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Q: So, is it safe to say there are some serious gaps in our knowledge of astrophysics?

A: It is, and this is why it’s so important to search for life on other planets. Only then will we understand what life is and the fundamental chemistry of that. It could well be that our ideas about why life is here on Earth are just as wrong as our ideas about why solar systems were the way they were.

Q: With this so-called second moon in orbit and the asteroid Ounuamua 2017 U1 whizzing by, our local space is feeling a little crowded. Should we do something about that?

A: Well, whoever you send to blow up an asteroid isn’t coming back. But more importantly, we won’t know if an asteroid is going to hit us until it’s quite close and you are never really sure. If it’s got a 50-50 chance of hitting us and you blow it up into a schmillion pieces, you go from 50-per-cent chance that it will hit us to a 100 per cent chance that half of it is going to hit. That’s not an improvement. That’s Hollywood science.

Q: Is there a difference between theological explanations and scientific explanations?

A: What people don’t remember is that Galileo’s genius wasn’t that he was the first person to build a telescope. He wasn’t. It’s not that he was the first to point it into the sky. He wasn’t that either. But he was the first person to have the imagination to know what questions to ask to interpret what he was seeing. He also had a great education in the arts — he was a painter, he could draw images of the moon, and he was a great writer. Science needs the arts and great imagination. I got into science because I had read science fiction, so planets to me are places where people have great adventures. I still find that sense of wonder is part of the joy that drives me to want to know more about the universe.