[HN Gopher] Show HN: Atlas of Space
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Atlas of Space
Hello HN! Sharing a recent side project of mine, the Atlas of
Space, that I built out to explore the Solar System. As a long-
time space nerd, I realized recently that I didn't have a good
intuition on the scale, speed, and relative orientation of the
celestial bodies around us. So over the break I built out a kind of
spatial Wikipedia to click around and learn about planets, moons,
asteroids, and other bodies orbiting the Sun. The physics is all
simulated in the browser using simple Newtonian mechanics. There's
a lot left to do from here, including modeling objects in non-
Keplerian orbits and replaying different spacecraft missions. Hope
you have fun clicking around, and curious to hear what I should
improve next!
Author : pieix
Score : 305 points
Date : 2025-01-08 14:47 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (atlasof.space)
(TXT) w3m dump (atlasof.space)
| iforaa wrote:
| Nice project! Is it possible to go backwards in time?
| andystanton wrote:
| Love it, thank you for sharing. Can't wait to show my kids later!
|
| Are the background stars randomly generated or do they correspond
| to the actual galaxy? Distant points of reference would be
| interesting to see.
| pieix wrote:
| Thank you! The background stars are a texture that I found on
| solarsystemscope.com, and _should_ correspond to the actual
| orientation of the firmament WRT your frame of reference. I'd
| love to add labels for salient stars.
| jimswhims wrote:
| Beatiful, maybe add a pan control, and configurable starting time
| + dt?
| pieix wrote:
| You can currently pan with right click, and I like the idea of
| a configurable starting time! Everything is mapped into the
| current epoch when you load your browser at the moment.
| AndyKluger wrote:
| An alternative (like arrow keys) would be great, as I don't
| think I can right-click-drag with my touchpad.
| jimswhims wrote:
| Ah i see, i had tried right click and it wasn't working, but
| that was because I had a planet selected with its details
| showing, in the normal view it's fine. Makes sense not to pan
| when an object is selected, i guess.
|
| I just had the browser window maximized while I was away from
| it for a while. This would make a nice active desktop, though
| I don't know enough about the software stacks involved with
| that to know whether it's possible.
| CelticBard wrote:
| Why is the sun called Sol? And not Sun? I thought Sol was a sci-
| fi thing?
| redeux wrote:
| Wikipedia lists Sol as one of the names for our star.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
| jannes wrote:
| I guess it's just a less common word for sun.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_(Roman_mythology)
|
| > Sol, borrowed from Latin, is used in contemporary English by
| astronomers and many science fiction authors as the proper name
| of the Sun to distinguish it from other stars which may be suns
| for their own planetary systems. [citation needed]
| dmd wrote:
| It's the name of our sun. Sun is what it is (or star). Sol is
| its name.
| astrolx wrote:
| I don't know any solar physicist who calls our sun "sol" (and
| I know many), neither have I come across scientific papers
| doing so. A sol is a martian day though!
| pieix wrote:
| Fair point, I'll change (only after outing myself as
| somebody who pays more attention to writers than
| physicists)!
| jgrowl wrote:
| I don't think you should feel any pressure to change it.
| The Solar System belongs to the writers just as much as
| it does to the physicists and unless your target audience
| is specifically physicists, then the average visitor of
| your site will be more likely a consumer of sci-fi than a
| practitioner of physics.
|
| The argument is rather pedantic to me since the word Sun
| comes from the old English, Germanic, and European,
| whereas Sol comes from the Latin, Helios from the Greek,
| svar Sanskrit, etc. They are all valid names for our
| local star.
| glxxyz wrote:
| Sol is the Roman sun god and the latin for 'sun' so is
| sometimes used.
| modelorona wrote:
| Awesome project!
| taknil wrote:
| 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 a
| la https://atlasof.space/Nix
| maxmcd wrote:
| 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?
| blakewatson wrote:
| I think https://spaceengine.org/ fills part of your request. I
| haven't played it but I've watched videos about it and it looks
| like you can jump anywhere around the observable universe and
| look at any object you want.
| dotancohen wrote:
| This looks terrific. But it's Windows-only.
| detritus wrote:
| 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.
|
| Whatever, a job to be proud of!
| pieix wrote:
| I hear you, if we had a punchier name for the Solar System
| (ideally with its own TLD?) I for sure would have gone for it.
| Anyway, thanks for the nice comment.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Orrery
| pieix wrote:
| A big inspiration for this project was the "Solid Orrery"
| from Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series. I nearly
| went with this name!
