Show HN: Atlas of Space (atlasof.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!
128 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 194 ms ] threadAre the background stars randomly generated or do they correspond to the actual galaxy? Distant points of reference would be interesting to see.
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.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/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]
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, svár Sanskrit, etc. They are all valid names for our local star.
"The Boss said please take the day off"
"Our Boss is nice"
"Jill is the boss"
"The Sun is bigger than any planet in our solar system"
"Our Sun is 8 light minutes away"
"Sol is the name of our sun"
I've not once heard a solar physicist use "sun" as a name
"Sun is bright" - bad grammar
https://idiot.vitebsk.net/i43/sun_english.htm
[0]: https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/
Side note: Elite Dangerous is on offer at the moment and that has been the only thing to give me that unnerving sense of scale you get when travelling between systems.
Whatever, a job to be proud of!
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.
Spacecraft Attitude Determination, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_attitude_determinat...
Star Tracker, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_tracker
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 idea is to look for the X-ray signals coming from pulsars and then use the frequency of the pulse to identify the pulsar and then match that to a known map to figure out where you are. It's pretty cool and theoretically can work even for interstellar spaceflight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar-based_navigation
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?
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!
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.
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.
I really like it though.
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.
The Voyager missions could be interesting to include as you consider adding to your atlas.
/s
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
What about doing something similar for the neighborhood of our solar system? E.g. all stars within 25 or so light years.