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Hello, this is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Sam.

And I'm Rob.

Once in a while, a long comes a scientist who captures the public imagination

and communicates their passion for science in an exciting and understandable way.

In this programme, we'll be meeting one of America's best known popular scientists,

astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson. He's a man with a gift for communicating and inspiring people

with his television shows and books on cosmology, the study of the origin and nature of the universe.

In his day job, he runs the Hayden Planetarium in New York's American Museum of Natural History.

But Neil's real mission is to encourage scientific thinking among the American public.

We'll be hearing from the famous astronomer and learning some new vocabulary soon.

But first, I have a question for you, Sam.

Science is ever-changing, with new discoveries updating our understanding all the time.

For centuries, the Earth was thought to be the centre of the universe.

But who was the first astronomer to have the correct idea that, in fact,

the Earth and the planets revolve around the Sun?

Was it A, Nikolaus Copernicus, B, Isaac Newton, or C, Galileo Galilei?

Hmm, I'll say it was C, Galileo.

Okay, Sam, I'll reveal the correct answer later in the programme.

Recent events, like the Covid pandemic and climate crisis,

have put scientists under pressure from critics motivated by political views.

...