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Celestia is a real-time 3D
astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galax ...
software program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer program i ...
that was created in 2001 by Chris Laurel. The program allows users to virtually travel through our universe and explore real objects that have been catalogued. Celestia also doubles as a planetarium, but the user is not restricted to the Earth's surface, like in other planetarium software such as
Stellarium A stellarium is a three-dimensional map of the stars, typically centered on Earth. They are common fixtures at planetarium A planetarium ( planetariums or ''planetaria'') is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entert ...
. To summarize, Celestia is a scientifically accurate 3D universe simulator, that is also highly customizable. Celestia can display objects of various scales using
OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...
,There are three graphical front-ends available: GLUT, GTK+ or Qt. and the user can seamlessly transition between different scales, from entire galaxies to spacecraft a few meters across. Celestia is available for
AmigaOS 4 AmigaOS 4 (abbreviated as OS4 or AOS4) is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. It is mainly based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code developed by Commodore, and partially on version 3.9 developed by Haage & Partner. " ...
, Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows,
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
, and Android. It is free and open source software released under the GNU General Public License. Celestia's development stopped in 2013, with the final release in 2011. Since then, some of its development team went to work on celestia.Sci, a cosmological visualizer featuring more realistic rendering of galaxies and planets, gravitational lensing, and many other scientifically accurate enhancements. However, since th
Celestial Matters
forums went down in 2020, there have been no updates on the progress of the program. The original creator of Celestia, Chris Laurel, create
Fifth Star Labs
after Celestia's development stopped, and started work on the widely-used iOS ap
Sky Guide
which is now the 9th most used Reference category app on the
App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the c ...
. In late 2016, the official Celestia forums were restored, and development restarted. As of 2020 beta testing builds of version 1.7.0 are available, as well as the bugfix release 1.6.2. Celestia was ported to mobile devices in 2020, and it continues to receive updates and loads of experimental beta versions. As of 2021, there is a project on the main Celestia GitHub repository titled Release 1.6.3, but it hasn't been updated in over a year. If 1.6.3 were to be released, it would consist of a major data update, likely backported mostly from 1.7.0. Celestia is available for download from its main website
celestia.space
but it can be obtained from a large multitude of free software websites as well. Between 2001 and May 2017, the former central distribution site SourceForge counted approximately 12 million downloads.


Functions

Celestia versions 1.6.2.2 and under display the
Hipparcos Catalogue ''Hipparcos'' was a scientific satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in 1989 and operated until 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the accurate measurement of the positions of celestial obj ...
(HIP) of 118,322 stars and a compiled catalogue of galaxies, while version 1.7.0 includes stars from the Tycho-2 Catalogue alongside the Hipparcos stars, with some data from
Gaia In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parth ...
, increasing the star count to over 2 million. Celestia uses the VSOP87 theory of planetary orbits to provide a solar and lunar eclipse finder and to display the orbital paths of planets (including
extrasolar planet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...
s), dwarf planets, moons,
asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...
s,
comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are ...
s, artificial satellites, and spacecraft. Using the installed catalogues, the names of celestial objects can be displayed, including artificial satellites. The names and locations of Earth features such as continents, mountains, seas, oceans, and cities can also be displayed. Surface features on other celestial objects such as craters, basins and canyons can be shown as well. Celestia allows users to navigate at different speeds, and allow users to orbit stars, planets, moons, and other space objects, track space objects such as spacecraft, asteroids, and comets as they fly by, or travel to and/or fly through galaxies. Light time delay is an optional function. The time simulated by Celestia can be set to any time 2 billion years forward or backward from the present, although planetary orbits are only accurate within a few thousand years of the present day, and Celestia simulates the appearance of atmospheres on planets and moons, planetshine on orbiting satellites, and miscellaneous planetary details such as sunrise and sunset. Information about the objects that Celestia draws can also be displayed, such as temperature, distance from observer, radius, rotational period, luminosity, and more. The user can change Celestia's field of view, and the window can be split into multiple different panes, meaning that several objects can be displayed on the screen at once. Screenshots and movies can be captured in classic or HD resolutions. Celestia's support for gamepads and joysticks is relatively limited. Celestia can be extended with new objects, and has support for third-party, user-created add-ons available for installation, both fictional and realistic. These files are plain text files that are written like code and have specific syntax rules that have to be followed for Celestia to read them, and there are dozens of different use cases and ways to write these files. Celestia also uses custom CEL and CELX scripts written in the powerful Lua programming language which can execute a multitude of functions.


