Theo Von asks Neil deGrasse Tyson if outer space is gay or straight

Theo Von asked Neil deGrasse Tyson, "Is outer space gay or straight?"

They were recording This Past Weekend episode 683 in New York City, Tyson’s hometown. Neil deGrasse Tyson was on to talk about his new book, Lost in Space: 5,000 Facts For Navigating the Universe, co-produced by StarTalk and National Geographic Books as their fourth collaboration. The wide-ranging conversation also covered wormholes, the billionaire space race, aliens, and evolutionary psychology

Neil deGrasse Tyson answered by taking the whole universe off the either-or board.

"Practically everything we see and measure in space, not only objects, but temperature, size, density, is on a spectrum," Neil deGrasse Tyson said. "So for you to say, is the universe gay or straight? I'm going to tell you, whatever the universe is, it's on a spectrum. In fact, the very word spectrum comes from what happens when you take light and break it up into its colors. We just happen to assign names to the seven colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. But it's an it's a continuum. Our brain doesn't want to see nuance because it's easier for us to think in binary."

Clips of the exchange later went up as "Theo Von Caught Him Off Guard" from Theo Rogan Shorts and as the thirty-eight-second short "Is the Universe Gay or Straight? Neil deGrasse Tyson Answers" from Billionaire Bugle.