Gregory Brown
Astronomy Education Officer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, London
Location London
Activity
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Gregory Brown replied to Sue Alldred
That is an excellent question. There is indeed no up or down in space. Instead, north and south are determined by the spin of the object. If you view it from above one pole, if the object is spinning anti-clockwise you are above the north pole. Clock-wise and it's the south pole. The specific reason why it's that way round is purely for historic...
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Very glad to hear it!
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Gregory Brown replied to Richard Berry
Very glad to be of help!
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Humour is such an important part of education. Used in the right way it increases engagement and attention-span, as well as acting as a hook for information retention as well! And if nothing else, it can make it more enjoyable for the presenter who is sometimes overlooked as a person that must remain engaged and enthusiastic as well, even if they do have four...
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Gregory Brown replied to Sorcha Keane
The Rosetta Mission came to a close in September 2016 having cut communications in July the same year, so all of the data from this mission has now been gathered. That data is now being analysed and we can expect further discoveries to be made in the coming years. Lunar samples from the Apollo missions to the Moon are still being analysed today 50 years on, so...
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This is obviously a very difficult question to answer. The important part from my point of view as a scientist with little knowledge of (and certainly no authority in) theology is to be clear from what perspective I am answering the question and what questions our current understanding of science can and can't answer.
My response would be this:
In...
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Gregory Brown replied to Laura L
We are very glad to have been of help!
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I would agree that pushing them down one path or another is definitely wrong, but I would suggest it's never too early to make them aware that the possibility exists.
The most obvious example I can think of is the concept of science being a job done by men and not women is impressed on people remarkably early. As incorrect as this is, it can then lead to a...
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Gregory Brown replied to Laura L
It's remarkably bright! Many people will have seen it without even realising!
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Gregory Brown replied to Laura L
We make extensive use of it here at the observatory too!
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Gregory Brown replied to alessandra rossi
Thank you very much!
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Gregory Brown replied to Laura L
Indeed, Philae's bounce was an unfortunate and yet very informative event that will help future missions avoid similar situations! Thankfully Philae got a lucky bounce and eventually completed most of its mission anyway!
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Gregory Brown replied to Laura L
That's absolutely right! Although sometimes we will refer shorthand to "life like us" as "life", in reality all scientists are well aware that just because the life we know about requires water, doesn't mean all life does.
The reason we search for "life like us" is because until we find clear evidence of what other life might be like, we only have our own...
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But thankfully very distant!
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Gregory Brown replied to Laura L
@LauraL Yes indeed, for a portion of its orbit Pluto is closer to the Sun than Neptune is! This comes in to the "clearing your orbit" or "dominating your part of space" part of the definition of a planet. Neptune has a sizeable influence over Pluto making it more difficult to call Pluto its own planet.
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Gregory Brown replied to Ashleigh Millar
We're sorry you feel this way. Is there something specific about the cartoons that was unhelpful?
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Gregory Brown replied to Michael Burrows
During this course we'll point you in the direction of some resources that we hope will be able to help with this!
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I completely agree, bringing complex subjects down to a student's level is always one of the most difficult problems faced in science communication. Hopefully we'll be able to show you some methods to help with that!
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Gregory Brown replied to Caroline Kemball
The search for life is a particularly compelling part of astronomy, with massive implications for life on Earth no matter what they find!
As for avoiding contaminating Europa, this is a big concern, but one that scientists and engineers are working hard on as we speak!
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Gregory Brown replied to Saheli sanyal
Almost perfect! The only mistake is that asteroids don't orbit planets, but instead orbit the Sun! Otherwise, great!
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Very nice answer!
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Gregory Brown replied to Laura L
Pluto is a bit of a complicated story. First, it absolutely is still part of the solar system as the solar system is simply the Sun's neighbourhood. Pluto is however no longer a planet, but a dwarf planet.
As humans (and particularly as scientists) we like to put things in categories. We do it with everything - for example 'species' in biology. But the fact...
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Gregory Brown replied to alessandra rossi
A good question! The simple answer is because there's very little out there to stop them! When we spin something on the Earth, they are either in the air, in contact with the ground, in water or a combination of the three. Any of these provide drag and friction that slows the object down to a stop. In space, where it's (almost) a vacuum, there's very little to...
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That's excellent to hear! We are glad it was of use!
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Gregory Brown replied to Petra Pikula
Yes, there is!
First wait for one of the major meteor showers (look here for the times of the main ones https://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/). The higher the Zenithal Hourly Rate (ZHR) the more meteors there are per hour in the shower, so the better your chance of seeing one.
Next, on the night of the peak of the shower, wait...
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Gregory Brown replied to Therese Grace
It was one of the most successful public engagement projects undertaken in science in the last 50 years. The mission itself was also fantastic!
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Gregory Brown replied to Petra Pikula
Wow, now that is a tough question!
The simple answer is no, we don't know how big the entire Universe is. But we can make some guesses based on what we do know.