Limitations

The default setting for Celestia's Earth is a spheroid. The irregular surface of the Earth causes low Earth orbit satellites to appear to be in the wrong places in the sky when watched from the surface, even when the Earth's oblateness is specified. Many types of astronomical objects are not included with Celestia. Variable stars, supernovae,
black hole A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can defo ...
s, and
nebula A nebula ('cloud' or 'fog' in Latin; pl. nebulae, nebulæ or nebulas) is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. Nebulae are often star-forming region ...
e are missing from the standard distribution. Many of these are available as add-ons. Although objects that form part of a planetary system move, and stars rotate about their axes and orbit each other in multiple star systems, stellar
proper motion Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...
is not simulated, and galaxies are at fixed locations. As a result, the constellations in Celestia do not gradually change shape as they do in the real world. In addition, Celestia's binary star catalogs only describe a few hundred systems of multiple stars. Most
binary star A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars, in w ...
systems cannot be simulated with 100% accuracy because adequate orbital information is not yet available. Celestia does not include any stars that are more than a few thousand light-years from the Sun because the parallaxes of more distant stars are too small to be accurately measured by the Hipparcos
astrometric Astrometry is a branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies. It provides the kinematics and physical origin of the Solar System and this galaxy, the Milky Way. Hist ...
satellite. However, with the addition of Gaia data in 1.7.0, stars as far away as the galactic center are included. In addition, objects in star systems are only drawn to a distance of one light-year from their parent stars, any further and they will not be rendered at all. Similarly, there is a render limit for stars at 10 million light-years in 1.6.2.2 and under, increased to 1 billion light-years in 1.7.0. Any stars beyond that limit are not rendered, and stars that are close to the 1.7.0 render limit experience floating point errors that give of similar vibes to Minecraft's infamous Far Lands bug. Finally, Celestia does not consider the wobbling of some stars induced by their planets, unless said wobbling is very noticeable. Wavelength filtering is not implemented in Celestia's engine. The actual rendering tries to match human vision at the observer's position as accurately as possible. This means false-color maps and multi-color nebulae are not part of the official distribution, but some are available as add-ons. Camera artifacts such as lens flare and glare are not rendered. Celestia also does not simulate gravity. For example, a
near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3  astronomical units (AU) ...
approaching the Earth will not be deflected by the Earth's gravity unless the person who defined the NEO's trajectory for Celestia included that effect. Some moons do not cast shadows on their planet during eclipses. This is because irregularly shaped objects do not cast shadows in the current version of Celestia, although this is planned for future versions. Additionally, moons smaller than 0.5% of their parent objects' size do not cast shadows at all, as "these shadows aren't likely to be relevant", but the removal of this feature has been considered. Most real-world spacecraft such as '' Voyager 2'' are not available in Celestia but are provided as add-ons by users. Additionally, most of the spacecraft included with standard Celestia use outdated or low-quality models, such as the stock Mir which uses extremely low-quality textures and models, and the stock ISS which hasn't had an update since around 2007, but there are add-ons on the Celestia Forums which add more accurate and higher-quality models. However, there has recently been work done to add higher-quality, more up-to-date models into standard 1.7.0. Celestia uses the Julian calendar and cannot go back or forward more than 2 billion years, and the default time-setting system cannot go further than the years -9999 or 9999.


