Neil deGrasse Tyson

American astrophysicist and science communicator

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Born 1958 · age 68United States

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Wikipedia
67 languages
Cross-language footprint
Age
68
Born 1958
Known for
Batman v Superman: Daw…
2016

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

He made physics appointments on late-night TV and turned astrophysics into bestsellers people actually finish. Director of the Hayden Planetarium, host of the Cosmos reboot, and the guy who demoted Pluto—then spent years fielding angry mail about it.

Biography

About

Tyson studied at Harvard, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia before landing postdoc work at Princeton in 1991. Three years later he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist, and by 1996 he was directing it—steering a $210 million reconstruction finished in 2000. He founded the American Museum of Natural History's Department of Astrophysics in 1997. For a decade starting in 1995, he wrote monthly essays for Natural History (later collected in Death by Black Hole and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry) and answered cosmic questions in StarDate under the pen name "Merlin."…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson

said21 May 2009

Knowing how things work is important, but I think that's an incomplete view of what science literacy is or, at least, should be. Science literacy is an outlook.

— Global Ideas from Pluto's Challenger (May 21, 2009)

Neil deGrasse Tyson

said21 May 2009

Creativity is seeing what everyone else sees, but then thinking a new thought that has never been thought before and expressing it somehow.

— Global Ideas from Pluto's Challenger (May 21, 2009)

Neil deGrasse Tyson

saidJun 2008

George Bush, within a week of this [the 9/11 attacks], gave us a speech, attempting to distinguish 'we' from 'they' … and how does he do it?....

— "I, Skeptic—Modern Skepticism in the Internet Age", The Amaz!ng Meeting 6 keynote speech (June 2008).

Neil deGrasse Tyson

saidMar 1998

Yes, the universe had a beginning. Yes, the universe continues to evolve.

— "The Greatest Story Ever Told", in Natural History Magazine (March 1998) · "The Genesis of the Universe" narrated video at Britannica.com

Neil deGrasse Tyson

saidundated

A few years ago I got a phone call from a marketing executive who wanted to light up the Moon with the logo of her company. She wanted to know how she might proceed.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

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