Space Engine

[JRD]

Has any of you heard of Space Engine?

In a nutshell, it is Google Earth Universe. Let me try to explain it a little further. Space Engine is a free software containing a "as real as science knows" model of the whole freaking universe. 

Built using latest NASA, ESA and other data source from space agencies world wide, it lets you travel through a very detailed model of our solar sistem, with all planets, moons, asteroids and any other celestial body to scale of the real world with a simple click.

The model contains all celestial bodies ever found, where they really are, moving as they do in relation to the rest of the Solar System. It means Earth will be between Venus and Mars, our moon will be where it should be, orbiting us, the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter will be there with all mapped asteroids where they are, in the righ orbital path. All built on the righ size, color, shape, magnitude, azimuth etc. with information about temperature, composition and looking as they should look on a telescope with craters, crests, frozen seas, gas clouds etc.

Now expand that idea to the Milky Way.... yes, it is. Just like that... ALL stars in our galaxy are there, in the real place, with as many planets as we know they have orbiting them and, in the very center of our galaxy, a massive black hole, just like scientists understand our galaxy is. By pressing SHIFT + H you select Milky Way, Solar System, Earth and get a view of it on your screen as if you were standing on another galaxy, at the edge of the solar system or orbiting Earth. Now expand that idea yet again and think about the whole universe with as many galaxies as we know of where we know they should be.

You can simply click on any given body (a moon, a planet or a faraway star) and hit "G" and it will take you there in a second, you can type the name of a star or a moon or asteroid etc and also hit "G" or... and here is where the fun begins... you can build a spacecraft and travel there. Of course you can speed up time so it won't take a few thousand years to reach the nearest star or you can orbit our moon as fast as the Apollo mission actually did. Not only that but you can also land on any given celestial body and fly through the surface of that body as if you were on a commercial flight over USA.

I haven't used that space craft option a lot yet but you can see amazing videos on their website.

Obviously we haven't seen the whole universe so Space Engine will fill the gaps with procedually generated stars and planets but not randomly. It will use latest scientific data to place a star where a star should be.

I remembered fragger saying he is an astronomy aficcionado and I couldn't help but thinking about posting it here to see if anyone has heard of it.

Anyway, I'm sill learning to use the interface but boy, am I having fun..... 

[BinnZ]

Downloading

[Dweller_Benthos]

I've seen some videos of how it works, very interesting. Of course, if you pick a star 100 million light years away, the info on the star itself is as accurate as we know, but any planetary system is extrapolated. It looks cool, and works well, and is really nice to see where things will be positioned if you were to actually go outside and look up.

[Art Blade]

I used to have a program like that a few years ago (celestia)

it still exists:
https://celestiaproject.net/

Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy.
All movement in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A 'point-and-goto' interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit.
Celestia is expandable. Celestia comes with a large catalog of stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft. If that's not enough, you can download dozens of easy to install add-ons with more objects.

[BinnZ]

I tried, and got lost in space

[fragger]

I missed this thread until now, somehow. Thanks JRD, sounds like it would be worth a look. Cheers

Art got in before me, but it does indeed sound a lot like Celestia, only more ambitious.

[JRD]

I used to have a program like that a few years ago (celestia)

it still exists:
https://celestiaproject.net/

I missed this thread until now, somehow. Thanks JRD, sounds like it would be worth a look. Cheers

Art got in before me, but it does indeed sound a lot like Celestia, only more ambitious.

I bookmarked the Celestia page and will certainly take a look at it. I've been playing around in Space Engine but only to explore a little bit of our solar system. I heard about SE by checking youtube for more The Expanse. Since the show takes place between Venus and Saturn and many asteroids are also cited, this funny little software is great to know where things are happening. Besides, in the show, physics do matter a lot so distances are taken very seriously into consideration.