Following his appearance at the ” First Comes The Dream ” event at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, American Museum of Natural History, BuzzFeed sat down with the famed astrophysicist for a short Q&A.
You're quite the wine enthusiast. What wine do you recommend while stargazing?
Here's the problem, when you're stargazing on a mountain top you are partially oxygen-deprived and you're in command of million dollars worth of hardware. So as much as I would like to sip wine under the stars, it's contraindicated in the instructions on operating telescopes.
But if I'm just having a sort of romantic night under the stars, I'd probably have -- it depends on if it's cold or if it's warm, not the wine but the air temperature -- I'd probably look for a pleasant burgundy, perhaps a Volnay. A nice vintage Volnay under the stars.
When's the last time you looked up at the stars?
Any time I walk out of a building, I look up at the stars. In the old days, I would risk stepping in things but now that humans clean up after their dogs that's not a problem so I can look up with abandon. Any time I exit a building, I look up. In New York it's cloudy, overcast maybe a third of the time so that's a disappointment for me. That's how I sign off my radio show, "Keep looking up."
Do you have the same experience each time as the very first?
Every time. That's my greatest source of spiritual fulfillment is the act of looking up at the night sky.
