Astrophysicist Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson is heading to Australia in July and he’s on a serious mission.

The famous image, since dubbed Earthrise, depicted the entirety of our planet against the vast, black backdrop of space. It was the first time humanity had seen itself in such a way and the picture transformed thinking about the Earth and its environment in a way that seeped into culture, religion and science.

In the following two years in the US, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Earth Day were all founded.

“It was like a firmware upgrade to human consciousness about who and what we are in this world,” Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson told news.com.au.

The world renowned astrophysicist is preparing to return to Australia in July and he does so with the desire to rekindle the feeling sparked by that famous 1968 image.

Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve 1968. That evening, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders held a live broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and moon as seen from their spacecraft.Source:Supplied

It will be just shy of two years since Dr Tyson last toured Australia, and since then there have been some major scientific discoveries including the detection of gravitational waves and the discovery of a relatively nearby solar system with seven potentially habitable planets.

There is certainly no shortage of mind-bending science to discuss when he hits our shores but the man who famously studied under the guidance of astronomer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan has some loftier goals for his upcoming Aussie tour.

“What I will likely focus on is things that you can’t get from a wiki page. So, for example, there are new ways of thinking about the world that studying the universe empowers you to obtain,” he said.

He calls it a “cosmic perspective”.

“And when you have this cosmic perspective everything looks different to you. The measure of your problems changes, how you go about solving problems changes,” he said. “Because no longer are you thinking about yourself and the cave that you live, nor are you thinking only regionally, or nationally, or even on a planetary scale, but on a cosmic scale.”

Put simply, he wants to be 2017’s version of Earthrise.

“A perspective can completely alter not only who you are but the civilisation you’re a part of,” he said.

It might sound like an abstract idea but he believes embracing such a perspective is paramount if humanity is to continue to flourish.

“My biggest fear is that we as a civilisation are not wise enough to become the shepherds we need to be to hand over this world to our descendants. That’s my biggest fear,” he said.

There are plenty of challenges facing the global community including climate change, wealth inequality, energy consumption and over population but while these issues are typically addressed in a piecemeal fashion by different governments, Dr Tyson sees them as separate pieces to a single puzzle that needs to be approached with a collective wisdom.

The “puzzle of the future of human civilisation,” as he calls it.

“I worry that we’re not wise enough to put those puzzle pieces together, because if we’re not, then we’re just doomed,” he said. “And that would be sad, that we’ve come this far.”

Neil will be heading to Australia and New Zealand in July.Source:Supplied

The desire for a unifying approach to our problems is no surprise given his line of work. But when it comes to the world of astrophysics, it is something that has peskily eluded scientists so far.

The true nature of the universe remains a mystery to science and many physicists are working on a unified theory that provides an explanation as to how general relativity and quantum physics fit together — a potential single theory that describes our fundamental reality.

In fact, if Dr Tyson could have one scientific mystery answered, that would be it.

“I would wonder if all the laws of the universe emanate from one simple mathematical expression,” he said. “I wonder if that’s the case.”

At this point, such an idea is known as String Theory which suggests that the fundamental matter of the physical world is smaller than any particle we know and is made up of vibrating follicles of energy that resemble tiny strings.

However there remains serious doubt about whether we could ever prove such a theory, even if it is correct.

We assume there is a coherent explanation to the universe because it’s more elegant but it may be a philosophical bias that we’re placing on the universe, Dr Tyson admits.

“Maybe we have forced this organisation on the universe — these two theories — because that’s the only way our brains can comprehend it, and maybe we’re simply not smart enough to see how they merge. That’s possible too.”

But if such unified a theory is true, and if we’re ever going to prove it, we will certainly need a cosmic perspective.

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s tour with Think Inc. will see him appear in Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney on dates ranging from the 15th to the 29th of July.

Astrophysicist Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson who will appear in Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.Source:Supplied