“How do they know that about space?”

Presented by NASA Ambassador Frank O’Brien

Sunday July 27th, 2025
2:00 PM

InfoAge Space Exploration Center and Observatory
2300 Marconi Road
Wall, NJ 07719

Every day, we are treated with amazing reports of discoveries in space. We know about the makeup of planets and comets, distances to the stars and galaxies, and even the crops on Earth without ever needing to visit them. Just *how* do we know this? In most cases, the concepts are decades if not hundreds of years old, but only now has technology allowed us to measure things in great detail.

This will be a hands-on, interactive talk targeted for middle school and above students. We will leverage topics taught in those grades to explain how we can know so much about places we’ve never been. And we will answer the common question, “Why are you weightless in space? What you will learn will surprise and delight you..