But one of the coolest things about meteorites is that most were formed four-and-a-half-billion years ago, during the birth of our solar system, when, for reasons not yet known, a cloud of gas and dust was transformed into a sun with circling planets.

I can tell you that in my modern life I enjoy language. I enjoy words, their meaning, what they sound like to the ear, what they sound like to the listener. I strive to write the perfect sentence in all that I do, and when I write [the] perfect sentence I know it. If I had a second life I'd be a librettist for Broadway musicals.

Essentially every scientist, when posed with the question, "If you want to get science knowledge from Mars, do you want to send a geologist or do you want to send a robot?" Well, the real answer is, you can send 100 robots for the price of sending one geologist, so let's send 100 robots to 100 different locations, and then we would all benefit. So that's the answer you would get. And I agree with that answer.

Enjoying science shouldn't be rocket science.

UV is bad for molecules because its high energy breaks the bonds between a molecule's constituent atoms. That's why UV is bad for you, too: it's always best to avoid things that decompose the molecules of your flesh.

Space only becomes ordinary when the frontier is no longer being breached.

When you're enlightened, you don't have to reference other people, because you yourself are enlightened. And that's a better Earth. People can make more informed decisions politically, culturally, personally.