INTRODUCTION: This is AudioExplorations, a podcast series from AccessScience, the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology Online at www.accessscience.com. I'm Jessa Forte Netting. Today Dorian Devins speaks with astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, for this AudioExploration: Pluto. This segment: "Becoming an Astrophysicist: How a city kid discovered the stars"

DORIAN DEVINS: I'm speaking today with Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is an astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. Welcome.

DR. NEIL deGRASSE TYSON: Thank you, thank you.

MS. DEVINS: You are a lucky person to have the dream job of probably every child in, if not the world, America, certainly working in this place. Can you remember when you first became interested in the planets?

DR. TYSON: Well, just the universe in general, I was nine years old and I was on a trip to the Hayden Planetarium. And in that case it was with my parents and brother and sister, but almost every school child in New York City goes to the Hayden Planetarium at some point in their K through six life experience. But that’s what started it and of course in New York City the sky is not much of a commodity — no one looks up, and if you do there’s a building there. And so the sky does not participate in your daily affairs, except for perhaps sunrise or the moon. And so my only encounter with the universe occurred through the planetarium and the night sky that it portrayed on the dome. And it would take about two years for me to understand that that could be a career, and by the time I was eleven or twelve I knew I wanted to be an astrophysicist.

MS. DEVINS: That’s very early.

DR. TYSON: Even though I could barely pronounce the word I knew the universe was so cool that that’s what I wanted to do with my life.

MS. DEVINS: What does an eleven or twelve year old do as a career path at that point to become an astrophysicist?

DR. TYSON: Oh you'd be surprised actually, because once my parents had recognized this interest, and they would troll the remainder tables of bookstores looking for any book title that even smelled like the universe, and that – you know, I had this whole library of books that were acquired for a dollar or a dollar fifty, and I might have the biggest science library of any kid that I grew up with. And they bought books on math and that sort of thing. And so it started early, at least access to cosmic discovery started early. And then when I could – I lived in this big apartment building where you could walk dogs and make money, so I started walking dogs and with the money I bought my first real telescope. And so it’s possible to engage yourself in your interest in the universe. Not many other fields have organized versions of itself in the form of amateur associations. To be an amateur astronomer is a badge of, that you earn, because amateur astronomers know their telescopes, they know their lenses, they know the night sky, and it’s this whole culture that almost every professional astrophysicist had participated in in their youth. And people continue to participate in as adults, those who didn’t actually become astrophysicists. So, but you’d never have an organization of amateur neurosurgeons, you know, it’s just not the kind of thing that lends itself to an amateur status in most other professions. So it is possible to stoke one’s interest from very early.

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