Artist Dan Goods, a guest speaker this Sunday as part of Vivid Sydney, spends most of his workdays gazing into space as the visual strategist for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California.

Goods will appear at the City Recital Hall today along with a fishtank-sized cloud chamber, which he describes as a "magic box" that lets the viewer see invisible particles that have travelled to Earth from exploded stars. He hopes his audience will be not only awed by the city's light display this weekend, but will leave his talk with a new view of the universe.

"When people peek into the cloud chamber, some get get goose bumps, some tears, some people just go away with a sense of awe thinking life is good again," says Goods, who is also the director of the Museum of Awe, which combines art, science, and theatre. He will give his keynote address as part of Vivid Ideas program.

At NASA's space science research facility in southern California, he's constantly seeking easier ways to explain big scientific concepts – like how jets travel in space or what the difference is between a comet and an asteroid.