Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson: Astronomy Bizarre

About This Event

Black holes, dark matter, worm holes, and the simulation-theory question, from the astrophysicist who's spent two decades making that stuff land with a general audience rather than a lecture hall of physics majors. Starts at $72, not the priciest theater booking this fall.

Tyson first fell for astronomy at age nine, on a trip to the Hayden Planetarium at New York's American Museum of Natural History — he went on to earn a physics degree at Harvard and a PhD in astrophysics at Columbia, then landed back at that same planetarium in 1996, eventually running it. As director, he oversaw a $210 million renovation completed in 2000, and the new building's own exhibit quietly grouped Pluto with Kuiper Belt objects instead of the other planets — years before the International Astronomical Union made Pluto's demotion official in 2006. Tyson became the public face of that fight, whether he asked for it or not, and later hosted the 2014 reboot of Cosmos, introducing the same brand of science communication to an entirely new generation.

Worth knowing: showtime is 7:30 PM, and tickets start at $72 — check auditoriumtheatre.org for seating.