[Music]
I remember sitting on a couch and my
grandmother’s living room I’m with my
mom who is what I call a notice her she
was always looking for and drawing my
attention to interesting things in the
world on this one stormy summer evening
she’s got the front door propped wide
open and all the lights turned off in
the house so that we can watch the
blowing rumbling chaos outside suddenly
there is this blinding flash as
lightning strikes the base of a tree
just 30 or so feet directly in front of
the house my mom gets super excited
shakes my shoulders and points at the
trees saying wow look Tracy there it
she made me feel like we were so lucky
to get to see such a crazy thing it made
me feel alive and it made me want to
learn everything there was to know about
lightning children are natural little
wonder sponges have you ever watched a
small child who has just discovered
something new a Firefly or a shiny rock
or an iridescent skim of oil on a puddle
of water you can see the way their
attention narrows in on that thing with
a laser focus as they get closer to
absorb all the details they touch it
smell it turn it over
blink and surprise as they discover even
more unexpected details and if they’re
old enough to talk they will pepper you
a question after question what is this
why is it that color what is that part
to you and they seem to feel this rich
deep sense of satisfaction if you can
answer those questions or help them
figure out how to find the answers for
themselves when you think about it
children are dropped into a world filled
with so many things that are brand-new
to them so learning and exploring are a
natural part of everyday life but it
also seems to be the purest fun think of
all the kids you’ve met who are obsessed
with learning every last thing about
dinosaurs
or exotic animals or outerspace show any
kid something new or unusual like a
magic trick where an object does
something they don’t expect it to do and
you get to watch their little faces
light up with curiosity and joy as they
lean in to see more maybe we come
hardwired to like exploring and learning
because those primitive humans who are
most eager to explore their environment
survived and thrive better than the
others but somewhere along the way we
seem to lose this insatiable curiosity
or it gets toned way down starting
somewhere around our high school years
we seem to get overwhelmed with all the
things we have to do and are responsible
for both this school and at home
maybe we’re not allowed to study what
we’re interested in and so learning in
general gets acquainted with drudgery
and then as adults we get even more
bogged down under the pressures I’m a
new chef everyday life that we just fall
into a routine we get up we go to work
we come home do some chores throw in a
little mindless entertainment because
we’re too tired to do anything else
go to bed rinse and repeat the next day
we can wind up just sticking to what we
know and stop noticing and delighting in
those unusual intriguing little things
that surround us every day so how can we
avoid that how can we and the people
around us rekindle that sense of
curiosity in the ninth grade I was on a
trip with some students to a math
competition
it was Kentucky and in the wintertime
that means a lot of the hills that the
roads cut through are adorned with these
huge icicles I happen to say out loud
that I always wanted to touch one of
them and my math teacher who was driving
glanced at me in the rearview mirror and
pulled the van right over I was shocked
it seemed to be kind of against the
rules to just stop your car on the
shoulder of a freeway but she just did
it it also seemed to be against the
rules to pause in the middle of what you
were doing and go off exploring
something off the beaten path just
because it looked cool but she shooed me
and the rest of the kids out of the van
and encouraged us to go touch an icicle
break one off and bring it back to the
band so she
can see it too I can still feel the cold
shape of it in my hand see the little
flecks of soil that had frozen inside it
smell the fresh watery earthy scent of
it and I know that that experience
embedded in me a deep sense of
permission to not just pay attention to
the world around me but to go out and
explore it to reach out and touch it
curiosity played a major role in setting
the path in my life I’ve always been
fascinated by space I remember the first
time I learned the theory of how the
solar system formed and being really
surprised that people could look up at
the sky and gather enough clues to piece
together an explanation for a phenomenon
on such a grand scale I remember the
first time I learned how big the Sun is
that you could fit 1.3 million earths
inside it if the earth were the size of
a golf ball
the Sun would be 15 feet across and it
is stupendously far away 93 million
miles away that’s enough to circle the
Earth three thousand seven hundred times
if you were to try to drive that far
even going 100 miles an hour it would
take you 106 years to do so yeah I
remember sitting in a parked car at
night
leaning my head against the window
looking up at the stars and trying to
really feel the earth rotating turning
me towards different stars you can’t
really feel it but it’s fun to try and