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I love this.
|
| 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.
| divbzero wrote:
| Along the bottom toolbar there's a "Reset" button (circular
| icon with an arrow) that recenters the UI.
| araes wrote:
| Not surprisingly, this is actually one of the main issues with
| space travel and sending probes almost anywhere. Get slightly
| misasligned and you have take sightings on star patterns to try
| to somehow figure out where you are and what your orientation
| is. Voyager 1 and 2, Pioneer 10 and 11, and New Horizons all
| had / have variations on those systems.
|
| Spacecraft Attitude Determination,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_attitude_determinat...
|
| Star Tracker, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_tracker
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Not to mention the astroinertial guidance system on ICBM
| nuclear missiles.
|
| To wit, there are 12 Ohio class submarines each with 20
| trident missiles each carrying 12 maneuverable nuclear
| warheads (475 kilotons each).
|
| The missiles are launched under water, reach Mach 18 in 2
| minutes, and don't need GPS -- they use the stars to deliver
| their payload.
|
| I saw a test missile launch once before. It still terrifies
| me.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine
| the-mitr wrote:
| Very beautifully done. Thanks for sharing, perhaps you can add
| the Trojan asteroids in the next iteration.
| pieix wrote:
| Co-orbitals are top-of-mind right now! As-is they can be
| simulated without issue (the system is defined as a DAG where
| each body defines the parent bodies it is gravitationally
| influenced by, e.g. Sun+Jupiter+Saturn for the trojans) but I
| haven't yet figured out how to get the proper starting
| position+velocity for them in the current epoch. I foresee a
| deep dive down the ephemeris rabbit hole in my future...
| krishadi wrote:
| Initial positions and velocities are interesting. How did you
| get about that info?
|
| I would love to read about how the orbital trajectories are
| calculated, and how is it done for co orbitals. Do you plan
| to write a blog on this?
| pieix wrote:
| Initial conditions are modeled by Keplerian elements around
| the main parent body. These are 6 scalars that describe the
| size, shape, and orientation of the orbital ellipse as well
| as the body's position along it at a given time (epoch). I
| scraped these values from various places including research
| papers, JPL databases, Wikipedia pages, and university web
| pages.
|
| From there everything is mapped into a consistent epoch
| (now) and the initial position/velocity are calculated
| using a Keplerian->Cartesian transformation (the math here
| is a more or less straightforward coordinate
| transformation). The physical simulation is then run by
| updating these 2 Cartesian vectors, applying gravitational
| acceleration over [?]t.
|
| This works pretty well, all things considered, but there's
| a lot of room for improvement to account for solar wind,
| relativistic effects, planets not being perfect spheres,
| etc. The Keplerian elements are also just an approximation
| of the true orbit, and this approximation can show up at
| high zoom levels (it's why planets don't always line up
| perfectly with their ellipses when you zoom in). I'm also
| still figuring out how best to get the initial
| position/velocity for objects that aren't in simple
| elliptical orbits (co-orbitals like the Trojans, objects on
| escape trajectories like Voyager probes). There's a lot for
| me to learn, maybe later I will write a blog post!
| blakewatson wrote:
| 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.
| infogulch wrote:
| What is the denominator in dt? 60 ticks per second? Definitely
| not per second. It should be mentioned somewhere, like a tooltip.
| pieix wrote:
| Good callout -- it's the animation rate for your browser, which
| is driven by your display and conditions on your machine (I've
| seen between 30-120Hz on my Macbook depending on the monitor
| used and device power status).
| seanw444 wrote:
| I was just gonna say, 8 hours per second does not match up with
| t advancing by 3 weeks per second.
| pryelluw wrote:
| Is there a way to lock the screen in order to be able to scroll
| around on mobile?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Came to ask the same thing.
| nico wrote:
| This is incredibly well done. Thank you!
|
| 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
| adamc wrote:
| I get "secure connection failed".
| karrob wrote:
| incredibly cool omfg
| ge96 wrote:
| Awesome I like these 3D infinite canvas things
| guigui wrote:
| Well done! I could spend a long time on this.
|
| 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.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| After 90s of playing I came back to add the same comment :)
| derbOac wrote:
| ... also the orbits themselves ideally? Maybe I missed it but
| in looking at some of the larger orbits it was hard to zoom in
| and out to figure out what orbit went with what. It would have
| been nice to more easily click on the orbit.
|
| I really like it though.
| Maultasche wrote:
| 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.
