Here is a thought.
An observation is only as good as the instrument used and the perspective/vantage-point at the point of observation.
One could have a very tiny, microscopic vantage point and a very narrow idea of what to look for and how to look for it, and with the best instrument designed around those limits produce a ton of “data” which, in the end, may prove, in a sort of circular logic - nothing more than that our observation instruments work because they obtain what we designed them to obtain, from our limitations of knowledge and perspective/vantage point and using the huge theories we have built with those limitations.
I truly believe that whenever we are finally “star travelers” that many of our theories and assumptions about the universe, its age, how creation continues and many other things will be blown away by knowledge gained in getting to the stars and what we actually find there.
Much of astronomical science has less hard first hand facts and more theory than even the man-made global warming hoax.
I believe that ideas like “ripples in space-time” are due precisely to the limitations of such a microscopic perspective of our tiny vantage point and our limited real knowledge. I think it is more about how things we don’t fully understand appear to us, than how they actually are.
That's why astrophysics is called a theoretical science. But, those theories frequently prove to be accurate.
When Einstein postulated the phenomenon of time dilation in his Theory of Relativity in 1905, it wasn't proven to be accurate until 1971 - some 66 years later. Einstein's ability to conceptualize the mathematical structure of the universe was far superior to the contemporary ability to create experiments to either prove or disprove those mathematical theories.
That's the purpose of theoretical science, to break away from the tethers or contemporary limitations of other physical sciences to explain the unknown.
Yes. Perspective.