trying to fit inside my brain the fact
that each of those tiny pinpricks of
light is an entire Sun like ours so much
smaller but some massively bigger all of
that made me feel like an incredibly
small speck and an enormous universe but
in a wonderful way like look at all of
that out there just begging to be
explored and we get to be alive in a
time when we’re learning so much about
it in high school
I decided I wanted to work for NASA
because I couldn’t resist the pull of
space and I thought that a career
involving space exploration would keep
me interested for decades now I love
that in my job as a NASA engineer
helping to develop deep-space missions I
still get to indulge my curiosity my
role as an engineer on missions to Mars
Jupiter and now an asteroid I have given
me great excuses to learn more about all
of those things and have reinforced the
fact that maintaining a healthy sense of
curiosity makes me better at my job it
also keeps my job fun I still get those
little jolt of excitement from learning
new things that I remember from my
childhood for example I bet you all
recognize this picture right this is
Jupiter you know it has the great red
spots and all of these dark and light
bands of clouds until Juno arrived in
the summer of 2016
no other spacecraft had taken close-up
detailed images of the north and south
pole and so the scientists and all the
rest of us were eagerly awaiting the
first polar images and this is what they
saw this is Jupiter South Pole you can
see it is really different from the rest
the planet the colors are a little
enhanced here but it truly is a bit more
blue and purple at the poles and it’s
got this soup of storms
now since only half the hemisphere is in
sunlight at one time this image is
actually three pictures taken at
different times and then stitched
together so which you can’t see here is
that the central storm is surrounded by
five hauntingly evenly spaced storms
which you can see here this is that same
image in infrared Wow right here the
colors just represent differences in
temperature it’s all still very very
cold but the lighter areas are where
it’s relatively warmer and darker is
where it’s colder and these kinds of
images you can really see this stunning
atmospheric structure
this one is the North Pole with 8 storms
surrounding that central storm in this
amazing symmetric pattern I happen to be
in the room when the team that generated
these images shared their first ones
with all the rest of the scientists on
the Juno mission in the entire room
burst into spontaneous applause
you can almost taste how excited
everyone was to have uncovered such
unusual surprising complex beautiful
features on this planet how awesome is
it that we puny humans can ask a
question about Jupiter and then launch a
spacecraft on a journey of hundreds of
millions of miles and actually get an
answer now
the scientists get to go figure out what
in the world is going on to set up these
kinds of crazy patterns in the Jovian
atmosphere one of the coolest things
about science is once you get an answer
to one question that often gives rise to
new more interesting more complex
questions to answer
science it’s the gift that keeps on
giving finally we have an artist concept
of an asteroid called psyche scientists
think that based on things like the way
it reflects sunlight how it heats up and
cools down as it rotates that it is
probably 90% metal and the leading
hypothesis for how it formed was that
billions of years ago when the solar
system was forming this asteroid
gathered enough mass to get big enough
to heat up enough so that it’s metal
melted and sank toward the middle and
then it had a series of collisions with
other things that knocked all the rocky
outsides off leaving behind and exposed
irregularly-shaped nickel iron core 173
miles in length at its biggest point it
is literally the naked heart of a proto
planet what was such a thing look like
if it froze from the outside in then as
a metal cooled it would shrink and crack
maybe leaving huge vertical cliffs miles
and miles in length
and the craters we all know what craters
look like on rocky bodies like the Moon
or Mars or rocky asteroids but imagine a
meteorite striking a metal body the
energy of the impact melting a patch of
metal which would splash up to freeze in
the vacuum of space it is almost
certainly going to be stranger than we
can imagine
we are launching a spacecraft in the
summer of 2022 to go check it out and I
cannot wait to see but curiosity doesn’t
just have to be about the big things
fostering your curiosity in small ways
it can have a dramatic positive impact
on your life
I think at least a small part of the
reason parents love watching their kids
see and do new things is because it
reminds them what they felt like to be
learning and exploring but everyone can
rekindle that spark of wonder inside
themselves it doesn’t take a lot of
efforts you just need to keep an eye out
for those enchanting little surprises
that go by unnoticed every day
maintaining my childlike sense of wonder
helps me grow from a curious little girl
in Kentucky to a still curious engineer
working for NASA
you can visit Wonderland anytime you
want to you just need to look at the
world through the eyes of your inner
child thank you [Music]
I remember sitting on a couch and my
