I never really thought about the possibility of winning until it was down to the last two, at which point I found myself rather nervous and hoping to beat my DJ/scientist competitor Martin. Never before have I been glued to a twitter feed, so thanks for your support.

Given that my science is almost always funded by the public, my original hope was not really to win, but I hoped that by participating I could give a little back to enthuse the next generation about science. I got a kick out of (almost) every question, whether it was some kind of convoluted Back-to-the-Future-like time travel scenario, or wonderment at why our Moon should exist when Venus doesn’t have one (the answer is that we don’t know, but because it’s science, we have some ideas!). So never stop asking questions, even the silly ones, since that’s what science is all about.

I thought a good use of the prize money would be to make some time-lapse movies of what it’s like to go observing at a telescope, by buying a camera for our institute that astronomers can take away with them. I’ve spent some time checking out cameras already, but like all good research it takes time… I have a trip to Hawaii in May, so I should be ready to go by then!

Cheers

Grant