Neil deGrasse Tyson Trivia
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49 free Neil DeGrasse Tyson trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is probably the most recognisable scientist alive: director of the Hayden Planetarium since 1996, host of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, creator of the StarTalk podcast and the astrophysicist who cheerfully took the blame for Pluto's demotion. This quiz follows his whole story, from the Bronx High School of Science and a teenage eclipse cruise with Neil Armstrong and Isaac Asimov, through Harvard, Texas and Columbia, to the $210 million rebuild of the planetarium and a shelf of bestselling books. Easy questions cover the planetarium, Cosmos and Pluto. Harder ones ask about the pen name he used in StarDate magazine, the star he picked as Krypton's sun for DC Comics, the term he coined for the Manhattan sunset alignment, the moon his daughter is named after, the frog that carries his name and the rapper's album on which he plays God. Every answer was checked against the Wikipedia biography, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up. Good for science teachers, StarTalk listeners and pub quiz hosts who want a Tyson round that goes deeper than "he's the Cosmos guy". If you enjoy this, try our Astronomy and Famous Physicists quizzes next.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which film's night sky did its director redo for a re-release after Tyson said the stars were wrong?
Titanic
Titanic. Tyson emailed James Cameron that Rose's stars were wrong for the North Atlantic in April 1912, so Cameron asked him for the right sky and put it in the 2012 3D release.
Q 02Which institution did Tyson become director of in 1996?
The Hayden Planetarium
The Hayden Planetarium. Tyson first walked into its sky theater at age nine and decided on astrophysics; he came back as a staff scientist in 1994 and was running it two years later.
Q 03Which animated-comedy creator was an executive producer of Tyson's 2014 Cosmos series?
Seth MacFarlane
Seth MacFarlane. The Family Guy creator's backing was instrumental in landing the science documentary on Fox, where its thirteen episodes ran in prime time.
Q 04What is the name of the weekly podcast Tyson began hosting in 2009?
StarTalk
StarTalk. It started as a radio pilot funded by the National Science Foundation, for which Tyson recruited stand-up comedians as co-hosts to reach people who thought they didn't like science.
Q 05Which rapper's flat-Earth tweets did Tyson rebut point by point in 2016?
B.o.B
B.o.B. The rapper answered with a track calling Tyson out by name, so Tyson's nephew Stephen recorded a reply, 'Flat to Fact', which the astrophysicist shared with his followers.
Q 06Which New York high school did Tyson graduate from in 1976?
The Bronx High School of Science
The Bronx High School of Science. While still a pupil, at fifteen, he was invited to give his first astronomy lecture, to an extension class at the City University of New York.
Q 07Which animated film series gave Tyson a cameo as a weasel astronomer named Neil deBuck Weasel?
Ice Age
Ice Age. In Collision Course (2016) his character exists only inside the mind of Buck, the weasel who leads the herd's mission to fend off an asteroid.
Q 08Which famous astronomer personally tried to recruit the teenage Tyson to Cornell University?
Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan invited the 17-year-old to Ithaca for a day, then wrote down his home phone number in case snow stopped the bus and Tyson needed a bed for the night.
Q 09Where did Tyson earn his bachelor's degree in physics in 1980?
Harvard
Harvard. He picked it over Cornell, even though a famous astronomer there had answered his application with a personal letter and a day's tour of the campus.
Q 10At which university was Tyson's first doctoral committee dissolved, ending his PhD attempt there?
University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin. He earned a master's there in 1983 but admits he should have spent more time in the lab; his advisers dissolved his committee, in effect flunking him.
Q 11From which university did Tyson receive his PhD in 1991?
Columbia
Columbia. It gave him a second chance after his first doctoral attempt collapsed, and his thesis there traced the chemistry of stars in the Milky Way's central bulge.
Q 12Tyson's $210 million rebuild project opened in 2000 as which landmark?
The Rose Center
The Rose Center for Earth and Space. Tyson spent three years as the rebuild's project scientist and, while it was going up, founded the museum's Department of Astrophysics.
Q 13Which magazine carried Tyson's monthly "Universe" column from 1995 to 2005?
Natural History
Natural History. The best of those essays were later gathered into Death by Black Hole, which became a New York Times bestseller.
