Astronomer Dr Rok Nežič talks outreach, scientific value and why we’re all comets if you think about it.
The science advocacy group, Science Europe, succinctly explains the value of scientific communication and outreach programmes: “the science doesn’t speak for itself”.
As such, science communicators can bridge the gap between the experts and the people who might benefit from their scientific breakthroughs. Good science communication, argues Science Europe, can strengthen the role of science in tackling societal challenges.
There’s also the issue of misinformation. In our hyper-digital age, fake news and misinformation can go viral before the facts have had time to put on their proverbial shoes. Recent elections and the Covid-19 pandemic are often-cited examples of this phenomenon in action. The recent rapid rise of generative AI text and image tools has made the process of sorting fact from fiction that bit more challenging still.
In this era of digital distrust, the job of communicating science to the public has never been more urgent. Speaking to SiliconRepublic.com, astronomer Dr Rok Nežič explains why space is a great entry-point for engaging people’s scientific curiosity.
Getting into outer space
“Space has an unfair advantage [in science education],” Nežič says, because of the cool pictures and ideas and numbers that will blow your mind.
“I say unfair advantage; but of course, I rather enjoy talking about it.”
Nežič is tours and outreach officer at Armagh Observatory and Planetarium. It was during his PhD in astrophysics, which he undertook jointly with Armagh and University College London, that he started engaging in outreach activities – helping with events at the Planetarium.
He soon realised outreach was something he really enjoyed, so after completing his PhD, he began to do it full time.
Surprisingly for an astronomer, Nežič does not and never has owned a telescope. Of course, he has access to sophisticated telescopes to conduct his research, but astronomy was not his great love growing up.
“Space was just one of the many things that I was interested in as a kid. I wasn’t committed to being an astronomer from an early age,” he says. His love for space was more of a slow burn than a big bang, you might say.
Now, though, he gets to share his passion for space every day with a variety of audiences. A lot of his work is with children; he takes a portable dome to schools to showcase beautiful images of the cosmos as his talks.
To give a successful talk, it’s important to gauge the level of your audience, Nežič advises. “The interesting challenge is to explain things in a sensible way,” he says. “I enjoy getting the right level of explanation.”
“One thing I really don’t want to do – I don’t want to dumb it down too much. Obviously, things need to be simplified sometimes … but I don’t want to assume the audience doesn’t know anything and just explain the basic things.”
And he always tries to leave time for questions. “That’s when things get interesting,” he says, “because you can learn more about what they’re thinking, what they already know, what they think they know …”
Common question he gets include: How does an astronaut live in space? Will you tell us the history of the Earth? What are black holes?
“They’re all really good jumping off points to have interesting conversations,” Nežič says.
Science is never finished
Nežič also gets asked a lot why Pluto isn’t a planet. “The kids even these days are still very keen on Pluto,” he says.
“You can take that opportunity to say, by the way, it’s just kind of what we decided, it’s not that Pluto is any different than it was before, it’s just that we had to make a choice [about how to categorise planets].”
Similarly, when he’s asked about Jupiter’s moons, he can explain that more were discovered recently. These questions and answers illustrate that discoveries are being made all the time and there is still so much we don’t know.
“Things are still changing in space; it’s not all set in stone.” Nežič finds this encouraging – that it’s not just one fact and that’s the end. Though he’s quick to emphasise that “there are facts and they are well established”.
“It’s good for people to get an appreciation of the fact that the science is not finished. There is still research happening,” he says.
“Science is a process – it’s never quite finished.”
Speaking of process, Nežič took the time to explain some of his own research.
His PhD examined the dust in the tails of comets to gain a better understanding of the composition of the comets themselves.
Using data gathered from the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission, Nežič analsyed the way that light bounces off the comet dust to decipher the mineral properties and structure of the dust. This involved quite complicated computer simulations, he says, with one of his colleagues using a NASA supercomputer that just about managed the work she was doing.
Comets are made up of ice and rocks. They range in size from a few to tens of kilometres across, though they are usually less than 16km across.
They get their distinctive tail because dust and gases stream away from the nucleus or core of the comet when it gets close to the sun.
“But, really, anything if you bring it close enough to a star will turn into a comet in the sense that it will sublimate [change from solid to gas] and fall to bits because it’s so hot,” Nežič says. “If I went close to the sun, I would also turn into a comet very quickly.”
Even though his time is largely taken up with the day job now, Nežič tries to keep his foot in research because he enjoys it, but also because he thinks it’s good to keep his knowledge up to date for the work that he does. “It’s good to have a grasp of what’s happening,” he says.
The value of science
As a scientist and science communicator, it’s unsurprising that Nežič thinks there is “great value in just knowing things about the world and about the universe we live in”.
His outreach is a way to bring space ‘down to Earth’ by “encouraging curiosity and a scientific outlook on the world”.
It gives people the opportunity to explore the world around them through curiosity, he says. “It doesn’t have to be in a formal way necessarily, but just kind of encouraging that, that’s a thing that you can do – you can be excited about something and look more into it and that’s it and that’s fine and that’s actually good and that you can do that.”
Of course, in any discussion of value the issue of funding emerges. One question that Nežič gets asks is why astronomy should be funded over other things. Working in a field as theoretical as astrophysics, this is an issue he has thought a lot about. In his opinion, it shouldn’t have to be one or the other.
As he sees it, research budgets are tiny and yet the rewards, monetary and otherwise, far outweigh the spending.
A report by Frontier Economics estimates a 20pc return on public investment in research. However, this include the caveat that some returns are “extremely challenging to quantify” such as research with societal benefits that are hard to measure or put a value on, and the long-term benefits of supporting early-career researchers.
An obvious example, Nežič says, is the US budget. In 2020, NASA received 0.3pc of the US budget, while 13pc was spent of defence. Funding for NASA peaked during the ‘space race’ in 1964 at more than $65bn, whereas last year it was $25bn, an ‘astronomical’ dip in real terms. Yet, Nežič argues, the US is still reaping the rewards of those early Apollo missions to this day.
Another example is the need for research into the climate crisis. “You can both be excited about space and invest in a sustainable future,” Nežič argues. He is very diplomatic on the question of private space exploration but concedes that the idea of colonising another planet in the next 50 or 60 years is probably a waste of time because you would have to do so much to make it habitable.
“It probably is more worth it to make it more habitable here on Earth.”
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