Neil deGrasse Tyson might not know Brangelina or Bennifer, but he does know the stars.

Tyson, who will present a lecture titled “The Cosmic Perspective” in Weigel Hall Auditorium at 7 p.m. Thursday, is one of the world’s most renowned astrophysicists. He has written eight books about the wonders of the cosmos, frequently appears on shows such as “The Colbert Report” and PBS’s “NOVA,” and serves as director for the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.

Tickets to his lecture, which is part of the First Year Distinguished Speaker series, are free. Ohio State students can reserve them online and pick them up from Enarson Hall between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

As an astronomer with professional credentials and a folksy passion for communicating its wonders, Tyson takes over where Carl Sagan left behind. He once grabbed an apple and borrowed a double-A battery to demonstrate the principles of a plan to keep meteors from crashing into the earth. His office in the planetarium is filled with chintzy outer-space bric-a-brac, from a “COZMIC” vanity license plate to a vial of “Apollo 11 Ink.” He said he finds it amusing that his interest in astronomy began during his childhood in one of the worst places in the world for star-gazing: the Bronx.

“In New York City, we did not have a concept of the night sky. I suppose if I grew up on a farm, it would be different,” he said in a telephone interview during his morning commute to the planetarium.

Tyson’s childhood visits to the planetarium that he now directs inspired him to become a scientist, as did a pair of binoculars and the science books his parents bought him. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Harvard and a doctorate in Astrophysics from Columbia. He has researched star formations, exploding stars and the structure of the Milky Way – though for a time he was better known for having a hand in demoting Pluto.

Tyson saw research in 2000 that led him to believe Pluto was not a small planet, but a big chunk of ice. So he decided to delete it from the “family photo” of the solar system at Hayden Planetarium.

A public outcry ensued. One angry letter from a third grader read: “Dear Dr. Tyson, you took away my favorite planet, I’m angry, I want you to put it back in the exhibit. Write back soon. But don’t write back in cursive, because I don’t know how to read cursive yet.”

In 2006, the international community of astrophysicists officially demoted Pluto. Tyson is compiling his chronicles of the Pluto protest into a new book titled, “The Pluto Files: the Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet.”

It’s a typical project for Tyson, who seeks ways to make science interesting to people of all ages and backgrounds.

“It was never a goal of mine to bring my knowledge to the public,” he said. “I am in love with the universe and I am going to share it with anyone who asks. It’s really just sharing of love, not some philosophical urge to be the nation’s educator.”

Ohio State astronomy professor David Weinberg first met Tyson as a graduate student at Princeton.

“Neil is one of the best communicators in the world of astronomy,” Weinberg said.

If so, Tyson said, it’s because he works at it. He has served on a presidential commission to shape NASA’s future explorations and used the Hubble telescope to research the shape of our galaxy, but said he labors just as hard to make his approach to the cosmos down-to-earth. He doesn’t understand why “American Idol” is popular, but will still sit down and watch it to “understand how my audience’s brains are wired,” he said.

For all his success in the public eye, Tyson said he’d prefer a career devoted to research. But he said he believes he is serving a higher purpose by connecting with a culture that desperately needs a heightened appreciation for the value of science. Otherwise, he argued, America will just ride the wave of past innovations, rather than invest in the future.

“In the 1990’s there was this huge influx of people who might have become scientists and engineers who started becoming investment bankers,” he said. People took jobs “that did not create fundamental value to society, but rather move it around and basically take advantage of others who are not as clever.”

The cost to society, he said, is that we no longer have “that demographic of people that make tomorrow happen.” We can only re-energize by communicating scientific goals in an “out there, sexy and seductive manner” to a future generation that will pick up where we left off.

“They invent tomorrow.”

Melissa Eisenberg can be reached at [email protected].