Scott Park Manley (born 31 December 1972) is a Scottish

YouTube personality A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influent ...

gamer A gamer is a proactive hobbyist who plays interactive games, especially video games, tabletop role-playing games, and skill-based card games, and who plays for usually long periods of time. Some gamers are competitive, meaning they routinely ...

programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

, astrophysicist and DJ. On his YouTube channel, he makes videos discussing space-related topics and news, mainly concerning up-to-date rocket science developments. He also plays space-themed

video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

, usually ''

Kerbal Space Program ''Kerbal Space Program'' (''KSP'') is a space flight simulation video game developed by Mexican developer Squad for Microsoft Windows, macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system de ...

'', while he explains much of the science involved. He uses his scientific background to help teach science while playing games. He is known among his followers as the "astronogamer", as he is one of the few YouTubers blending both video games and science, and is popular in the niche community of space enthusiasts and gamers, especially the ''Kerbal Space Program'' community.

Education and professional career

While studying at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

, Manley received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

(1990–1994) in physics and astronomy, and a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

(1994–1995) in computational physics. In 2002, he worked as an engineer for

Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Shawn ...

. From 2002 to 2004, he worked as a research engineer for

Qualys Qualys, Inc. provides cloud security, compliance and related services and is based in Foster City, California. Qualys provides vulnerability management solutions using a "software as a service" (SaaS) model. It has added cloud-based compliance an ...

. From 2004 to 2009, he worked as a security architect in

imeem The online service imeem was a social media website where users interacted with each other by Streaming media, streaming, uploading and sharing music and music videos. It operated from 2003 until 2009 when it was shut down after being acquired by ...

, where he developed and maintained an audio and video uploading, transcoding, and fingerprinting system, among other things. Manley is currently employed at

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

He joined

Topsy Labs Topsy Labs was a social search and analytics company based in San Francisco, California. The company was a certified Twitter partner and maintained a comprehensive index of tweets, numbering in the hundreds of billions, dating back to Twitter's i ...

in 2009 and in 2013, Apple acquired Topsy.

YouTube career

Manley's first few uploads on his YouTube channel, "szyzyg", were assorted home movies that were primarily of his daughter, Skye. A video titled "Asteroid Discovery From 1980 - 2010" was one of Manley's early YouTube successes. The video is a computer animation showing a time-lapse of the Solar System from 1980-2010. When the time-lapse reaches the day an

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

is discovered, it appears on the map as a bright green dot and continues orbiting the sun. The video amassed over 459,000 views in the five days following its upload. By September 3, 2010, the szyzyg channel had 213 subscribers, earning Manley the accolade "#66 - Most Viewed (This Week)". Scott Manley face

Some time before November 23, 2011, he changed the name of his YouTube channel to "Scott Manley". Scott's later successes came from gaming content, specifically videos about ''

'', a spaceflight simulator with accurate Newtonian physics. ''Kerbal Space Program'' is a sandbox game featuring players constructing rockets out of prefabricated parts, attempting to launch them into orbit and explore the solar system of Kerbin. The game has a very steep learning curve due to the accurate Newtonian physics engine. Scott used his scientific background to make tutorial videos on basic gameplay, such as how to reach Kerbin orbit. Later, Manley would go on to play other games such as ''

Elite Dangerous ''Elite Dangerous'' is a space flight simulation game developed and published by Frontier Developments. The player takes the role of a pilot (colloquially referred to as "Commander" or "CMDR") of a spaceship, and explores a realistic 1:1 scale, ...

'', ''

EVE Online ''Eve Online'' (stylised ''EVE Online'') is a space-based, persistent world massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by CCP Games. Players of ''Eve Online'' can participate in a number of in-game profess ...

'', and ''

Surviving Mars ''Surviving Mars'' is a City building game, city building Survival game, survival video game initially developed by the Bulgarian studio Haemimont Games, and later by Abstraction Games, and published by Paradox Interactive. It was released on Mic ...

'', approaching them from his unique professional science perspective. Around 2018, Manley slowly transitioned away from gaming content, and began focusing heavily on the

history of spaceflight Spaceflight began in the 20th century following theoretical and practical breakthroughs by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert H. Goddard, and Hermann Oberth. First successful large-scale rocket programs were initiated in the 1920s Germany by Frit ...

and current events in the industry. As of 2022, these subjects are his current main focus, alongside regular Q&A videos submitted by his patrons on

Patreon Patreon (, ) is a membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service. It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers. Patreon charges a co ...

. Manley still streams games weekly on

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...

under the name "Szyzyg". Author

Anne McCaffrey Anne Inez McCaffrey (1 April 1926 – 21 November 2011) was an American-Irish writer known for the ''Dragonriders of Pern'' science fiction series. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction (Best Novella, ''Weyr Search'', 19 ...

consulted with Manley on the effects of asteroid impacts while writing ''

The Skies of Pern ''The Skies of Pern'' is a science fiction novel by the American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey. It was the sixteenth book published in the ''Dragonriders of Pern'' series by Anne or her son Todd McCaffrey. ''The Skies of Pern'' was first publish ...

''. Manley determined the orbit of a fictional rogue comet and provided advice on how the event should be portrayed. Manley was one of the original participants of

Asteroid Day __NOTOC__ Asteroid Day (also known as International Asteroid Day) is an annual global event which is held on June 30, the anniversary of the Tunguska event in 1908 when a meteor air burst levelled about of forest in Siberia, Russia. Asteroid ...

, was a keynote speaker at the launch in 2015, and hosted their regular "Asteroid Update" segments. He is credited as a consultant on the Netflix movie ''

Stowaway A stowaway or clandestine traveller is a person who secretly boards a vehicle, such as a ship, an aircraft, a train, cargo truck or bus. Sometimes, the purpose is to get from one place to another without paying for transportation. In other cas ...

'' (directed by

Joe Penna Jônatas "Joe" de Moura Penna (born May 29, 1987) is a Brazilian musician and filmmaker best known from both his YouTube channel MysteryGuitarMan and his feature films. He resides in Los Angeles, California. YouTube Penna maintains the YouTub ...

). In Penna's appearance on ''Corridor Cast'', he said Manley would go beyond the immediate needs of the script and that he 'did the math so it would be ready'.

Asteroid named after Scott Manley

In recognition for his work as a popular science communicator, asteroid 33434 Scottmanley was named after him. The official was published by the

Minor Planet Center The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Function ...

on 18 May 2019 (). The outer

main-belt asteroid The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

was discovered by astronomers with the OCA–DLR Asteroid Survey in 1999. It is a member of the stony

Koronis family ] The Koronis or Koronian family (), also known as the Lacrimosa family, is a very large asteroid family of S-type asteroid, stony asteroids, located in the Kirkwood gap, outer region of the asteroid belt. They are thought to have been formed at le ...

and measures approximately 4.6 kilometers in diameter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Manley, Scott 1972 births Living people Alumni of the University of Glasgow British astrophysicists British computer programmers British musicians Educational and science YouTubers Gaming YouTubers Male bloggers Male YouTubers People from Troon Science communicators Scottish DJs Scottish engineers Scottish expatriates in the United States Scottish game players Scottish YouTubers Video bloggers Video game commentators