Neil deGrasse Tyson

Born: October 5, 1958.

Died: Still alive.

Places lived: Manhattan, Bronx and Austin.

Main Idea:

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist. His research includes things like the Hubble Telescope. He studies things like galaxies and dwarf galaxies too. Tyson's books are also very famous. They include: Merlin’s Tour of the Universe, The Pluto Files: Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet and more. He has been hosting PBS shows, like Startalk. From 2006 to 2011, he started the PBS series Nova ScienceNOW. In 2014, he hosted a remake of Cosmic which was before owned by Carl Sagan! He got a bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1980. In 1991, he got a doctorate degree in astrophysics from Columbia University in New York. From 1991 to 1994, he worked in the department of astrophysics, at Princeton University in New Jersey.

He was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University from 1991 to 1994, which was when the Hayden Planetarium hired him as a staff scientist. His research was dealing with problems relating to galactic structure and evolution. He became in charge of the Hayden Planetarium in 1995.

Around the times:

He was born at the end of segregation, and once a person from Harvard University said that he could not go to Harvard. He was forced to move in the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001.

Childhood:

His father’s name is Cyril, and his mom's name is Sunchita. When he was 4, he had a little sister named Lynn. His best friend is Phillip Branford. He lived in an apartment named Skyview. When he was 9, he went to the Hayden Planetarium and saw millions of stars on the screen and thought that this was not real because he lived somewhere with a lot of light, so he could barely even see a few stars. Finally, he took a trip to Pennsylvania and trekked up a really tall mountain at night and saw the millions of stars above him. It inspired him to study outer space. He walked dogs for money, to buy himself a good telescope. In ninth grade, he got a five foot telescope! At last! He was so happy. He wasted no time and every night, he ran up to the roof of his apartment and used it.

Some people thought he was a thief! They thought his telescope was a giant gun! The police came to investigate many times, but Neil let them look through his telescope, and the police were amazed. “Have you ever looked at Saturn!?” He asked many times. The police would laugh.

Challenging things he faced:

He had to run from his home on 9/11/2001. He got lots of hate mail for turning Pluto into a dwarf planet.

Fun Facts:

He has his own TV show.

Neil met Carl Sagan in 1975.

Once he even tutored prisoners on Saturday!

Traits:

He was determined; He studied hard every day.

Of course, he was smart; he got a lot of degrees and was good at astrophysics.

He was also very calm; he stayed calm when he got lots of hate mail from kicking Pluto out and turning it into a dwarf planet.

If I could ask him a question, would it be?:

If you could go to any planet, where would you have gone?

Why is he significant today?:

He is a famous astrophysicist and is sometimes considered the smartest man alive today!

Quotes:

“The universe called me.”

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.”

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”

“In life, and in the universe, it is always best to Keep Looking Up.”

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”

“Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”

-Neil deGrasse Tyson