ScienceThe StorytellerBeginner
Our Cosmic Neighborhood course icon

Our Cosmic Neighborhood

Like Duolingo, but for Our Cosmic Neighborhood. 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.

8 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Cosmo the Comet
Our Cosmic Neighborhood
with Cosmo the Comet
8
Levels
2
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in Our Cosmic Neighborhood

  • The Sun holds nearly all the matter in the solar system
  • Gravity acts as a constant inward pull that prevents planets from drifting away
  • The planets are tiny in comparison to the Sun's massive scale
  • Without a tethering force, objects in motion continue traveling in a straight line into space
  • Orbits require a specific speed to counteract the Sun's inward pull
  • How gravity functions as a tether for planetary motion
  • Falling into the Sun is the result of gravity winning over forward momentum
  • Liquid water is a requirement for life as we know it
  • The Sun's dominance of mass in the solar system
  • A planet's distance from its star determines if water stays liquid rather than freezing or boiling away
  • The relationship between speed, gravity, and orbital outcomes
  • The four planets closest to the Sun are small and made of rock
  • The four planets furthest from the Sun are giants made mostly of gas and liquid
  • Distinguishing between the rocky inner planets and the gas giant outer planets
  • A thick atmosphere traps heat like a heavy blanket
  • The definition and requirement of the Goldilocks Zone
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives Our Cosmic Neighborhood 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.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

The Master of the House

Imagine the Earth is a ball on a string being spun in a circle. What force acts as the invisible 'string' keeping us close?

Get it right to open this lesson and 7 more in the app.

Course map

Where Our Cosmic Neighborhood takes you

Get to know the planets, stars, and the invisible forces that hold our universe together in this quick guide to the night sky.

  1. 1

    Our Local Block

    • The Sun and the Pull of Gravity
    • The Eight Neighbors
  2. 2

    The Wider Universe

    • The Secret Life of Stars

2 sections · 3 units · 8 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

How it's taught

You pick the voice

This course
The Storyteller

Our Cosmic Neighborhood is taught in the The Storyteller style: every lesson is a story. 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.

Start free

Start Our Cosmic Neighborhood today.

Download Tomo, search Our Cosmic Neighborhood, and play your first lesson in under a minute.