Page "Astrometry" Paragraph 9

Apart from the fundamental function of providing astronomers with a reference frame to report their observations in, astrometry is also fundamental for fields like celestial mechanics, stellar dynamics and galactic astronomy.

In observational astronomy, astrometric techniques help identify stellar objects by their unique motions.

It is instrumental for keeping time, in that UTC is basically the atomic time synchronized to Earth's rotation by means of exact observations.

Astrometry is an important step in the cosmic distance ladder because it establishes parallax distance estimates for stars in the Milky Way.