The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

As the youngest-ever Director of the Hayden Planetarium Neil de Grasse Tyson is Americas best-known astrophysicist constantly called upon by the media to explain news-making scientific phenomena such as the discovery of water on Mars. How did an African American kid growing up in the Bronx expected by everyone to become a star athlete not an intellectual become an extraordinarily successful scientist? This is the fascinating and moving account of Tysons love affair with the night sky beginning with the fateful day when he as a small boy happened to turn a pair of binoculars up toward the moon and was struck with wonder. Packed with gorgeous descriptions of the night sky The Sky Is Not the Limit invokes the grandeur of the cosmos as it tells Tysons compelling personal story. In addition it is a perceptive look at life and society as seen through the eyes of an astrophysicist providing a valuable look into how scientists work in and think about the social political and physical world. From that eye-opening first glimpse of the moon through his struggle to fulfill his dream of becoming an astrophysicist to the triumphant opening of the new Hayden Planetarium Tysons story is remarkable.