Navigating the Cosmos
Like Duolingo, but for Navigating the Cosmos. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.
Free during early access · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Navigating the Cosmos
- Gravity pulls the satellite in a curve
- Slowing down reduces sideways distance
- Sideways speed prevents hitting the ground
- The fundamental mechanism of orbit
- Losing speed causes a steeper fall
- The effect of atmospheric drag
- Gravity pulls harder on objects that are closer to Earth
- Closer objects must move faster to 'miss' the ground during their fall
- The fundamental mechanism of orbit as a balance of falling and moving sideways
- Specific speeds are required to match the curve of the Earth
- Excessive speed allows an object to overcome Earth's pull entirely
- The relationship between altitude and required orbital speed
- The effect of atmospheric drag on orbital stability
- Predicting outcomes based on changes in sideways velocity
- Orbit is a constant state of falling toward the ground
- Sideways motion must match the rate of the fall
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Navigating the Cosmos the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
If a satellite hits a pocket of thin air and loses speed, what happens to its path?
Get it right to open this lesson and 53 more in the app.
Where Navigating the Cosmos takes you
Move beyond the names of planets and dive into the mechanics of space travel, the life cycles of stars, and the strange behavior of time and gravity in the deep universe.
- 1
Living and Moving in Orbit
- The Constant Fall: How Satellites Stay Up
- Life in Zero Gravity: What Happens to the Body
- Orbital Maneuvers: Changing Lanes in Space
- The Challenge of Re-entry: Managing Heat and Speed
- 2
The Secret Lives of Stars
- Star Nurseries: How Gas Becomes a Sun
- The Balancing Act: Gravity vs. Nuclear Pressure
- Color and Temperature: Reading a Star's Signature
- Supernovas: The Violent End of Massive Stars
- White Dwarfs and Pulsars: What Remains After the Blast
- Stellar Recycling: How We Are Made of Dead Stars
- 3
Extreme Environments and Strange Physics
- Black Holes: The Point of No Return
- Time Dilation: Why Clocks Tick Slower in Space
- Spacetime: The Fabric That Bends and Stretches
- 4
Mapping the Deep Universe
- Galactic Neighborhoods: Clusters and Superclusters
- The Expanding Balloon: How the Universe Grows
- Dark Matter: The Invisible Glue of Galaxies
- Cosmic Background: The Echo of the Beginning
- The Great Filter: Why We Haven't Found Neighbors Yet
4 sections · 18 units · 54 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Navigating the Cosmos is taught in the The Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Navigating the Cosmos today.
Download Tomo, search Navigating the Cosmos, and play your first lesson in under a minute.