See also: Neil deGrasse Tyson Jokes

Neil DeGrasse Tyson keeps a cosmic closet of themed vests, each one a wearable Easter egg for science fans.

He was a championship ballroom dancer. In graduate school, Tyson won a gold medal in a national dance competition in the category of International Latin Ballroom style.

As a teen, he trekked to meet Carl Sagan, who invited him to spend the night during a snowstorm.

He’s been known to fact-check movie physics in real time, like a human director’s commentary that nobody asked for but everyone hears.

He once said if aliens visited, their first impression of Earth would be our nighttime light pollution glow.

When the Hayden Planetarium under his direction grouped Pluto with Kuiper belt objects rather than planets (six years before the IAU officially reclassified it as a dwarf planet), the decision proved controversial and Tyson was deluged with angry letters. He later wrote an entire book about the experience called The Pluto Files.

He collects ties with space motifs.

He attended Harvard but also rowed crew.

He hosted the reboot of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, stepping into a role once held by his hero, Carl Sagan

He once joked that the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

He helped redesign the Hayden Planetarium, making it feel like a spaceship disguised as a museum.

He keeps a meteorite on his desk.

He has strong opinions about whether sci-fi gets gravity right.

At the Bronx High School of Science, Tyson was captain of the wrestling team, and he continued wrestling at Harvard University, where he was also captain of the wrestling team.
He’s written multiple books translating cosmic chaos into human-sized ideas.

He almost became a male exotic dancer. A few of his fellow male dancers began showcasing their skills in Chippendale-like clubs for extra cash, and Tyson, who described himself as “flexible from having danced and pretty cut from having wrestled,” became intrigued. He visited a club to see them perform and said it was only then that he reconsidered and decided to focus on math tutoring instead.

He believes curiosity is a muscle you should exercise daily.

He’s obsessed with precision in language, especially when science is involved.

He’s discussed whether superheroes would survive their own powers. His opinion: often no.

He thinks the scariest thing isn’t aliens, but human misunderstanding of science.

He often reminds people that the atoms in your body were forged in stars.

Neil’s middle name, deGrasse, comes from the maiden name of his paternal grandmother, who was born as Altima de Grasse in the British West Indies island of Nevis.

Tyson’s popularity isn’t only because of his intelligence; he was voted sexiest astrophysicist alive by People Magazine in 2000.