I think the best thing a parent can do, when raising a child, is simply get out of their way.

When I grew up I assembled my role models à la cart. I wanted to be an astrophysicist. If I tried to find a role model who grew up in the Bronx with my skin color who was an astrophysicist, I would never have become an astrophysicist.

Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what's really there.

Astrophysicists perfected navigation. We perfected all these things that matter to the power of nations manifest on the world stage. So we want to go into space. That's the new high ground, right? We care about multispectral imaging of things. Well, that's what reconnaissance wants to do. So our expertise has been in bed with national security needs forever. So maybe, secretly, that's why they keep us employed.

I see myself in pop culture. I listen to pop music, I do pop things, and I'm also a scientist.

So much of what we understand comes from knowing what something is and what that something used to be, which allows us to figure out, or at least imagine, what happened in between.

There are as many atoms in each molecule of your DNA as there are stars in the typical galaxy. This is true for dogs, and bears, and every living thing. We are, each of us, a little universe.