Space Engine – Free Universe Simulator

[Artlav]

SE needs more publicity; there are probably millions who would love the program if they only knew it existed.

It's quite public in russia - i've seen an article abut it in a printed gaming magazine, and it's well known on gamedev.ru.

If I stumbled on a ringworld in Space Engine I might just die of excitement

Hmm... :hmm:
You do have a recent backup clone, don't you?

 

[Izack]

You do have a recent backup clone, don't you?

Of course. Never leave Earth without one.

 

[boogabooga]

It's quite public in russia - i've seen an article abut it in a printed gaming magazine, and it's well known on gamedev.ru.

That's not good enough when you deserve to be world-famous.


You don't need an an entire universe simulation for a space-vehicle simulation.
To me the glory of SE is the full-scale procedural universe.

I wish the developer would concentrate on scientific accuracy because I think SE belongs in museums and classrooms.

 

[Artlav]

To me the glory of SE is the full-scale procedural universe.

With 1 Gb of support files?
That's nowhere near "full scale".

Scientific accuracy and procedural generation don't mix well - either you have Celestia with it's precise star locations and data, or you have Space Engine, with randomly distributed stars and so on.

 

[boogabooga]

Full-scale, procedural. I understand full well that stars are in "random" locations. But unlike Celestia, you can see the stars in other galaxies.

By scientific accuracy I mean things like
-Keeping pace with exoplanet discovery (which he does)
-Having correct ephemerides for known bodies
-Having a "correct" percentage of stars have planets
-Planets rendered correctly for their size, closness to star, etc.
-Adding known black holes/ objects detected from other than visible light
-Stars are older or younger where you would expect them to be older/younger

stuff like that.

 

[Izack]

So I found a, er, thing:

This is a scorched desert planet, apparently in the middle of a Disaster Area concert.

 

[Scav]

This is a scorched desert planet, apparently in the middle of a Disaster Area concert.

It's Arrakis, on a good day.

 

[Izack]

It's Arrakis, on a good day.

When they told me the spice must flow, this isn't what I had in mind! :blink:

 

[Izack]

A ringed, life-bearing planet with binary suns, in the periphery of a globular cluster outside Hoag's Object.

---------- Post added at 01:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:27 AM ----------

A nearby life-bearing moon of a gas giant. This is another binary system, with three life-bearing worlds in total.

 

[Linguofreak]

Any location data or such that we could use to track it down ourselves?

 

[Izack]

Ah, I wasn't aware such things could be shared; I thought the universe was generated differently each time.

So... the The ringed planet is "RSC 10369-4148-1-6-207 2", and the second is "RSC 10369-4148-2-52-5 B5.2". The second is in a very interesting binary system, with both stars having their own planets (A with two life-bearing, and B with one life-bearing moon, pictured.) They are both in the same cluster.

 

[N_Molson]

They are both in the same cluster.

Close neighbors, so to say :lol:

 

[Linguofreak]

Ah, I wasn't aware such things could be shared; I thought the universe was generated differently each time.

So... the The ringed planet is "RSC 10369-4148-1-6-207 2", and the second is "RSC 10369-4148-2-52-5 B5.2". The second is in a very interesting binary system, with both stars having their own planets (A with two life-bearing, and B with one life-bearing moon, pictured.) They are both in the same cluster.

I managed to find the first one. It was rather difficult, as there seems to be no good means of tracking down a procedurally generated star. Finding the cluster was fairly easy, but the planet's primary was a needle in a haystack.

It shouldn't really be labeled as life-bearing, though. It might have liquid water, but the system primary is A) already a giant, and B) Far too young for life anyways.

 

[Izack]

Close neighbors, so to say :lol:

Yes. If they ever devised a space program, first contact may be slightly easier for them than us. How such a stable system developed in a globular cluster is beyond me, though. And in a binary star system, no less.

I managed to find the first one. It was rather difficult, as there seems to be no good means of tracking down a procedurally generated star. Finding the cluster was fairly easy, but the planet's primary was a needle in a haystack.

That's odd. I'm able to just paste the full planet name into the Find dialog and be taken straight to it. Perhaps that's because it has already been generated and visited...

It shouldn't really be labeled as life-bearing, though. It might have liquid water, but the system primary is A) already a giant, and B) Far too young for life anyways.

Perhaps being technically capable of at least temporarily harbouring life is enough to satisfy Space Engine. Is it possible that there is microbial life?

One of the other life-bearing planets mentioned was oceanic, with no land mass protruding from its 60km-deep ocean. Perhaps it has Pattern Jugglers. The other, though labelled a 'temperate terra' was visibly arid, with almost no liquid water or polar ice to be seen. It was also tidally locked to its close, massive moon. Lastly, it had extensive rings, bringing another question: would that imply a recent period of frequent impacts on its surface? I do not know the time scale at which rings systems dissipate, but one or more bodies must have been destroyed relatively recently for rings to exist around such a small world. Some material must have reached the surface, no?

 

[Izack]

Four worlds in the vicinity of T Tauri, a young variable star ~200 parsecs from Sol. In the foreground is T Tauri 4, a terrestrial planet with five moons.

 

[Linguofreak]

Had a brief scare a day or two ago when SE complained that it was only finding OpenGL 2 and subsequently segfaulted after my sysem had pulled in updates to Wine and a bunch of OpenGL libraries. Fortunately, it disappeared on reboot (if I had to guess, from what I know of how Linux does shared libraries, I'd say that probably Compiz had loaded the old version of an OpenGL library when it started up, and then SE/Wine loaded the new version of another library that depended on the first. On reboot the new versions of both libraries got loaded).

Anyways, I've been trying to piece together the geometry from a certain Sci-Fi book I'm a fan of. Paste this into the "Locations" menu in SE and tell me if you recognize the view.

Place	"Do you recognize this?"
{
	Body	"RS 8404-1125-7-2052598-0"
	Parent	""
	Pos		(11612.70589733307, -20068.42796895839, -21214.38829708691)
	Rot		(0.4361289716130354, 0.8122200203194314, 0.2792117537890993, 0.268572067159029)
	Date	"2011.05.24 09:42:55.23"
	Vel		3902.8357
	Mode	1
}

EDIT: Oops, right system, wrong camera location. I've changed the contents of the code box to produce the view I actually had in mind. If you originally saw this before I put this "EDIT" note up, repaste it into your "Locations" menu.

 

[Izack]

I can't say that I recognise it. It's a nice view of the Milky Way, though is the camera supposed to be so far from the selected system?

 

[Linguofreak]

I can't say that I recognise it. It's a nice view of the Milky Way, though is the camera supposed to be so far from the selected system?

Yes. That was actually the error the first time: The camera was in the selected system.

The view is a (partial) recreation of a map from the book in question, and I selected it for that purpose. For an impressive view, the in-system view is much better, though the system itself, being randomly generated, doesn't match the (limited) astronomical detail given on it in the book, except that it's in more or less the right location.

 

[Quick_Nick]

 

[Linguofreak]

I noticed something really cool in 9.7.1 a few days ago (not sure if it was in earlier versions):

If two stars are in a really close orbit around each other, Space Engine actually models the hotter star heating the surface of the cooler star so that the cooler star actually has a visible night side, day side, and terminator.