Tour the solar system from home
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0:01 - 0:05As a kid, I was fascinated with all things air and space.
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0:05 - 0:08I would watch Nova on PBS.
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0:08 - 0:11Our school would show Bill Nye the Science Guy.
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0:11 - 0:15When I was in elementary school, my next door neighbor,
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0:15 - 0:17he gave me a book for my birthday.
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0:17 - 0:18It was an astronomy book,
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0:18 - 0:21and I poured over that thing for hours on end,
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0:21 - 0:23and it was a combination of all these things
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0:23 - 0:27that inspired me to pursue space exploration
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0:27 - 0:31as my own personal dream, and part of that dream was,
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0:31 - 0:34I always wanted to just fly around the solar system
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0:34 - 0:37and visit different planets and visit moons and spacecraft.
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0:37 - 0:42Well, a number of years later, I graduated from UCLA
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0:42 - 0:44and I found myself at NASA,
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0:44 - 0:46working for the jet propulsion laboratory,
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0:46 - 0:49and there our team was challenged
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0:49 - 0:53to create a 3D visualization of the solar system,
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0:53 - 0:57and today I want to show you what we've done so far.
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0:57 - 1:01Now, the kicker is, everything I'm about to do here
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1:01 - 1:05you can do at home, because we built this
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1:05 - 1:07for the public for you guys to use.
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1:07 - 1:09So what you're looking at right now is the Earth.
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1:09 - 1:11You can see the United States and California
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1:11 - 1:14and San Diego, and you can use the mouse
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1:14 - 1:16or the keyboard to spin things around.
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1:16 - 1:19Now, this isn't new. Anyone who's used Google Earth
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1:19 - 1:22has seen this before, but one thing we like to say
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1:22 - 1:26in our group is, we do the opposite of Google Earth.
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1:26 - 1:30Google Earth goes from this view down to your backyard.
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1:30 - 1:34We go from this view out to the stars.
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1:34 - 1:37So the Earth is cool, but what we really want to show
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1:37 - 1:39are the spacecraft,
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1:39 - 1:41so I'm going to bring the interface back up,
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1:41 - 1:44and now you're looking at a number of satellites
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1:44 - 1:45orbiting the Earth.
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1:45 - 1:48These are a number of our science space Earth orbiters.
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1:48 - 1:51We haven't included military satellites and weather satellites
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1:51 - 1:53and communication satellites and reconnaissance satellites.
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1:53 - 1:55If we did, it would be a complete mess,
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1:55 - 1:57because there's a lot of stuff out there.
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1:57 - 2:01And the cool thing is, we actually created 3D models
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2:01 - 2:04for a number of these spacecraft, so if you want to visit
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2:04 - 2:07any of these, all you need to do is double-click on them.
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2:07 - 2:11So I'm going to find the International Space Station,
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2:11 - 2:16double-click, and it will take us all the way down to the ISS.
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2:16 - 2:18And now you're riding along with the ISS
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2:18 - 2:21where it is right now.
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2:21 - 2:23And the other cool thing is, not only can we
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2:23 - 2:26move the camera around, we can also control time,
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2:26 - 2:29so I can slide this jog dial here
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2:29 - 2:31to shuttle time forward, and now
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2:31 - 2:35we can see what a sunset on the ISS would look like,
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2:35 - 2:41and they get one every 90 minutes. (Laughter)
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2:41 - 2:43All right, so what about the rest of it?
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2:43 - 2:46Well, I can click on this home button over here,
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2:46 - 2:49and that will take us up to the inner solar system,
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2:49 - 2:51and now we're looking at the rest of the solar system.
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2:51 - 2:54You can see, there's Saturn, there's Jupiter,
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2:54 - 2:57and while we're here, I want to point out something.
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2:57 - 2:59It's actually pretty busy.
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2:59 - 3:01Here we have the Mars Science Laboratory
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3:01 - 3:04on its way to Mars, just launched last weekend.
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3:04 - 3:08Here we have Juno on its cruise to Jupiter, there.
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3:08 - 3:10We have Dawn orbiting Vesta,
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3:10 - 3:12and we have over here New Horizons
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3:12 - 3:14on a straight shot to Pluto.
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3:14 - 3:16And I mention this because
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3:16 - 3:19there's this strange public perception that
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3:19 - 3:22NASA's dead, that the space shuttles stopped flying
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3:22 - 3:24and all of the sudden there's no more spacecraft out there.
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3:24 - 3:29Well, a lot of what NASA does is robotic exploration,
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3:29 - 3:32and we have a lot of spacecraft out there.
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3:32 - 3:34Granted, we're not sending humans up at the moment,
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3:34 - 3:37well at least with our own launch vehicles,
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3:37 - 3:39but NASA is far from dead,
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3:39 - 3:42and one of the reasons why we write a program like this
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3:42 - 3:45is so that people realize that there's so many other things
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3:45 - 3:46that we're doing.
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3:46 - 3:48Anyway, while we're here, again,
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3:48 - 3:50if you want to visit anything,
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3:50 - 3:52all you need to do is double-click.
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3:52 - 3:55So I'm just going to double-click on Vesta,
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3:55 - 3:59and here we have Dawn orbiting Vesta,
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3:59 - 4:01and this is happening right now.