Add-ons

Well over 80  GB of extensions are available in addition to the base program, produced by an active user community. Higher resolution surface textures are available for most solar system bodies, including Virtual Textures with coverage up to 32768 pixels wide (1.25 km/pixel at the Earth's equator), with selected coverage at higher resolutions. This allows closer views of well-mapped objects that have high-resolution VTs available for download. 3D models of historical and existing spacecraft are available flying in reasonably accurate trajectories, such as
Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for ...
, Voyager 2, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the International Space Station, as are extended
data plot A plot is a graphical technique for representing a data set, usually as a graph showing the relationship between two or more variables. The plot can be drawn by hand or by a computer. In the past, sometimes mechanical or electronic plotters were us ...
s for stars (2 million with correct spatial coordinates), DSOs (nebulae, galaxies,
open cluster An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of up to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and ...
s, etc.), as well as catalogs of asteroids and comets, and more than 96,000 locations on the Earth can be drawn by the program. Add-ons also include other objects such as red and blue supergiants, red and brown dwarfs, neutron stars, spinning pulsars, rotating black holes with accretion disks, protostars, Wolf-Rayet stars, star nursery nebulae, supernova remnants, planetary nebulae, galactic redshifts, geological planetary displays (e.g. 3D interiors, topographic and
bathymetric Bathymetry (; ) is the study of underwater depth of ocean floors (''seabed topography''), lake floors, or river floors. In other words, bathymetry is the underwater equivalent to hypsometry or topography. The first recorded evidence of water de ...
maps,
paleogeography Palaeogeography (or paleogeography) is the study of historical geography, generally physical landscapes. Palaeogeography can also include the study of human or cultural environments. When the focus is specifically on landforms, the term pal ...
), planetary aurorae, rotating magnetic fields, animated
solar prominence A prominence, sometimes referred to as a filament, is a large plasma and magnetic field structure extending outward from the Sun's surface, often in a loop shape. Prominences are anchored to the Sun's surface in the photosphere, and extend outw ...
s, 3D craters and mountains, and historic collision events (Either spacecraft such as Deep Impact and
DART Dart or DART may refer to: * Dart, the equipment in the game of darts Arts, entertainment and media * Dart (comics), an Image Comics superhero * Dart, a character from ''G.I. Joe'' * Dart, a ''Thomas & Friends'' railway engine character * Da ...
, or meteoric impacts such as the
Chelyabinsk meteor The Chelyabinsk meteor was a superbolide that entered Earth's atmosphere over the southern Ural region in Russia on 15 February 2013 at about 09:20 YEKT (03:20 UTC). It was caused by an approximately near-Earth asteroid that entered the a ...
). Numerous scripts are available. These include simple tours, reconstructions of complex space missions such as
Cassini–Huygens ''Cassini–Huygens'' ( ), commonly called ''Cassini'', was a space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its r ...
and '' Deep Impact'', and scripts showing useful information, like size comparisons, or particular events such as multiple simultaneous eclipses of Jupiter's moons or the evolution of a star. Fictional universes can be depicted, with planetary systems and 3D models—films such as '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'', '' Star Trek'' and '' Star Wars'', and TV shows including ''
Stargate SG-1 ''Stargate SG-1'' (often stylized in all caps, or abbreviated ''SG-1'') is a military science fiction adventure television series within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's ''Stargate'' franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, i ...
'' and ''
Babylon 5 ''Babylon 5'' is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Telev ...
''. Add-ons illustrating less well-known Web fiction, like '' Orion's Arm'', or
role-playing games A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...
, like
2300 AD ''2300 AD'', originally titled ''Traveller: 2300'', is a tabletop science fiction role-playing game created by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) and first published in 1986. Publication history GDW created the popular science fiction role-playing ...
, and personal works by members of the Celestia community depicting fictional solar systems with inhabited worlds, spacecraft, cities, and special effects can also be added. Educational add-ons can also be implemented in different languages. These activities provide approximately 40 hours of space journeys and astronomical lessons to include extensive tours of the Celestia universe, the complete life cycle of stars, the solar system, the human space program, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and depictions of astronomical events such as the formation of our moon billions of years ago, and the possible
terraforming of Mars The terraforming of Mars or the terraformation of Mars is a hypothetical procedure that would consist of a planetary engineering project or concurrent projects, with the goal of transforming Mars from a planet hostile to terrestrial life to o ...
in the future.Installation instructions for the add-ons are available on the Wikibooks page In mid 2016, a large addon pack project called Celestia Origin was created, which replaces all vanilla textures and graphics with higher-quality renderings, adds more minor objects such as TNOs and asteroids, while also adding more
extrasolar planets An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, in ...
with custom textures, more nebulae with full 3D and accurate models, more stars and galaxies, more star clusters, more spacecraft, and a ton of more enhancements. In 2019, Celestia Forum member FarGetaNik created an addon pack called Project Echoes, featuring higher-quality renderings that replace all vanilla textures. Celestia 1.7 appears to use Project Echoes as inspiration for its textures.