First we can't look out to the true edge of the Universe, if one even exists. Because light takes time to travel and the Universe has only been around for 14 billion years, that means we can only...
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Gregory Brown replied to Therese Grace
A very interesting idea for a project!
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Gregory Brown replied to Therese Grace
Thank you, we are glad you liked it!
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Gregory Brown replied to Petra Pikula
It's always a difficult one to deal with. Our approach is never to challenge religious beliefs, but instead present the scientific view and the evidence behind it. By making it clear we don't infer things beyond what our evidence can tell us, we avoid the clash that can sometimes occur.
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It truly is a fantastic sight.
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Gregory Brown replied to Therese Grace
A lovely idea for some cross-disciplinary work!
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Gregory Brown replied to Caroline Kemball
Relating sizes to the sizes of other things really is the easiest way to go! It's a good technique!
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Gregory Brown replied to Petra Pikula
This is such a common one and one of the most difficult things to wrap our minds around!
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That's an excellent idea! Really inventive!
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Hopefully we'll be able to point out some useful resources for you during this course!
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It's a good start, but is the Sun really a ball of fire? Or is it made out of something that looks like fire?
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Welcome!
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Good to have you with us!
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Moons of moons (known as subsatellites or even moonmoons) are technically possible. However to make such as system stable (stay around for a long time without flying out into space or crashing into something else) would require a really lucky orientation of the planet, moon and subsatellite, so they are probably very rare. To date we have not found a...
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Gregory Brown replied to Claire MacLean
I'm not certain if this is the video you are looking for, but it uses a very similar idea. It goes "real-time" at the speed of light from the Sun to Jupiter (45 minutes) passing the other planets on the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AAU_btBN7s
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Gregory Brown replied to M Ludlow
Don't worry! Our videos are intended to be shallow but wide looks at a subject that educators can use as starting point for deeper discussion, rather than a deep dive into a focused topic. We often recommend multiple watches, perhaps at the beginning and end of a module to see what students have learned!
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Gregory Brown replied to Sorcha Keane
We're very glad you liked it!
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Gregory Brown replied to Claire MacLean
That's a really good attempt! Most of these things are covered in the video on the next page. Whether an object in space is round or not is dependent (mostly) on its mass. If it is big enough its own gravity crushes the object into a round-ish shape because gravity pulls in to the centre of the object. If it is small, the rigid forces that makes objects solid...
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Absolutely right!
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That's an excellent way to bring together different disciplines!
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Ahh but the messy bits are the most fun bits!!
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That sounds like an excellent plan! A great fun way to engage your audience.
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An excellent idea!
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It's always good to hear when teaching helps the teacher learn something too!
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Including sometimes the teacher! Always a useful outcome!
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We completely agree with the push for a practical element to science teaching, and we strive to add it in wherever we can. It is worth saying though that this isn't always possible. An engaging and entertaining teacher can make even textbook and lecture-based learning interesting!
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Gregory Brown replied to M Ludlow
Absolutely agreed. Teaching how to think critically and to examine and evaluate evidence is absolutely vital in today's world, as it always has been.
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What you learn in this course should be a great start to that goal!
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A really good answer! One thing you'll learn through this course is that while the Sun is indeed very large, compared to other stars it is actually on the small side!
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It's a lovely answer, and very true! However this activity is looking into how we would describe each of the words above uniquely. Try to think of what the definition of a planet is. How would you distinguish it from a star or a moon for example?
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Excellent start! It's worth looking into exactly how long it takes the Moon to orbit the Earth, as the '28 day' number most people have in their head is a little out!
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Very nice answer!
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@SorchaKeane Welcome! We hope you enjoy the course!
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Welcome! We very much hope we'll be able to build your confidence in teaching science!
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Gregory Brown made a comment
Hello and a warm welcome to the people joining this run of Our Solar System and Beyond: Teaching Primary Science! I'm Greg Brown, one of the educators for this course, and I'll be with you throughout to answer questions and help you through this course. Enjoy!
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Gregory Brown replied to Priyanka Miranda
Absolutely! Despite some fairly major technical hiccups, Rosetta ended up as a hugely successful mission!
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Gregory Brown replied to Kayla Barclay
We hope you have better luck in the future!
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Gregory Brown replied to Priyanka Miranda
We're glad to hear they will be useful!
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Gregory Brown replied to Luna K
We try to put as much humour and as many simple representations of complex topics as we can into these videos and are glad that it appeals!
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Gregory Brown replied to Priyanka Miranda
We're glad you like the videos!
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We are glad that it's helpful!
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Gregory Brown replied to Lara Cipelletti
It's a really good answer!
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An excellent response! The ability to ask questions truly is the mark of a good scientist!
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Ahh that is a universal feeling I'm sure! But it's always worth remembering that there is always more to learn and often students are able to hit upon something any teacher may simply not know!
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Gregory Brown replied to Victoria Paddon
Agreed! There's nothing quite like the look of excitement a student gets when they realise a practical demonstration is on its way!