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4:01 - 4:05I'm going to double-click on Uranus, and we can see
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4:05 - 4:08Uranus rotating on its side along with its moons.
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4:08 - 4:12You can see how it's tilted at about 89 degrees.
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4:12 - 4:16And just being able to visit different places
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4:16 - 4:17and go through different times,
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4:17 - 4:21we have data from 1950 to 2050.
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4:21 - 4:23Granted, we don't have everything in between,
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4:23 - 4:25because some of the data is hard to get.
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4:25 - 4:28Just being able to visit places in different times,
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4:28 - 4:32you can explore this for hours,
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4:32 - 4:34literally hours on end,
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4:34 - 4:37but I want to show you one thing in particular,
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4:37 - 4:39so I'm going to open up the destination tab,
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4:39 - 4:43spacecraft outer planet missions, Voyager 1,
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4:43 - 4:46and I'm going to bring up the Titan flyby.
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4:46 - 4:49So now we've gone back in time.
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4:49 - 4:51We're now riding along with Voyager 1.
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4:51 - 4:55The date here is November 11, 1980.
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4:55 - 4:57Now, there's a funny thing going on here.
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4:57 - 4:59It doesn't look like anything's going on.
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4:59 - 5:01It looks like I've paused the program.
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5:01 - 5:04It's actually running at real rate right now,
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5:04 - 5:06one second per second, and in fact,
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5:06 - 5:09Voyager 1 here is flying by Titan at
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5:09 - 5:13I think it's 38,000 miles per hour.
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5:13 - 5:16It only looks like nothing's moving because, well,
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5:16 - 5:19Saturn here is 700,000 miles away,
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5:19 - 5:22and Titan here is 4,000 to 5,000 miles away.
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5:22 - 5:26It's just the vastness of space makes it look like nothing's happening.
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5:26 - 5:27But to make it more interesting,
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5:27 - 5:30I'm going to speed up time, and we can watch
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5:30 - 5:33as Voyager 1 flies by Titan,
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5:33 - 5:35which is a hazy moon of Saturn.
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5:35 - 5:38It actually has a very thick atmosphere.
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5:38 - 5:41And I'm going to recenter the camera on Saturn, here.
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5:41 - 5:45I'm going to pull out, and I want to show you
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5:45 - 5:48Voyager 1 as it flies by Saturn.
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5:48 - 5:50There's a point to be made here.
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5:50 - 5:53With a 3D visualization like this,
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5:53 - 5:57we can not only just say Voyager 1 flew by Saturn.
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5:57 - 5:58There's a whole story to tell here.
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5:58 - 6:01And even better, because it's an interactive application,
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6:01 - 6:03you can tell the story for yourself.
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6:03 - 6:05If you want to pause it, you can pause it.
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6:05 - 6:07If you want to keep going, if you want to change
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6:07 - 6:09the camera angle, you can do that,
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6:09 - 6:12and because of that, I can show you
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6:12 - 6:14that Voyager 1 doesn't just fly by Saturn.
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6:14 - 6:18It actually flies underneath Saturn.
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6:18 - 6:22Now, what happens is, as it flies underneath Saturn,
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6:22 - 6:25Saturn grabs it gravitationally and flings it up
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6:25 - 6:27and out of the solar system,
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6:27 - 6:30so if I just keep letting this go,
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6:30 - 6:35you can see Voyager 1 fly up like that.
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6:35 - 6:37And, in fact, I'm going to go back to the solar system.
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6:37 - 6:40I'm going to go back to today, now,
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6:40 - 6:43and I want to show you where Voyager 1 is.
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6:43 - 6:48Right there, above, way above the solar system,
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6:48 - 6:50way beyond our solar system.
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6:50 - 6:53And here's the thing. Now you know how it got there.
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6:53 - 6:55Now you know why, and to me,
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6:55 - 6:56that's the point of this program.
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6:56 - 7:00You can manipulate it yourself.
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7:00 - 7:03You can fly around yourself and you can learn for yourself.
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7:03 - 7:07You know, the theme today is "The World In Your Grasp."
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7:07 - 7:08Well, we're trying to give you
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7:08 - 7:10the solar system in your grasp — (Laughter) —
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7:10 - 7:11and we hope once it's there,
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7:11 - 7:13you'll be able to learn for yourself
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7:13 - 7:16what we've done out there, and what we're about to do.
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7:16 - 7:19And my personal dream is for kids to take this
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7:19 - 7:22and explore and see the wonders out there
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7:22 - 7:25and be inspired, as I was as a kid,
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7:25 - 7:26to pursue STEM education
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7:26 - 7:29and to pursue a dream in space exploration.
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7:29 - 7:32Thank you. (Applause)
- Title:
- Tour the solar system from home
- Speaker:
- Jon Nguyen
- Description:
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Want to navigate the solar system without having to buy that expensive spacecraft? Jon Nguyen demos NASAJPL's "Eyes on the Solar System" -- free-to-use software for exploring the planets, moons, asteroids, and spacecraft that rotate around our sun in real-time. (Filmed at TEDxSanDiego.)
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 07:33
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Tour the solar system from home | ||
Darren Bridenbeck (Amara Staff) approved English subtitles for Tour the solar system from home | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Tour the solar system from home | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Tour the solar system from home | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Tour the solar system from home | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Tour the solar system from home | ||
Joseph Geni added a translation |