Happy Black History Month! February is dedicated to celebrating Black history achievements. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is an African American astrophysicist who popularized science worldwide.
Life
Neil DeGrasse Tyson first fell in love with astronomy at the age of nine when visiting the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Since then he continued his fascination with astronomy by earning a bachelor’s degree in physics at Harvard University and a master’s degree in astronomy at the University of Texas. In later years, he also earned an additional master’s degree in astrophysics from Columbia University.
Achievements & Notions
Tyson soon became the director of Hayden Planetarium where his research really started to soar. He realized that Pluto was no longer a Jovian Planet but a Kuiper belt object. This caused an uproar with many people which he combated by writing his book that made culturally relevant references to describe Pluto.
He continued to popularize astronomy by going on many talk shows and radio shows such as Jon Stewart, The Colbert Show, and his radio station StarTalk. He even made his TV show called Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Neil DeGrasse Tyson opened the world of science to a whole new group of people.