Uses in media

NASA and
ESA , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...
have used Celestia in their educational and outreach programs, as well as for interfacing to trajectory analysis software. The French Space Agency (CNES) created a heavily modified version of Celestia in 2016, called VTS Timeloop, and it has since been used by multiple space agencies, including ESA and CNES themselves. Celestia was used in the media by the CBS television show '' NCIS'' (Season 4, Episode 22: " In the Dark"). Character Timothy McGee explains what Celestia is and how an add-on can allow the user to store a diary within the program, as well. Textures designed by Celestia graphic artists were used in the movie ''
The Day After Tomorrow ''The Day After Tomorrow'' is a 2004 American science fiction disaster film directed, co-produced, and co-written by Roland Emmerich. Based on the 1999 book '' The Coming Global Superstorm'' by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, the film stars Den ...
'' and the 2008 miniseries ''
The Andromeda Strain ''The Andromeda Strain'' is a 1969 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton, his first novel under his own name and his sixth novel overall. It is written as a report documenting the efforts of a team of scientists investigating the outbreak of ...
''. Celestia has also appeared on the Science Channel's '' Through the Wormhole''. Eurogamer's
Jim Rossignol James Michael Rossignol (born July 1978) is a British video game journalist and critic, as well as an author. He has also branched out into games, founding the company Big Robot in 2010. Biography Rossignol started his career as a reporter ...
named ''Celestia'' among a top 20 list of ''Summer of PC''
Freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the ...
games in 2006.Eurogamer's Summer of PC Plenty - Twenty freeware games.
by
Jim Rossignol James Michael Rossignol (born July 1978) is a British video game journalist and critic, as well as an author. He has also branched out into games, founding the company Big Robot in 2010. Biography Rossignol started his career as a reporter ...
on
Eurogamer.net ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson. Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EGX ...
(2006-07-18)


See also

*
SpaceEngine SpaceEngine (stylized as SPΛCE ΞNGINE) is an interactive 3D planetarium and astronomy software developed by Russian astronomer and programmer Vladimir Romanyuk. It creates a 1:1 scale three-dimensional planetarium representing the entire obser ...
* OpenUniverse * Space flight simulation game **
List of space flight simulation games This is a sourced index of commercial, indie and freeware space flight simulation games. The list is categorized into four sections: space flight simulators, space flight simulators with an added element of combat, space combat simulators with ...
*
Planetarium software Planetarium software is application software that allows a user to simulate the celestial sphere at any time of day, especially at night, on a computer. Such applications can be as rudimentary as displaying a star chart or sky map for a specific t ...
*
List of observatory software The following is a list of astronomical observatory software. Commercial software * MaximDL * XEphem Non-commercial software {{columns-list, colwidth=30em, * Aladin Sky Atlas * Astropy * Cartes du Ciel * Celestia * Google Sky * Hallo North ...
* Gravity (software)


Notes


References


External links

*
GitHub repository
Current binaries and source code
Celestia Archive Repository
Archive of Windows, macOS, and Linux binaries
Official Forums



Celestia.Mobi main site
{{Astronomy software 2001 software Free astronomy software Planetarium technology Astronomy software Free educational software Planetarium software for Linux Science software that uses GTK AmigaOS 4 software Science software for macOS Science software for Windows Educational software for macOS Educational software for Windows Cross-platform free software Lua (programming language)-scriptable software Portable software Freeware