This is very nice. I didn't know Pluto's orbit was more inclined than many of the others.
It also gives me strong "The Expanse" vibes. Probably because there are so many orbital bodies shown that were mentioned in those books. I also learned that Pallas is an actual asteroid.
Wonderful! I showed my kids (9 and 10) and we really enjoyed zooming in and out, reading about different Celistial bodie. We were all really intrigued about the "Trans-Neptuinan Objects" and the strange orbits.
We spent a whole 30 minutes afterwards talking about the existence of aliens and how long it would take to reach Alpha Centauri at our current level of technology versus light speed, and the further unpacking faster than light travel depicted in science fiction.
It doesn't seem it is showing the tilt for Earth correct. When I zoom in for around now, the North Pole is in full sun rather than mid Winter. (I'm in Australia so I don't know if it is somehow using my local timezone wrongly)
A bit of an off-topic comment, I can't cease to be amazed by the quality of HTML apps we can build these days. I remember the days when rendering too many rows on a table could completely break the browser.
This is incredible. I've also struggled to comprehend the scale of distance and time in space due to the sheer magnitudes involved, but this really puts it into perspective.
Some suggestions:
- Better documentation/help menu. (What is ∆t relative to? Some internal clock tick? Also, you should link the source code in the menu.)
- Arbitrary time adjustments so I could click on the date and set a custom date to view any point in the past or future
- The ability to see more than just the solar system
It’s really easy to get lost in Space when you zoom out and back in after twisting. I can see the planets on the edge of the screen, but can never seem to find them again.
Reloading, of course, fixes all. But maybe some compass to click on to recenter on yourself (earth) like on google maps.
I love that you’re depicting the Solar System accurately and to scale. It’s always bothered me that planetary orbits are often shown as equally-spaced concentric circles.
The Voyager missions could be interesting to include as you consider adding to your atlas.
This puts into perfect perspective why, soon after sunset this time of year. Venus is low to the west, Mars is slightly higher but in the East, and Jupiter is nearly directly overhead
I noticed that when I zoom in on the Earth, the orbit line floats about one Earth radius away from the surface. The Moon is also off of its orbit line by about a Moon diameter. (This happens for me in Chrome on both desktop and mobile.)
Is it a calculation precision error? Or perhaps some spatial offset?
This is great. It's interesting how two very remote dwarf planets with widely different orbits are so close to each other right now (90377 Sedna and 2012 VP133).
EDIT: On further thought, I noticed another kind sorta nearby. I wonder if this is just a matter of looking for them in that area and that there could be a lot more that are undiscovered?
Great stuff! Just a wee thing - when I read "Atlas of Space" I immediately assumed it went beyond the solar system and clicked-through expecting to be able to track stars at least a few light years out. Reading your explanation here though, I see that's not intended.
I do not know how that would be possible with the technology used, but having a deeplink to a planet or object would be cool à la https://atlasof.space/Nix
Incredible work! My son really had a blast scrolling around and exploring last night.
Did you take any inspiration from Celestia (https://celestiaproject.space)? It's been over 15 years since I last really used it (and starts with defaults not geared towards visualizing just our local solar system) but seems to have a lot of the features others have suggested. Might be useful to poke around and see how they solved things like time adjustments, selecting POIs, etc.
Love this! Question: How does it determine the 3D position of the centerpoint around which you're rotating? Is that fixed or does it change as you zoom and pan? If you zoom way out, and pan back to look at the solar system, it feels intuitive that rotating should then rotate around Sol. But it seems to rotate around some much nearer point in space to the camera, which makes the rotation act effectively like panning. Am I missing something?
I can’t get enough of anything that helps me wrap my mind around the scale of objects and distances in the universe.
I recently discovered Epic Spaceman on YouTube, who makes incredible visual comparisons to help understand these scales. https://www.youtube.com/@EpicSpaceman
There’s also Universe Sandbox 2. But tbh this Atlas of Space is more accessible to me due to my various input limitations.
Space Engine let’s you explore the entire observable universe.
I always see these videos [1] about helical movement of the bodies, which intuitively make more sense to me rather than assuming that the Sun itself is static and the bodies moving in a static circle around it. Is that really true?
I recently learned that from a distance moon looks like revolving around sun rather than earth. It's orbit does not mak e loops/spirals. Instead it's more like a dodecahedron. Or if seen in isolation around sun, it will look like normal circular orbit.
Can you add an option to switch drawing orbit of moon around the sun of its planet instead of its orbit around its planet?
space question -- why are the three outer-most bodies as consistent in general direction as they are? it looks like something blasted us (our solar system) in a specific direction. (speaking of, is there some astronomical/solar system analog for cardinal directions? like how would I say, "looks like we've been blasted in a north-east direction"
It's great but especially on mobile it's very difficult to center the view on a planet, zoom on it and follow it around the sun. On a desktop I eventually manage to click on it, then zoom and it stays in the center of the screen.
