Everyone's favorite astrophysicist—the man who tells us when Manhattanhenge is coming, and the director of the Hayden Planetarium in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History—was asked by TIME, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" The question was posed a few years ago, but it's now circulating again thanks to this new YouTube video, and it's worth revisiting. In it, deGrasse, who has a new book out, says:
“When I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.”
In more deGrasse news, he just did an AMA on Reddit, in which he reveals the talk show host he's most enjoyed talking to—"In order: Stewart, Colbert, Maher, Fallon, Smiley, Maddow, Leno, O'Brien. Of those, Colbert is by far the hardest interview. Stewart is a distant second. And everyone else is a distant third." The fact that one of the smartest men in the universe has placed Leno before Conan is possibly even more astounding than the whole "we came from stars" thing.
