on your mantle confirms it. Now all your papers read, "[Insert Your Name Here], et al."