Neil deGrasse Tyson on cosmic connectivity

Neil deGrasse Tyson: I think the most remarkable fact about the universe is that these elements that comprise the human body and life on Earth are traceable to the actions of stars.

That’s astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

He’s answering EarthSky’s question about what he believes is the most remarkable story the universe has to tell us.

Neil Tyson: In our past, billions of years ago, high-mass stars, which we know are the kind that make these heavy elements, manufacture these heavy elements in the crucible of their core. They then explode, scattering their enriched contents across the galaxy allowing new star systems to form that have ingredients that make planets and life so that we have a cosmic connectivity to the operations of the universe that I think is almost spiritual in the depth of feeling it can bring over you when you just stand out in the night sky, on a clear night, and look up and realize that we are not only in this universe, here on Earth, but the universe is in fact in us.

Tyson’s recent book is called Death By Black Hole.

Our thanks today to Research Corporation, a foundation for the advancement of science.

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