| pieix wrote:
| Appreciate the comment! The Expanse and Paul McAuley's Quiet
| War series both get a lot of inspiration credit for this
| project. I tried to include every body that has some "brand
| recognition", whether from fiction or from real spacecraft
| missions. There are actually quite a few asteroids and comets
| that have been visited in real life -- NASA, ESA, and JAXA have
| been doing amazing things in the Asteroid Belt over the past
| few decades.
| thinky_thoughts wrote:
| Where is the ring gate?
| divbzero wrote:
| 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.
| nirav72 wrote:
| 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?
| input_sh wrote:
| Not only tilted, but far less "round" than Neptune's orbit,
| which occasionally results in Pluto being actually closer to
| the Sun than Neptune (every 500 or so years). They also kinda
| "dance" with each other around the Sun in a 2:3 ratio (2 x
| Pluto's year / 3 = Neptune's year).
| divbzero wrote:
| Did you use any libraries to help render the canvas? Or is the
| code built up from plain JavaScript and DOM APIs?
| pieix wrote:
| Three.js for all of the fun 3D stuff, vanilla canvas drawing
| for annotations like dots/labels/offscreen indicators. Three.js
| is an incredible project.
| a3w wrote:
| You forgot to add planet X
|
| /s
| m0llusk wrote:
| "Dwarf Planet" is probably a good compromise given the ongoing
| controversy of Pluto's status and most appropriate label.
| aghilmort wrote:
| stunningly smooth execution!
|
| 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
| ochrist wrote:
| Great. I really like this.
|
| What about doing something similar for the neighborhood of our
| solar system? E.g. all stars within 25 or so light years.
| krishadi wrote:
| This is crazy good! Thanks for building it...
|
| Incredible to see the speed at which some of the bodies are
| moving ... Especially Bennu...
| sroussey wrote:
| This is amazing!
|
| One option for the future: orbits of celestial bodies influence
| each other. Is it enough to see when say, earth and mars get
| close?
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Not really no.
|
| It is true that we don't actually orbit the centre of the Sun,
| but it is very close.
|
| The problem with Mars getting close is that Mars is quite small
| and the Earth is a long way away and there are many other
| planets, some much more massive.
|
| Mercury is actualy lot closer a lot more often (Mercury is the
| most-often close to all the planets by virtue of it's orbit
| close to the Sun).
|
| Someone explains it in a bit more detail here:
| https://www.quora.com/How-do-the-surrounding-planets-influen...
|
| There's a paper suggesting there's some 2.4 million year
| climate cycle
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46171-5 but that's
| too subtle for this visualisation.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| oh shit Bennu. :)
| busymom0 wrote:
| Is there a way to show only spacecrafts? I am having a hard time
| finding any
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| There aren't any - it's just natural stellar bodies.
| busymom0 wrote:
| There's one at least. But you have to click on the toggle
| visibility button at the bottom of screen, then switch on
| spacecrafts. Then it will show you at least one - the Tesla
| Roadster launched in 2018.
| pieix wrote:
| Nice find. That's the only one up there currently, mostly
| because it's in a simple heliocentric orbit (most
| spacecraft are not). I want to add more but need to figure
| out how to properly find their current position+velocity to
| start the physical simulation.
| busymom0 wrote:
| I think you should switch on the spacecrafts toggle by
| default. It's pretty cool seeing at least the roadster in
| there!
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Celestia might also give you some ideas:
|
| https://github.com/CelestiaProject/Celestia
| lbeckman314 wrote:
| This is so cool! Is the codebase available for poking around (no
| worries if not!)
|
| Now if only there was an option to export an SVG to a la
| https://github.com/samyk :p
|
| Fantastic project!
| colkassad wrote:
| 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?
| pieix wrote:
| Your edit is spot on -- there's a lot out there in the Kuiper
| Belt / Oort Cloud that we don't know about. It's hypothesized
| that there are many objects out there, with more mass than in
| the Asteroid Belt. It's no coincidence that the ones we know
| are all near their perihelion currently.
| hajola wrote:
| This is awesome. I went looking for FarFarOut (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_AG37 ), maybe would be cool to
| add it?
| santiagobasulto wrote:
| The project is amazing, thanks and congrats.
|
| 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.
| pieix wrote:
| Thank you and not off topic at all, I was thinking this the
| whole time I was working on this project. The modern browser is
| magic.
| w10-1 wrote:
| Really nice - tested on mobile and desktop.
|
| 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
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-08 23:00 UTC)