TRANSPARENCY · SCIENTIFIC SOURCES & MODEL LIMITSKnow the source of your view.
Orbital elements, model identity, analytical ephemerides and visual presentation have separate provenance. Download dates and element epochs appear in the experiences.
Solar System Explorer: NASA/JPL dated orbits and catalog
Separate /solar-system module: full-precision SBDB/Query source records, bounded Horizons geometric vectors, CAD encounters and optional Sentry monitoring summaries. Immutable source versions, source epochs and fetch timestamps accompany calculated results.
- License / terms
- NASA/JPL factual scientific data with attribution; no endorsement claimed. Existing credited local planet textures are reused.
- Scope and limitations
- Server-side serialized requests, application/contact User-Agent, bounded snapshots, caching and backoff. This is not a complete JPL catalog mirror. Keplerian overview omits planetary perturbations and comet non-gravitational terms; sampled Horizons vectors are never extrapolated. Numerical overview, radius exaggeration, generic rocks and illustrative tails are labelled. No impact probabilities or uncertainty envelopes are inferred from rendered paths.
NAIF leap seconds and TDB time conversion
UTC to TT/TDB conversion for Solar System element epochs and CAD events; explicitly separate from rendering coordinates.
- License / terms
- Published scientific constants and effective leap-second dates
- Scope and limitations
- Future UTC assumes no new leap seconds. Before 1972 use modelled Delta T/UT1≈UTC; JavaScript cannot represent the leap-second instant. Rounded periodic correction is not a full SPICE time-kernel implementation.
NASA/JPL SBDB small-body orbital shapes
Rounded semi-major axis, eccentricity, inclination, node and perihelion for Halley, 67P, Hale–Bopp, Ceres, Vesta, Eros and Bennu. Retrieved once on 2026-10-16; solution epochs documented in docs/KNOWN_UNIVERSE.md.
- License / terms
- Factual orbital elements with NASA/JPL attribution; original procedural bodies and tails. No provider imagery redistributed.
- Scope and limitations
- Illustrative initial phases and enlarged markers. Sun-only Kepler propagation, without perturbations or real-time ephemeris claims. Asteroid belt particles are deterministic samples, not catalog observations. No runtime SBDB requests.
Known Universe: SIMBAD coordinates and source-linked distances
A small curated set of ICRS J2000 positions retrieved from SIMBAD TAP on 2026-10-16, with rounded NASA, ESO and ICRAR distance references linked on each destination. GN-z11 direction/redshift from Tacchella et al. 2023 (arXiv:2302.07234).
- License / terms
- Factual coordinate excerpts with attribution; original procedural 3D visuals. No survey imagery or bulk star catalog redistributed.
- Scope and limitations
- Not a complete map, live ephemeris or dynamical galaxy simulation. Shapes/orientations and close-ups are illustrative. Deep redshifts use radial comoving distance in a flat LCDM model (H0 67.4, Omega_m .315, Omega_r .000092), not light-travel distance. Rounded nearby distances have measurement and source differences. Comet phases and asteroid particles are illustrative; orbital shapes use rounded elements.
Milky Way procedural structure model
Original 3D star, gas and dust geometry informed by ESA descriptions of galactic anatomy; NASA approximate disk scale and Sun distance, with a nominal 4.3 million solar-mass center marker from ESO stellar-orbit measurements.
- License / terms
- Original procedural visualization; no ESA imagery or catalog star data redistributed.
- Scope and limitations
- Illustrative arms, nebulae, colors and globular clusters. Fixed Sun and center markers; static morphology rather than observed star coordinates, galactic rotation, self-gravity or dark-matter dynamics.
Google Draco glTF decoder
Locally hosted decoder for the official compressed GLB models
- License / terms
- Apache-2.0
- Scope and limitations
- Bundled through the installed Three.js distribution. Provenance and complete license accompany the decoder under /models/draco/.
CelesTrak GP / OMM-compatible JSON
Central orbital-element ingestion; catalog identity and epoch
- License / terms
- Provider usage policy, not a blanket media/model license. Publicly accessible factual orbital elements; no ownership or endorsement claimed.
- Scope and limitations
- One download per update (at least two hours). Stop on HTTP errors and investigate. No automatic full-catalog mirroring across every overlapping group.
satellite.js 7
OMM parsing, SGP4/SDP4, TEME to ECEF approximation, WGS84 geodetic and observer angles; solar shadow estimates
- License / terms
- MIT
- Scope and limitations
- SGP4 uses its standard WGS72 propagation constants; WGS84 is used for geodetic output. No polar motion / full ITRF Earth-orientation solution.
Astronomy Engine
Earth apparent topocentric sky, planetary and lunar J2000 vectors, UTC/UT/TT model, IAU lunar axis, precession and rise/set
- License / terms
- MIT
- Scope and limitations
- Analytical calculations, not a live telescope feed. Lunar vector differences and IAU orientation are educational approximations to full Horizons observer ephemerides.
NASA/JPL Horizons
Existing Live Moon service and independent sky validation references
- License / terms
- Public NASA/JPL scientific output; cite provider and check underlying media rights independently
- Scope and limitations
- Serialize upstream requests, check payload errors as well as HTTP status, cache bounded queries. The new general observatory calculates locally with Astronomy Engine.
NASA 3D Resources
Locally hosted ISS, Hubble, Landsat 8 and GOES-family GLB assets; individual hashes in /models/manifest.json
- License / terms
- Repository describes assets as free and without copyright, subject to NASA media guidelines and any third-party notices
- Scope and limitations
- Informational scientific visualization; NASA attribution, no endorsement. Logos/people/third-party assets can need separate commercial clearances. Published configurations are not real-time attitudes.
HYG v4.1 bright-star subset
HIP identifiers, J2000 RA/Dec, magnitudes, proper motions and constellation identifiers; magnitude < 5.5
- License / terms
- CC BY-SA 4.0 · David Nash / Astronexus and catalog contributors
- Scope and limitations
- The derived dataset remains CC BY-SA 4.0; attribution and source/license accompany the downloadable subset. Constellation drawing figures are illustrative, not IAU boundaries.
NASA NSSDCA Apollo landing coordinates
Apollo lunar-module region presets
- License / terms
- NASA scientific factual coordinates
- Scope and limitations
- Mean Earth/Polar Axis DE421 site coordinates used approximately with an IAU orientation; not a navigation or local terrain survey.
GeoNames observer city catalog
Existing local city/country/region catalog and city observer search
- License / terms
- CC BY 4.0
- Scope and limitations
- City positions and elevation are approximate; browser position is used only after the visitor requests location permission.
Existing simulator Earth, Moon and Sun textures
Earth rendering and illustrative lunar foreground; reused licensed local assets
- License / terms
- Asset-specific credits retained with simulator
- Scope and limitations
- Lunar foreground is not georeferenced local terrain. Surface brightness is rendered presentation, not photometric data.
Curated NASA / USGS mission facts
Sourced mission descriptions for ISS, Hubble and Landsat; unavailable fields remain null
- License / terms
- Factual metadata with per-record source links
- Scope and limitations
- No unverified manufacturer, launch vehicle, lifetime, country or physical details inferred from a name. SATCAT and licensed operator feeds can be added separately.