“It’s not as though we’re down here on Earth and the rest of the universe is out there. To begin with, we’re genetically connected to each other and to all other life-forms on Earth. We’re mutual participants in the biosphere. We’re also chemically connected to all the other life-forms we have yet to discover. They, too, would use the same elements we find in our periodic table. They do not and cannot have some other periodic table. So we’re genetically connected to each other; we’re molecularly connected to other objects in the universe; and we’re atomically connected to all matter in the cosmos.For me, that is a profound thought. It is even spiritual. Science , enabled by engineering, empowered by NASA, tells us not only that we are in the universe but that the universe is in us. And for me, that sense of belonging elevates , not denigrates, the ego.”

− Neil deGrasse Tyson −