Born and raised in New York City, astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. He went on to earn his BA in Physics from Harvard, his MA at the University of Texas at Austin and a MPhil, PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia University.

In 1994, he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist and the Princeton faculty as a visiting research scientist and lecturer. Two years later, he became the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City, which is a part of the American Museum of Natural History where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics.

From 2006-2011, Tyson hosted the television show NOVA ScienceNow on PBS, and since 2009, he has hosted the weekly podcast StarTalk. He is the author of many books including Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour (co-authored with Michael A. Strauss and J. Richard Gott), Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and Cosmic Queries: StarTalk’s Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going.

Tyson’s newest offering, Welcome to the Universe in 3D: A Visual Tour, published by Princeton University Press, is the first time he has been able to visually show the grandeur of space in book form. Written and created with coauthors and renowned astrophysicists Michael A. Strauss, J. Richard Gott and Robert J. Vanderbel, the book features dozens of stereoscopic 3D images of an array of galactic attractions. A special 3D stereo viewer is connected to the book’s back cover, allowing the far-flung features of the universe to be seen up close, seeming to float within reach above the page.

Welcome to the Universe in 3D takes readers from the Moon through the solar system and then to exoplanets, distant nebulas and galaxy clusters until reaching the cosmic microwave background radiation (or CMB), the most distant observable light. Throughout the book, the authors explain what’s known and what’s not known about the subjects of the spine-tingling images.

In a new interview with Smashing Interviews Magazine, Tyson explained why he believes the human race would ultimately be of no interest to alien visitors from other worlds.

The following excerpt details his interesting explanation:

Smashing Interviews Magazine: I liked one of your recent tweets.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Why are you reading my tweets? What are you doing reading my tweets? (laughs) Okay. Which one?

Smashing Interviews Magazine: The tweet was, “Last I checked, the rest of the universe was in good shape. It’s Earth that’s got all the problems.” Are you primarily speaking about climate change?

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Yes. Everything. Conflict, and the fact that people would wage war just because someone lives on a different side of a line that’s drawn on a piece of land. That’s weird. It’s weird that we all speak different languages. That’s just weird. It’s weird that we all worship different gods or no god at all. That’s just weird. We’re all human. So imagine aliens coming to visit who say, “Oh, there’s an interesting planet with water, land and clouds. Let’s give it a visit.” Then they visit it and see Earth up close. They see the protest, the conflict, the hatred and the reasons people hate one another.

Like I said, one of the reasons is that you live across the fence. Other reasons are skin color, who you worship and who you sleep with. They’re killing each other over this. It has convinced me that those aliens will just turn right back around and go home and say, “There’s no sign of intelligent life on Earth anywhere.”

Smashing Interviews Magazine: I definitely get what you’re saying about conflict and hatred and totally agree. Would the physical appearance of aliens look similar to humans?

Neil deGrasse Tyson: No other life on Earth other than other apes look similar to humans. Lobsters don’t look similar. Trees don’t. Worms don’t. Most life on Earth does not look similar to humans. So why should an entire other planet that has its own forces driving the formation and evolution of life, look like us at all?

This is the narrow imagination of Hollywood and people who claim that they’ve been visited by aliens. All aliens look like an actor in a costume. If you’re old enough to remember the planetariums in the 60s, you might remember the movie The Blob. Actually, that movie was 1958, and it’s one of Steve McQueen’s earliest movies. The Blob was an alien. It was just a blob. It didn’t have eyes, hands or teeth. It was just a blob. I thought that was brilliant. It’s simple yet imaginative. For me, it’s way more believable than an alien that’s walking towards you bipedally with arms outstretched that wants to suck your brains out.

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Marc Parker is an American journalist, author, artist, a photographer and a computer scientist. He is the founder/publisher/editor-in-chief of Smashing Interviews Magazine. Marc Parker's social media: Twitter Facebook

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