The Universe Within 12.5 Light Years
atlasoftheuniverse.com
atlasoftheuniverse.com
Barnard's star also has a planet, contrary to the claim on the page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnard%27s_Star#Planetary_sys...
Maps like these are so fascinating, anyone know of something similar with updated planet information?
And that's really weird, because now I look into it, I think there's no way I saw a map like this in that game. Nor Frontier on the Amiga, as far as I can see. But when I look at the map, Elite is all I can think about, somehow I feel certain that's where I've seen it before, even though the evidence suggests I'm wrong. There's some strong association going on there. Weeeeeeird.
Edit: I think it might actually just be that I first saw this page so long ago that it feels the same... As soon as I zoomed out I knew I'd seen it before, but not for a long long time.
Something similar happens when we remember childhood houses. Spaces where there was a lot of activity seem bigger, because we've mapped those areas extensively.
It makes a lot of sense in retrospect.
There are similarities between the scanner and this map, but the in-game map wasn't even close. There's probably an interesting visual memory research to be done into how we make that association.
It also allowed add-on data to be imported. Hobbyists would create accurate 3D models of weird shaped asteroids using the latest data from NASA, and you could download the data, and view it using the main Celestia program.
Maybe someone has posted updated data in Celestia format somewhere?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_and_planetary_systems_in...
Nothing comes close to this game for gaining an understanding of the shape, distances and density (or lack thereof in some areas!) in the Milky Way (you've got an FSD/FTL drive but not a good enough one to leave the galaxy).
Anyone slightly interested in astronomy should take the game for a spin or just to open the galaxy map and zoom out.
If we can't travel there in real life, at least there is video game tourism.
Makes sense, given that the Milky Way--while 150-200 kly wide--is only about 2000 light years thick.
Of course, we could rapidly zoom much, much farther out, like in this intergalactic redshift survey:
https://www.universetoday.com/21914/the-closest-galaxy-to-th...
Space is incomprehensibly big.
Sirius A,B - Type=A1+DA, Magnitudes=-1.4+8.4, Distance=8.60 ly
This brilliant white star is the brightest star in the night sky and the most luminous star within 25 light years. Its white dwarf companion was first seen in 1852, the first white dwarf ever seen. The orbital period is 50 years.
Procyon A,B - Type=F5+DA, Magnitudes=0.4+10.7, Distance=11.41 ly
A brilliant yellow-white star, and the eighth brightest star in the sky. With twice the diameter of the Sun, Procyon is also the largest star within 25 light years. Procyon is orbited by a white dwarf companion first seen optically in 1896. The orbital period is 41 years.
Even removing every single point of failure, statistically the other components would still fail over time.
I think whichever system you build, it would somehow need to be self-repairing.
Man I feel so alone.
(not super maintained, apologies for visual glitches or stale data)
Not sure if you can get as far as this, but certainly worth a try if you are looking for a more detailed experience.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/314650/SpaceEngine/
Titans of Space Plus is probably the most educational space VR program I've used. It takes you on a guided tour of our solar system and puts everything into perspective at various scales, including some other stars. But it's not a map of the stars very much. It does the best job of conveying the relative sizes of things.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/468820/Titans_of_Space_PL...
Universe Sandbox isn't a map either, but it's worth mentioning as as a VR astronomy program.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/230290/Universe_Sandbox/
I have not tried this one: https://store.steampowered.com/app/751110/OVERVIEW_A_Walk_Th...
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough,
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving And revolving at 900 miles an hour. It's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned, The sun that is the source of all our power. Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see, Are moving at a million miles a day, In the outer spiral arm, at 40, 000 miles an hour, Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars; It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side; It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick, But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide. We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point, We go 'round every two hundred million years; And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe.
Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, In all of the directions it can whiz; As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth; And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!
John de Prez / Eric Idle
I genuinely think it is sad, but it is what it is. Interstellar space is so unimaginably huge (insert HGoG reference or excerpt here). At least you won't be alive to experience the time when the expansion just overtakes everything and leaves "us" a lone galaxy pondering why here is no light from others like us.
Hit #subscribe for more depressing space-facts! :|
What really strikes me as sad is:
Despite understanding how inaccessibly distant alternative potentially habitable planets are, people here on earth seem utterly incapable of living sustainably on what will very likely be the only planet their species will ever comfortably inhabit.
Me neither. But it used to. I was a Star Trek (TOS) kid and grew up assuming I would at least visit planets in adulthood, if not have a modest spacecraft of my own. Also that the Earth's warring tribes would do away with war & poverty in some utopian approximately Federationish style.
I'm not sure which seems sillier now.
What really strikes me as sad is ...people here on earth seem utterly incapable of living sustainably
That was my post Star Trek dreams phase, which probably lasted through much of my 30's.
Beyond that I've come to accept that it was never biologically plausible that a fairly clever social primate species would (magically?) be able to extend its social/cognitive/conative/affective capacities, evolved to negotiate small group survival and interaction, to the competent management of an entire biosphere.
That of course doesn't mean humans never will, future generations, should they go to space, will adapt and evolve to their new environments, whether naturally or through deliberate selection. You and I, we never will. But our descendants might.
It's pretty clear however that we're unlikely to make it that far.
I eventually came at peace with the destruction of the environment when I understood it was is unavoidable, just like our individual death. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. We're just an infinitesimal part of something too big to comprehend.
I suspect you're right that it was unavoidable, though (unfortunately in my view) we'll never really know, because the attempt to avoid it was never made with any vigour. We bailed out into blinkered nihilism long before we had to.
Back then I thought the prime directive kind of ideals, do not interfere or harm, seemed unrealistic and like something that we wouldn't be capable of if we found something that somebody important wanted.
Teleportation seemed like maybe plausible, but quite possibly a bit of a reach.
I guess because the Guinness Book of World Records was very popular at the time and we were always hearing about a new fastest car, plane, or something, I really thought we would be cruising around the cosmos at warp speed whatever pretty soon. Maybe lunch at a different planet every other weekend or something reasonable like that.
I will probably always be a little sad that it's not going to happen in my lifetime or likely ever.
I think the expectations run a bit deeper than Guinness Book of Records! Indeed some variation on 'progress' or elevated human 'destiny' has been foundational to modernity (clearly since the Enlightenment, or perhaps the Protestant Reformation; but with even deeper historical roots).
But back on topic, I've been looking for a small data set of stars for a little project that I've had in the back on my mind for the last 10 years or so, and this article has one: awesome.
After a few months of this I woke one morning from a hyper-real dream in which I was in a 'high-Earth' orbit and felt like I was seeing the solar system with a lot more clarity. That was it's own reward and I also think that it shows our minds are much more capable than we let on.