Astronomy? Why?

It's a fair question. To many, the importance of astronomy isn't readily apparent. However, upon closer inspection, it becomes clearer as to exactly why astronomy is valuable, and how varied the jobs of astronomers can be.
Without prior knowledge, its easy to dismiss astronomy as "stargazing." However, when you realize just how valuable this field of study can be, you may change your opinion. Studying nearby celestial objects can give insights into how our solar system works, and studying our moon can give hints as to how our own planet formed. By understanding the reactions within our own sun, we can better harness the sun's rays for our own use. In the past, studying nearby planets such as mars has given us insight into how life may evolve on other planets.
Beyond our own solar system, we can also study distant planets and stars. By studying distant planets we can search for other inhabitable places. We can also gain an understanding of types of stars other than our own, black holes, and other distant objects.
The Job of an astronomer is varied, and there are actually quite a few unique jobs that could be called astronomy. There are the obvious jobs, such as searching for celestial objects using either earth-bound or orbiting telescopes. However, other astronomers study information returned by long-range ships sent out to investigate nearby planets, such as the Mars rovers or the planetary probes to Jupiter, Saturn, and the other outlying planets. There are even some astronomers who never so much as touch a telescope, as, because astronomy is a physics-based field, there are many computations that need to be done. Some astronomers are simply mathematicians who crunch astronomy-related numbers.
All in all, I look forward to seeing what other sort of purposes astronomy can serve.