grandmother’s living room I’m with my
mom who is what I call a notice her she
was always looking for and drawing my
attention to interesting things in the
world on this one stormy summer evening
she’s got the front door propped wide
open and all the lights turned off in
the house so that we can watch the
blowing rumbling chaos outside suddenly
there is this blinding flash as
lightning strikes the base of a tree
just 30 or so feet directly in front of
the house my mom gets super excited
shakes my shoulders and points at the
trees saying wow look Tracy there it
she made me feel like we were so lucky
to get to see such a crazy thing it made
me feel alive and it made me want to
learn everything there was to know about
lightning children are natural little
wonder sponges have you ever watched a
small child who has just discovered
something new a Firefly or a shiny rock
or an iridescent skim of oil on a puddle
of water you can see the way their
attention narrows in on that thing with
a laser focus as they get closer to
absorb all the details they touch it
smell it turn it over
blink and surprise as they discover even
more unexpected details and if they’re
old enough to talk they will pepper you
a question after question what is this
why is it that color what is that part
to you and they seem to feel this rich
deep sense of satisfaction if you can
answer those questions or help them
figure out how to find the answers for
themselves when you think about it
children are dropped into a world filled
with so many things that are brand-new
to them so learning and exploring are a
natural part of everyday life but it
also seems to be the purest fun think of
all the kids you’ve met who are obsessed
with learning every last thing about
dinosaurs
or exotic animals or outerspace show any
kid something new or unusual like a
magic trick where an object does
something they don’t expect it to do and
you get to watch their little faces
light up with curiosity and joy as they
lean in to see more maybe we come
hardwired to like exploring and learning
because those primitive humans who are
most eager to explore their environment
survived and thrive better than the
others but somewhere along the way we
seem to lose this insatiable curiosity
or it gets toned way down starting
somewhere around our high school years
we seem to get overwhelmed with all the
things we have to do and are responsible
for both this school and at home
maybe we’re not allowed to study what
we’re interested in and so learning in
general gets acquainted with drudgery
and then as adults we get even more
bogged down under the pressures I’m a
new chef everyday life that we just fall
into a routine we get up we go to work
we come home do some chores throw in a
little mindless entertainment because
we’re too tired to do anything else
go to bed rinse and repeat the next day
we can wind up just sticking to what we
know and stop noticing and delighting in
those unusual intriguing little things
that surround us every day so how can we
avoid that how can we and the people
around us rekindle that sense of
curiosity in the ninth grade I was on a
trip with some students to a math
competition
it was Kentucky and in the wintertime
that means a lot of the hills that the
roads cut through are adorned with these
huge icicles I happen to say out loud
that I always wanted to touch one of
them and my math teacher who was driving
glanced at me in the rearview mirror and
pulled the van right over I was shocked
it seemed to be kind of against the
rules to just stop your car on the
shoulder of a freeway but she just did
it it also seemed to be against the
rules to pause in the middle of what you
were doing and go off exploring
something off the beaten path just
because it looked cool but she shooed me
and the rest of the kids out of the van
and encouraged us to go touch an icicle
break one off and bring it back to the
band so she
can see it too I can still feel the cold
shape of it in my hand see the little
flecks of soil that had frozen inside it
smell the fresh watery earthy scent of
it and I know that that experience
embedded in me a deep sense of
permission to not just pay attention to
the world around me but to go out and
explore it to reach out and touch it
curiosity played a major role in setting
the path in my life I’ve always been
fascinated by space I remember the first
time I learned the theory of how the
solar system formed and being really
surprised that people could look up at
the sky and gather enough clues to piece
together an explanation for a phenomenon
on such a grand scale I remember the
first time I learned how big the Sun is
that you could fit 1.3 million earths
inside it if the earth were the size of
a golf ball
the Sun would be 15 feet across and it
is stupendously far away 93 million
miles away that’s enough to circle the
Earth three thousand seven hundred times
if you were to try to drive that far
even going 100 miles an hour it would
take you 106 years to do so yeah I
remember sitting in a parked car at
night
leaning my head against the window
looking up at the stars and trying to
really feel the earth rotating turning
me towards different stars you can’t
really feel it but it’s fun to try and
trying to fit inside my brain the fact
