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But to carve the Grand Canyon, Earth required millions of years. To excavate Meteor Crater, the universe, using a sixty-thousand-ton asteroid traveling upward of twenty miles per second, required a fraction of a second. No offense to Grand Canyon lovers, but for my money, Meteor Crater is the most amazing natural landmark in the world.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: October 5
Actor
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Cosmologist
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
Physicist
Science Communicator
Science Writer
Teacher
Trekkie
The Bronx
New York City
Neil Tyson
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Asteroids
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Canyons
Crater
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Amazing
Sixty
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Millions
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More quotes by Neil deGrasse Tyson

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For your own safety, do not ever tell an astrophysicist, I hope all your stars are twinkling.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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The only accounting we had of the origins and the structure of nature was Biblical Genesis.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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On Venus you could cook a 16-inch pepperoni pizza in seven seconds, just by holding it out to the air. (Yes, I did the math.)
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Everyone has all different experiences in school. I just know that throughout my life, at no time did any teacher ever point to me and say, hey. He'll go far.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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The chances that your tombstone will read 'Killed by Asteroid' are about the same as they'd be for 'Killed in Airplane Crash.'
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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When you're enlightened, you don't have to reference other people, because you yourself are enlightened. And that's a better Earth. People can make more informed decisions politically, culturally, personally.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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The greatest of people that have ever been in society, they were never versions of someone else. They were themselves.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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There's a saying in the scientific community, that every great truth goes through three phases. First, people deny it. Second, they say that it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say that they've known it all along.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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So not enough people in this world, I think, carry a cosmic perspective with them. It could be life-changing.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Why can't we summon the ingenuity and courage of the generations that came before us? The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Here's something that intrigues me: If you have faith, you believe regardless of the evidence, yet if there's ever evidence to support faith, everyone goes to it and points to it.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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People are really excited about robotic exploration. I understand the feeling there because, in fact, robots can do things humans can't. They can survive harsh conditions, they can explore places we would never go, plus you never actually have to bring them back.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Eventually, the Sun will swell to occupy the entire sky as its expansion subsumes the orbit of earth. Earth's surface temperature will rise until it matches the 3,000-degree rarified outer layers of the expanded Sun.... But not to worry. We will surely go extinct for some other reason long before this scenario unfolds.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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If you seek only easy problems to solve, then ultimately, there'll be nothing about you to distinguish yourself from others.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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You don't discard Newton. Newton becomes the limiting case of how you would apply Einstein's theories.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were 'reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.'
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I never got into 'Star Wars.' Maybe because they made no attempt to portray real physics. At all.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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America has an economy reversing relative to other nations in the world. And I want to turn that around. And one way I know to turn it around is to get everyone excited about what it is to innovate again.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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You should chose your heroes a-la carte. Picking and choosing from one and then another, thereby assembling a kind of composite hero. That way when you discover something reprehensible about any one of them it matters nothing to you because that's not the part of them that piqued your interest.
Neil deGrasse Tyson