This is so awesome. I've wanted something like this where you could visit all scales of the universe from tiny atoms, to the galaxy, to the broader universe. Does something like that exist in some form?
wow, this is amazing. Learned quite a bit just by looking at the orbits of various objects. Especially pluto. Didn't realize pluto had such an odd orbit relative to the ecliptic plane of the other planets and planetoids. I'm assuming that's due to Neptune?
options for details, say first or second order lagrangian wells, interplanetary transport network, object launched from some planet on some trajectory, in whatever natural order of easy to hard feels right, almost like KML options on regular maps
Show HN: Atlas of Space
(atlasof.space)765 points by pieix 8 January 2025 | 124 comments
Comments
Love that it works so seamlessly on mobile. I clicked on it expecting it to be almost impossible to use
Instead, I was able to easily navigate everything without getting lost
Also, the speeding up/down controls are excellent, very useful
One minor suggestion: you should make the labels clickable instead of just the planets/stars. I found it difficult to click on a tiny pixel on screen.
It also gives me strong "The Expanse" vibes. Probably because there are so many orbital bodies shown that were mentioned in those books. I also learned that Pallas is an actual asteroid.
We spent a whole 30 minutes afterwards talking about the existence of aliens and how long it would take to reach Alpha Centauri at our current level of technology versus light speed, and the further unpacking faster than light travel depicted in science fiction.
Thank you!
A bit of an off-topic comment, I can't cease to be amazed by the quality of HTML apps we can build these days. I remember the days when rendering too many rows on a table could completely break the browser.
Some suggestions:
- Better documentation/help menu. (What is ∆t relative to? Some internal clock tick? Also, you should link the source code in the menu.)
- Arbitrary time adjustments so I could click on the date and set a custom date to view any point in the past or future
- The ability to see more than just the solar system
It’s really easy to get lost in Space when you zoom out and back in after twisting. I can see the planets on the edge of the screen, but can never seem to find them again.
Reloading, of course, fixes all. But maybe some compass to click on to recenter on yourself (earth) like on google maps.
The Voyager missions could be interesting to include as you consider adding to your atlas.
Are the background stars randomly generated or do they correspond to the actual galaxy? Distant points of reference would be interesting to see.
I'd love a "real-time" clock but I don't even know if that's feasible!
Curious to know, - Is the Source code open source? - If not what is the stack you used to build this.
I noticed that when I zoom in on the Earth, the orbit line floats about one Earth radius away from the surface. The Moon is also off of its orbit line by about a Moon diameter. (This happens for me in Chrome on both desktop and mobile.)
Is it a calculation precision error? Or perhaps some spatial offset?
EDIT: On further thought, I noticed another kind sorta nearby. I wonder if this is just a matter of looking for them in that area and that there could be a lot more that are undiscovered?
Whatever, a job to be proud of!
I couldn't resist the pun, but all kidding aside this space atlas is truly wonderful.
Did you take any inspiration from Celestia (https://celestiaproject.space)? It's been over 15 years since I last really used it (and starts with defaults not geared towards visualizing just our local solar system) but seems to have a lot of the features others have suggested. Might be useful to poke around and see how they solved things like time adjustments, selecting POIs, etc.
I recently discovered Epic Spaceman on YouTube, who makes incredible visual comparisons to help understand these scales. https://www.youtube.com/@EpicSpaceman
There’s also Universe Sandbox 2. But tbh this Atlas of Space is more accessible to me due to my various input limitations.
Space Engine let’s you explore the entire observable universe.
https://youtube.com/shorts/HDSKuln-5qU?si=c8Uzw4zCQ22t5MyO
Can you add an option to switch drawing orbit of moon around the sun of its planet instead of its orbit around its planet?
What about doing something similar for the neighborhood of our solar system? E.g. all stars within 25 or so light years.
A sound effect would be nice. Just an idea.
Now if only there was an option to export an SVG to à la https://github.com/samyk :p
Fantastic project!
Also, when you click on the stop button (should probably be a pause icon), the icon should change to a play button.
Final feature request: relativistic mechanics pls.
I'm reminded of the astronomical-visualization app I created at the beginning of my career and abandoned. This makes me want to go back to it again!
I’m embarrassed to admit how many hours I dumped into it.
https://github.com/CelestiaProject/Celestia
Nice touches:
- Motion from the running clock
- Knowing where the planets are on a given date
Wish list:
- Scroll through time
- Hide non-planets, esp. to see inclinations of the planets
- Display the orbital center
- Reframe as Atlas of Home
I am currently working on a canvas app (not Three.js, though), so I will look through your code, too.
Thank you for doing such an excellent job.
One option for the future: orbits of celestial bodies influence each other. Is it enough to see when say, earth and mars get close?
Incredible to see the speed at which some of the bodies are moving ... Especially Bennu...
options for details, say first or second order lagrangian wells, interplanetary transport network, object launched from some planet on some trajectory, in whatever natural order of easy to hard feels right, almost like KML options on regular maps
/s