Alan Stern Quotes

I am very interested in the Universe - I am specialising in the Universe and all that surrounds it.

I'm an avid watcher of the Nat Geo channel, where I watch shows about how the planets are formed, and shows about moons, quasars, black holes.

In future, children won't perceive the stars as mere twinkling points of light: they'll learn that each is a 'Sun', orbited by planets fully as interesting as those in our Solar system.

You see billions and billions of stars and recognize that you know some of those have planets, too, and maybe there's life out there, and this is just one of billions of galaxies... and so it gives you this huge perspective of how far we potentially have to go for real exploration.

I'm not really into sci-fi movies, but I'm into the science of space a lot. I love astronomy and thinking about the nothingness of the everythingness of space.

It shouldn't be so difficult to determine what a planet is. When you're watching a science fiction show like 'Star Trek' and they show up at some object in space and turn on the viewfinder, the audience and the people in the show know immediately whether it's a planet or a star or a comet or an asteroid.

The solar system is completely wide open. Almost anywhere we go, I'm sure we would learn a lot.

The public has an incredible capacity for appreciating the wonder of our planet, our solar system, our universe.

I want Carl Sagan to explain the sky to me.

I watched the moon landing as a boy, and I thought that was the most exciting thing ever, going into space, orbiting Earth and exploring other planets. That looked fantastic.

I've known from long ago that the universe was calling me. If you were one of those annoying adults that said, 'Oh, what are you gonna be when you grow up?' I would say, 'Astrophysicist.' And then they'd walk away real quickly.

I only watch National Geographic Channel, and also I have the app on my phone. I'm into astronomy and love to learn about new facts.

To primitive man, the sky was wonderful, mysterious and awesome, but he could not even dream of what was within the golden disk or silver points of light so far beyond his reach.

You cannot look up at the night sky on the Planet Earth and not wonder what it's like to be up there amongst the stars. And I always look up at the moon and see it as the single most romantic place within the cosmos.

One of the things I do know is we know very little about our universe. Even though we think we know a lot, and we do know a lot more than we used to, we have a lot to learn about our universe.

There are 100 Billion starts in the galaxy. That used to be an astronomical number. It's less than the national deficit. Now we should calm them economical numbers.

Man will not always stay on Earth; the pursuit of light and space will lead him to penetrate the bounds of the atmosphere, timidly at first, but in the end to conquer the whole of solar space.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

I can't say I've ever had a dream about space or that I ponder it all the time.

I dreamt of being an astronomer; I had a series of 'How and Why' books on the planets and the stars. At that stage, there were only 14 galaxies; now there are multiverses, dark matter, the nano-microscopic world of the interior of atomic structure.

Seeing a full display of humanity involved in space is a game-changer for everyone. We've all looked at the stars; we've all imagined what was going on. Not everyone wants to go, but everyone wants to know what it's like.

Space is a laboratory, an experiment in all forms of all things, an infinity of possibilities, properties, and places that cry out for investigation and exploration.

I've always been consumed by things that are out of this world, like space and moons.

By the time I finished high school, I knew I wanted to become an astronomer. By the time I finished college, I knew I wanted to be part of the American space program. And that's exactly what I did.

We've explored every type of environment in the solar system at least once.