News
Posts about building the 3D solar system viewer and the science it tries to render. Dev journal entries and longer space writeups land here.
Land at Apollo 15's site, unfold the ramp and drive the Prospector rover across real lunar terrain built from LOLA laser altimetry, with wheel tracks and dust that flies without air.
Fly mode now has an Elite-style galaxy map of every catalogued star within 200 light years of the Sun. Plot a route, engage the drive, and arrive at Sirius or Alpha Centauri through hyperspace.
How far the Sun and every planet are from Earth today, how long their light takes to reach us, and how the site works those numbers out live in your browser from JPL orbital elements.
How the Solar System screensaver works. Every planet where it really is right now, framings lit by the real Sun, and close-ups that stop exactly where the planet's surface map runs out of detail.
The Mars Rover scene puts a lander and rover on the floor of Jezero Crater. Thin air, a third of Earth's gravity, dust that drifts and a sky the color of butterscotch.
Rocketry mode is a Kerbal-style build, launch and orbit game inside the 3D solar system. True-scale Earth, real orbital speed, staging, a navball and a map with manoeuvre nodes, no install.
Nine months of building a real-time 3D solar system in the browser, and the specific things that turned out to matter. Seams, boot budgets, duplicate PNGs, and why SSIM lied to me.
What this blog is going to be — part dev journal, part space notebook, written in public.