Navigating the Solar System
Like Duolingo, but for Navigating the Solar System. 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.
A short one: 11 levels across 2 sections, about 22 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Moving Through the Void and The Mechanics of the Neighborhood. It assumes you already know the basics.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Navigating the Solar System
- Orbiting is falling toward a planet while moving sideways fast enough to miss it
- Pointing 'up' away from Earth is inefficient compared to accelerating forward
- Gravity constantly pulls objects down regardless of their forward speed
- A prograde burn increases speed to 'stretch' the orbit's opposite side upward
- Horizontal velocity is what prevents the 'fall' from hitting the surface
- A second burn at the highest point is needed to circularize the new orbit
- The relationship between horizontal velocity and falling in a stable orbit
- The process of raising an orbital altitude using a Hohmann Transfer
- LEO satellites move very fast and stay close for detailed photography
- GEO satellites orbit at the same rate Earth rotates to stay over one spot
- Altitude determines both the 'view' size and the speed required to stay up
- A planet's gravity pulls a craft along its own orbital path during a flyby
- The craft leaves the encounter with more energy than it had when it entered
- Gravity assists are essential for reaching outer planets without massive fuel tanks
- The tradeoffs between LEO and GEO orbits for specific mission goals
- How gravity assists change a spacecraft's velocity relative to the Sun
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 Solar System 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 you want to move to a higher orbit, which direction is the most efficient way to burn your engines?
Get it right to open this lesson and 10 more in the app.
Where Navigating the Solar System takes you
Move beyond basic planet names to understand the orbital mechanics, solar weather, and gravitational dances that define our cosmic neighborhood.
- 1
Moving Through the Void
- The Art of the Orbit
- Surviving the Solar Wind
- 2
The Mechanics of the Neighborhood
- How Star Systems Form
- Deep Space Detection
2 sections · 4 units · 11 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Navigating the Solar System 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 Solar System today.
Download Tomo, search Navigating the Solar System, and play your first lesson in under a minute.