Space Mode
In space mode you can explore various structures in the universe ranging from
the topography of Earth to the large scale structure of the universe.
Mitaka seamlessly integrates up-to-date observational data and theoretical models.
Earth
You can see Earth's atmosphere and the reflection of sunlight off the oceans.
You can also see city lights on the night side of Earth.
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Earth's day side |
Earth's night side lit up by city lights. |
Planets and Moons
All known planets and major satellites are in Mitaka's database.
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Earth and Moon |
Jupiter and its satellites |
Pluto and its satellite, Charon |
Note: Textures for Pluto, Charon, Sedna and 2003UB313(Xena) are hypothetical.
Eclipses
You can see the shadow of the Moon on Earth and vice versa
and the shadows of the Galilean satellites (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) on Jupiter.
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The shadow of the Moon on Earth during a solar eclipse. |
One of the Galilean satellites cast a shadow onto Jupiter. |
Topography of Planets
On Earth and Mars, you can see the topography with some features labeled.
The height of topographic features can be exaggerated from the menu bar.
Earth
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Zooming in on Mt. Everest. |
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The topography is amplified by a factor of 5. |
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The vicinity of Japan |
Hawaii Island and Subaru telescope |
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Mars
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Zooming in on Olympus Mons. |
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The topography is amplified by a factor of 5. |
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Valles Marineris |
Topography around the Mars Pathfinder |
Famous features of Mars |
Spacecraft
Several spacecraft and their trajectories are in the Mitaka database.
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Pioneer 10 |
Voyager II |
Cassini |
Nearby Stars
Stars within 3000 light years with distance measurements from the Hipparcos satellite are in the database.
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Nearby stars |
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The Pleiades star cluster |
Our Galaxy and Globular Clusters
Mitaka's visualizations of the distribution of stars in our galaxy
and in globular clusters are based on theoretical models.
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Our galaxy model |
Edge on view of our galaxy model |
Globular cluster model generated using the `King model' |
The Distribution of Galaxies / Large Scale Structure of the Universe
The distribution of galaxies within 100 million light years is from the Nearby Galaxies Catalogue
by Brent Tully. The distribution of distant galaxies is from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
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The distribution of nearby galaxies |
The large scale structure of the universe |
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