''Star Walk'' is an educational

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

smartphone app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

developed by

Vito Technology Vito Technology, Inc. is an American-German mobile software development company, best known for the educational application '' Star Walk'' for iOS, which has had more than 5 million downloads since its release in 2009. History The company is bas ...

which allows users to explore

celestial objects An astronomical object, celestial object, stellar object or heavenly body is a naturally occurring physical entity, association, or structure that exists within the observable universe. In astronomy, the terms ''object'' and ''body'' are of ...

in real-time. The application was released in 2009 and is compatible with

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

, and

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

devices. ''Star Walk'' has been downloaded by over 10 million users worldwide ever since its release. It aims to help people locate and identify over 200,000

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

planets A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets by the most restrictive definition of the te ...

constellations A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellations were likely defin ...

, and

satellites A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scientif ...

in the night sky and provide detailed information about these objects.

Functionality

The application aims to determine the position of celestial objects in the sky, calculated in real-time based on the position of the user. It includes information on

star cluster A star cluster is a group of stars held together by self-gravitation. Two main types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters, tight groups of ten thousand to millions of old stars which are gravitationally bound; and open cluster ...

meteor showers A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extr ...

, iridium flares,

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...

, and

nebula A nebula (; 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 regions, such as in the Pillars of Creation in ...

e as well as the current position of

dwarf planet A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be hydrostatic equilibrium, gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve clearing the neighbourhood, orbital dominance like the ...

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

s, and man-made

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

s. ''Star Walk'' can also display the times of sunrise and sunset for the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

(and other visible planets) at a particular location, as well as the current

moon phase A lunar phase or Moon phase is the apparent shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion as viewed from the Earth. Because the Moon is tidally locked with the Earth, the same hemisphere is always facing the Earth. In common usage, the four majo ...

, elevation angle, and day length. The app can show the map of the night sky in the past and future. In the iOS version, the app uses the camera for the

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

feature, combining the image data from the

camera A camera is an instrument used to capture and store images and videos, either digitally via an electronic image sensor, or chemically via a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. As a pivotal technology in the fields of photograp ...

with the star map to give the user a real-time view of celestial objects.

Star Walk 2

''Star Walk 2'' is an update of the original ''Star Walk'' astronomy application. It has a re-designed interface with 3 camera modes: free roam, manual/scrolling, and augmented reality. The augmented reality view also remains as a holdover from the original app. In order to explore the night sky objects, the user can orient the device toward the sky so that the application activates the camera and the charted objects can be seen appearing superimposed on live sky objects through the use of augmented reality. Users can scroll a list of objects visible on any night and from any location on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

Reception

In addition to its commercial success, ''Star Walk'' has been well-received by

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

s. At

WWDC The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...

2010, ''Star Walk'' won an

Apple Design Award The Apple Design Awards (ADAs) is an event hosted by Apple Inc. at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The purpose of the event is to recognize the best and most innovative Macintosh and iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός ...

for the iPad version. In 2012, it won the Parents’ Choice Gold Award in the "Mobile Apps" category, the Academics' Choice Award, and the

World Summit Award The World Summit Awards (WSA) rewards Information and Communications Technologies projects that have a positive impact on society at the local level. The award was initiated in 2003, within the framework of the United Nations World Summit on the ...

in the "Entertainment and Lifestyle" category.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Star WalkStar Walk 2 (official website)App Store – Star Walk – Explore the SkyApp Store – Star Walk 2 – Night Sky MapGoogle Play – Star Walk – Night Sky Guide: Planets and Stars MapGoogle Play – Star Walk 2 – Sky Guide: View Stars Day and Night
Astronomy education IOS software Android (operating system) software