[HN Gopher] The Universe Within 12.5 Light Years the Nearest Stars
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The Universe Within 12.5 Light Years the Nearest Stars
Author : dluan
Score : 60 points
Date : 2020-02-20 20:54 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasoftheuniverse.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasoftheuniverse.com)
| cryptoz wrote:
| Many of these stars have planets orbiting them, likely discovered
| after the author wrote this page. There are some references to
| planetary systems, but few compared to what has been discovered
| since. Proxima Centauri has at least one planet orbiting it (in
| the habitable zone!), for example:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri
|
| Barnard's star also has a planet, contrary to the claim on the
| page:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnard%27s_Star#Planetary_sys...
| fbn79 wrote:
| I can remember that star names from the very similar map in
| Frontiers: Elite 2.
| thom wrote:
| Ah, the old Ross 154 <-> Barnard's Star milk run.
| lubesGordi wrote:
| Why 12.5?
| hinkley wrote:
| That'd be a 25 light year sphere, but then that just leads to
| the same question with a different number.
| Koshkin wrote:
| You can click 'Zoom Out'.
| sllabres wrote:
| And Voyager 1, the furthest man made object has already completed
| 0,0023 lightyears from the 4.3 lightyears to the nearest star
| Alpha Centauri. But its heading in the wrong direction anyway...
| tyfon wrote:
| Playing Elite Dangerous, a lot of these names are quite familiar.
| I have at one point held base at Wolf 359 at least :)
|
| Maps like these are so fascinating, anyone know of something
| similar with updated planet information?
| ptrincr wrote:
| I was thinking the same, but more so with Frontier: Elite II
| :-)
| gimboland wrote:
| As soon as I opened that page I had a flashback to playing
| Elite on my ZX Spectrum as a 10-year-old. I had to look twice
| at the map to check it didn't show Lave and Reidquat.
|
| 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.
| jimmcslim wrote:
| The colours and font are quite evocative of the early
| versions of Elite, even if the names of the stars aren't :-)
| kangnkodos wrote:
| About 15 years ago, I used the open source program, Celestia.
| You could move around the solar system and beyond in 3D. It was
| cool at the time, but I haven't looked at it in a long time.
|
| 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?
| tyfon wrote:
| That sounds really awesome and it seems the project is still
| alive [1]. I'm going to play with this after work tomorrow!
|
| [1] https://celestia.space/
| wjdp wrote:
| I'm playing right now. Just docked at Morgan's Rock (on the
| edge of the Sagitarius arm heading back towards Sol) after a
| ~20kly loopy exploration/POI tourism trip.
|
| 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).
| tyfon wrote:
| It makes you appreciate the distances between binary stars
| when it takes 30+ minutes to travel from one to the other at
| 1000C :)
|
| Anyone slightly interested in astronomy should take the game
| for a spin or just to open the galaxy map and zoom out.
| lb1lf wrote:
| Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
|
| 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
| cmroanirgo wrote:
| I like to jump in the air when I think of that song and try to
| visualise how far I actually traveled (wrt centre of the
| galaxy) in that 1 second or so. One day I'll actually do the
| math...
|
| 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.
| itronitron wrote:
| Many years ago I was doing a lot of reading on astronomy and
| spent some time thinking intently about the scale of things
| in the solar system.
|
| 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.
| Koshkin wrote:
| I guess we should feel lucky that there aren't that many stars
| nearby...
| adamwong246 wrote:
| I wish these were 3d or animated, to give more perspective.
| fauria wrote:
| You can try Stellarium, a multi platform software that lets you
| navigate instantly across space: https://stellarium.org/
|
| Not sure if you can get as far as this, but certainly worth a
| try if you are looking for a more detailed experience.
| tantalor wrote:
| https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_of_Wolf_359
| TwoNineA wrote:
| Sleep. Sleep, Data.
| saberdancer wrote:
| Players of Aurora 4x will recognize those names. Fun fact, new
| version developed in C# will be released in March for testing.
| DennisP wrote:
| 3D star maps would be a great application of VR.
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(page generated 2020-02-20 23:00 UTC)