You know what’s awesome? Ask Neil deGrasse Tyson

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was 14 when he first came to Arizona from New York with his family on vacation. They saw the Grand Canyon (“It was grand.”) but what most impressed him was Meteor Crater, the mile-wide hole in the ground near Winslow.

Meteor Crater is one of the best-preserved meteorite impact craters on Earth. It took just seven seconds to make, Tyson said, compared with millions of years for nature to carve the Grand Canyon. Meteor Crater, he said, was awesome — actually awesome.

“We live in a time when people under 30 say, ‘It would be awesome if you could pass the salt,’ ” he said. When he was under 30, it was “awesome” that we went to the moon.

“Can we recalibrate that word, please?” Tyson said.

Tyson was at Comerica Theatre in Phoenix on Wednesday to talk about the search for life in the universe. On big screens behind him, Tyson showed many awesome things. Close-ups of planets. Rover landings. Meteor paths.

“In science, one result is not the truth,” Tyson said, which is why what we know about a subject changes with more study. Some people surmise it means scientists don’t know what they are talking about.

“Yes, we do,” Tyson said. “We so know what we’re talking about.”

About the potential for life on other planets. Why planes don’t fall out of the sky. How the climate is changing.

Two of his books are in the Top 10 on the best-selling list.

“This gives me hope for the world that on some level people care what is objectively true,” Tyson said.

Tyson reminded the audience that the elements that make up life on Earth — hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen — are four of the most common elements found in the universe.

That means we are part of this universe and perhaps more importantly, the universe is in us.

That is awesome.