Interview with Neil de Grasse Tyson

"As a city dweller," says Neil de Grasse Tyson, "my first clear view of a night sky was the star-filled dome of the Hayden Planetarium." In fact, his childhood visits to the Museum were instrumental in his decision to become an astrophysicist. Tyson is Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium, which has been reborn as part of the new Rose Center for Earth and Space, the newest addition to the American Museum of Natural History. He is a member of the Museum's recently established Department of Astrophysics and a visiting research scientist in the Department of Astrophysics at Princeton University. Since 1995, the New York-born Tyson has written a monthly column for Natural History magazine. His most recent books are the memoir The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist (Doubleday, 2000) and One Universe: At Home in the Cosmos (Joseph Henry Press, 2000), which was coauthored with Charles Liu and Robert Irion.

To see and hear Tyson speak about the new Rose Center and other astrophysical matters, click on the highlighted questions.

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