Q 21Which Cosmos season did Tyson return to host in 2020?
Cosmos: Possible Worlds
Cosmos: Possible Worlds. It was due in March 2019, but its networks pulled it while they investigated misconduct allegations against Tyson, and it reached the screen a year later.
Q 22Which network launched Tyson's late-night celebrity talk show in April 2015?
National Geographic
On it he interviews pop-culture celebrities about their experiences with science.
Q 23Tyson says nonbelievers keep claiming him as one of their own; which label did he tell Big Think fits best?
Agnostic
Agnostic. He said he rewrote his own online biography after editors kept calling him an atheist, settling on 'widely claimed by atheists, is actually an agnostic'.
Q 14Under what pen name did Tyson answer readers' questions in StarDate magazine?
Merlin
Merlin. The column's answers filled two books, and in 2024 Tyson brought the character back for an updated edition of the first, Merlin's Tour of the Universe.
Q 15What did Tyson name the days when the setting sun lines up with New York's cross streets?
Manhattanhenge
Manhattanhenge. Tyson joked that future archaeologists digging up the street grid would assume it had astronomical meaning, as we do with Stonehenge, where the solstice sun lines up with the stones.
Q 16Which president named Tyson to two federal commissions, one on aerospace and one dubbed 'Moon, Mars, and Beyond'?
George W. Bush
George W. Bush. The second panel worked out how to carry out his new space-exploration policy, and soon afterwards NASA gave Tyson the highest award it can give someone outside government.
Q 17Which PBS programme did Tyson host from 2006 to 2011?
NOVA ScienceNow
NOVA ScienceNow. Tyson took over the fast-paced magazine show from its first host, Robert Krulwich, doubled as its executive editor, and handed over to tech writer David Pogue.
Q 18Which world did Tyson's exhibits famously decline to count among the planets?
Pluto
Pluto. His display grouped it with other small icy bodies instead of the planets, and Tyson says the hate mail that followed came largely from children.
Q 19Which body's 2006 vote on planets backed the call Tyson's exhibits had already made?
International Astronomical Union
International Astronomical Union. Its members voted in Prague that a planet must have cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, six years after Tyson's display opened.
Q 20In which animated series did Tyson voice a pet pig that suddenly turns into a genius?
Gravity Falls
Gravity Falls. In a 2014 episode the pig Waddles eats a mysterious mushroom and becomes smart, and the clever version of him speaks in Tyson's voice.
Q 24Which academic major did Tyson say 'can really mess you up' on a 2014 episode of the Nerdist podcast?
Philosophy
Philosophy. He argued that asking deep questions is a pointless delay when a whole world of unknowns is waiting, and one magazine column answered by calling him a philistine.
Q 25How much of each U.S. tax dollar did Tyson tell the Senate that NASA's budget represents?
Half a penny
Half a penny. He told senators that doubling it to a full penny could transform the country, and the line inspired the Penny4NASA campaign to lobby for exactly that.
Q 26Which comedy host's 2007 book jokingly called Tyson 'an absolute monster'?
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert. His book I Am America (And So Can You!) grants that most scientists are decent people, then singles out Tyson, a regular and favourite guest on The Colbert Report.
Q 27Living four blocks from the World Trade Center on 9/11, what did Tyson fetch before going back out to the street?
His camcorder
His camcorder. Tyson filmed the burning towers from the street, later walked his family three miles north to safety, and wrote an email account of the day that was forwarded far and wide.
Q 28In which sci-fi series did Tyson appear as himself alongside Bill Nye in the episode "Brain Storm"?
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate Atlantis. He and Bill Nye play themselves at a landmark scientific presentation, where a rival's device that promises to cure global warming refuses to shut off.
Q 29In which comic series did Tyson appear in 2012, helping Superman locate his home planet's star?
Action Comics
Action Comics. In issue #14 Tyson helps the Man of Steel find Krypton beside the red dwarf LHS 2520 in Corvus, the Crow, a neat match for Clark Kent's school team, the Smallville Crows.
Q 30Which physicist gives his name to the science-communication medal Tyson received at the 2017 Starmus festival?
Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking. The medal carries his portrait, drawn by the first spacewalker, Alexei Leonov, with Brian May's guitar on the reverse; Tyson took the 2017 prize for science writing.