that each of those tiny pinpricks of
light is an entire Sun like ours so much
smaller but some massively bigger all of
that made me feel like an incredibly
small speck and an enormous universe but
in a wonderful way like look at all of
that out there just begging to be
explored and we get to be alive in a
time when we’re learning so much about
it in high school
I decided I wanted to work for NASA
because I couldn’t resist the pull of
space and I thought that a career
involving space exploration would keep
me interested for decades now I love
that in my job as a NASA engineer
helping to develop deep-space missions I
still get to indulge my curiosity my
role as an engineer on missions to Mars
Jupiter and now an asteroid I have given
me great excuses to learn more about all
of those things and have reinforced the
fact that maintaining a healthy sense of
curiosity makes me better at my job it
also keeps my job fun I still get those
little jolt of excitement from learning
new things that I remember from my
childhood for example I bet you all
recognize this picture right this is
Jupiter you know it has the great red
spots and all of these dark and light
bands of clouds until Juno arrived in
the summer of 2016
no other spacecraft had taken close-up
detailed images of the north and south
pole and so the scientists and all the
rest of us were eagerly awaiting the
first polar images and this is what they
saw this is Jupiter South Pole you can
see it is really different from the rest
the planet the colors are a little
enhanced here but it truly is a bit more
blue and purple at the poles and it’s
got this soup of storms
now since only half the hemisphere is in
sunlight at one time this image is
actually three pictures taken at
different times and then stitched
together so which you can’t see here is
that the central storm is surrounded by
five hauntingly evenly spaced storms
which you can see here this is that same
image in infrared Wow right here the
colors just represent differences in
temperature it’s all still very very
cold but the lighter areas are where
it’s relatively warmer and darker is
where it’s colder and these kinds of
images you can really see this stunning
atmospheric structure
this one is the North Pole with 8 storms
surrounding that central storm in this
amazing symmetric pattern I happen to be
in the room when the team that generated
these images shared their first ones
with all the rest of the scientists on
the Juno mission in the entire room
burst into spontaneous applause
you can almost taste how excited
everyone was to have uncovered such
unusual surprising complex beautiful
features on this planet how awesome is
it that we puny humans can ask a
question about Jupiter and then launch a
spacecraft on a journey of hundreds of
millions of miles and actually get an
answer now
the scientists get to go figure out what
in the world is going on to set up these
kinds of crazy patterns in the Jovian
atmosphere one of the coolest things
about science is once you get an answer
to one question that often gives rise to
new more interesting more complex
questions to answer
science it’s the gift that keeps on
giving finally we have an artist concept
of an asteroid called psyche scientists
think that based on things like the way
it reflects sunlight how it heats up and
cools down as it rotates that it is
probably 90% metal and the leading
hypothesis for how it formed was that
billions of years ago when the solar
system was forming this asteroid
gathered enough mass to get big enough
to heat up enough so that it’s metal
melted and sank toward the middle and
then it had a series of collisions with
other things that knocked all the rocky
outsides off leaving behind and exposed
irregularly-shaped nickel iron core 173
miles in length at its biggest point it
is literally the naked heart of a proto
planet what was such a thing look like
if it froze from the outside in then as
a metal cooled it would shrink and crack
maybe leaving huge vertical cliffs miles
and miles in length
and the craters we all know what craters
look like on rocky bodies like the Moon
or Mars or rocky asteroids but imagine a
meteorite striking a metal body the
energy of the impact melting a patch of
metal which would splash up to freeze in
the vacuum of space it is almost
certainly going to be stranger than we
can imagine
we are launching a spacecraft in the
summer of 2022 to go check it out and I
cannot wait to see but curiosity doesn’t
just have to be about the big things
fostering your curiosity in small ways
it can have a dramatic positive impact
on your life
I think at least a small part of the
reason parents love watching their kids
see and do new things is because it
reminds them what they felt like to be
learning and exploring but everyone can
rekindle that spark of wonder inside
themselves it doesn’t take a lot of
efforts you just need to keep an eye out
for those enchanting little surprises
that go by unnoticed every day
maintaining my childlike sense of wonder
helps me grow from a curious little girl
in Kentucky to a still curious engineer
working for NASA
you can visit Wonderland anytime you
want to you just need to look at the
world through the eyes of your inner
child thank you [Music]
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