A small award thus is apt ultimately for scientist (14)
I believe the answer is:
astrophysicist
'for scientist' is the definition.
(astrophysicist is a kind of scientist)
'a small award thus is apt ultimately' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'a' is present in the answer.
'small' could be 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size) and 's' is located in the answer.
'award' could be 'trophy' (trophy is a kind of award) and 'trophy' is present in the answer.
'thus' could be 'sic' ('thus' in Latin) and 'sic' is found in the answer.
'is' is found in the answer.
A single letter 't' remains which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for astrophysicist that I've seen before include "One studying composition of stars, etc" , "space expert" , "One studying properties of stars and interstellar matter" , "... [ASEROID DISCOVERED] by such a man, perhaps" .)