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Gregory Brown replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
Nice and memorable analogy there! I like it!
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Fantastic aims and aspirations! Thank you for sharing!
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Gregory Brown replied to Amanda W
That experiment sounds great, particularly the smores!
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Hi Victoria! This is a really good answer, however the Sun is actually quite a small star as stars go, with many being far far larger. The largest we've found so far is 2000 times wider than our Sun!
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Hi Andrea, we have some things coming in this course which we hope will help science become a stronger point for you!
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Gregory Brown replied to Luigi Romano
We very much hope we can help!
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Gregory Brown replied to Dr Graham Smith
Great to have you with us! We hope we can help!
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Much of what you've said is correct! It certainly has no life on it, and it isn't always visible to us in part because of its orbit around us. However, is it a planet? There is a word that describes natural objects that orbit around planets, and you've already used it elsewhere in your answer!
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Very nice!
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Excellent description! And I really like the use of the word agglomeration! Unfortunately, an 8 year old might have trouble with it so "collection" or "set" might work better in this context!
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Gregory Brown replied to Mel M
Great to have you with us!
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Gregory Brown made a comment
Hello! I'm Greg, one of the educators for this course! I look forward to speaking with you and helping you enhance your own ability to teach and understand primary science!
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Gregory Brown replied to Leone Shapter
Oxygen was almost entirely a biproduct of life! Very early single-celled organisms produced it (as many continue to do so today)! Interestingly it caused one of the first mass extinctions as early single-celled organisms also found the oxygen that was being produced toxic. So the substance we rely on to live today once wiped out 99.9% of all life on Earth!...
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Gregory Brown replied to Leone Shapter
Wow, I'll give these a go!
The hydrogen came from the Big Bang. Hydrogen is just a proton with an electron around it and all of the protons and electrons in the Univesre were basically made in the first few minutes after the Big Bang.
As gases compress, they get hotter. As long as that heat is trapped in and the cloud of gas is big enough, the centre of...
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Gregory Brown replied to Leone Shapter
We in fact already do many of the things you just suggested! We do have skype chats with students groups (https://www.rmg.co.uk/schools-communities/schools/get-involved) and some of our resources deal with questions like the colours of stars and their temperatures etc. A wider project would be a great idea!
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Dark Energy is one of the most complicated, least understood and in some ways most controversial parts of modern physics. It makes very little sense and yet seems to be necessary. To be clear, it doesn't negate gravity so much as it works against it. The force of gravity is still there, but because of Dark Energy, the various bodies affected by gravity are...
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Gregory Brown replied to Leone Shapter
Very good questions and ones we don't know the answer to. It's worth mentioning it's not entirely accurate to say we think there was nothing before the Big Bang. We often call the Big Bang the "beginning of our Universe", but it would be more accurate to say it's the "beginning of the part of the Universe that we can talk about with any authority". A tiny,...
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Almost perfect in fact! The only tiny thing you got wrong is a really common misconception in science, one that even some scientists make! Believe it or not, it isn't friction that heats meteors up! It's something called ram pressure. The meteorites come into our atmosphere at a vast speed (tens of kilometres per second!!) which is way faster than their...
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Gregory Brown replied to pragati mahajan
Very glad to hear it helped! It is our hope that these videos will be useful not only to students, but also to their teachers and the wider general public!
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Gregory Brown replied to Montserrat Hernandez
Many of them are magnetic that's true, but be careful! While many asteroids have loads of iron, there will always be some that don't!
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Even experts have to admit they don't always know the answers! Trust me on that one!
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Gregory Brown replied to Paula Morton
It's great to have the opportunity to share ideas in a community hub like that! We'll also be pointing you towards some resources of our own later in the course that will hopefully be useful to you!
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It's very true that primary school curricula are often a little short on science topics. There are ways, though, to try and bring in an understanding of science into other areas, treating other classes as stepping off points for scientific discussions. Try mixing an art class and a science class by drawing or painting science-related objects and discussing...
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Nicely done Ava! You are absolutely right!
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Hi Paula, this is a great start to an answer! Just a couple of things to help you along.
While there's nothing wrong with saying they are thousands of miles away, it might interest you to know that they are further than you think! The Sun is the closest star by a long way and it is almost 100 million miles away! The nearest "night-time" star is Proxima...
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Gregory Brown replied to Anne Forbes
Great to have you with us!
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Gregory Brown replied to Shinchan F
Time is....very complicated. Unfortunately there isn't really a simple answer to that question. From a human perspective, time is the progression from one event to another that moves steadily onward from past to future. From a maths and physics perspective, it's a dimension, similar in certain respects to the spatial dimensions (up and down, left and right,...
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Gregory Brown replied to Angela Waterworth
Thanks John, that's absolutely right!
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Gregory Brown replied to Leone Shapter
That's quite the list! Some of these you may find answers to, or help explaining them, later in this course!
