Friday, April 05, 2013

Mapping the Universe


100,000 Stars is an amazing interactive visualization of over 100,000 of our nearest stars.

The map actually shows the location of 119,617 nearby stars derived from multiple sources, including the 1989 Hipparcos mission. You can pan the map using your mouse and zoom in and out using your touchpad or mouse wheel. Click a star’s name on the map to learn more about it.


The Asterank 3d Asteroid Orbit Space Simulation is an amazing WebGL application that shows a view of our solar system with over 580,000 asteroids mapped. It is possible to rotate, zoom and pan the simulation. It is also possible to refine the asteroids shown by most valuable and most accessible (just in case you have any asteroid mining plans).


My own Star Map is looking a little dated now but may still be of interest to fans of astronomy. The app superimposes a number of astronomical animation videos from YouTube over Google Sky.

Click on the orange links in the map sidebar to zoom to the selected location. To view a video you just need to click on the small blue map marker.

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