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Awesome One thing I really want to see get out of a universe/solar system app, though, is a better sense of scale -- to me, having enlarged planets makes it di

by leot 15y ago

Awesome One thing I really want to see get out of a universe/solar system app, though, is a better sense of scale -- to me, having enlarged planets makes it difficult for me to understand the strength and range of gravity, or the challenges of the distances involved. Perhaps this could be done by adding a window showed a magnified view of (the) space under the cursor, rather like a telescope/magnifying glass?

christiangenco 15y ago
Yes! I'm so glad I wasn't the first person so say this - a complete misunderstanding of the scale of the solar system is one of my greatest pet peeves. Imagine a perfect scale model of the universe where the sun is 4.3 feet in diameter (a foot longer than a meter stick). How big and how far away do you imagine earth to be? Nobody can intuitively come close to the right answer because there's absolutely no attempt at any level of general education for conveying the scale of things in this realm. The correct answer is precisely 0.476 inches, a little smaller than a dime, and 465 feet away, about two football fields. This simulation - while cool - at times depicts Jupiter as being twice as big as the sun, but at this scale it would be 5.332 inches in diameter (about the size of a cantaloupe). At the very least, I'd sleep much better if his "scale" toggle was off by default.
- neilk 15y ago
  The app creator made the right decision when he defaulted to a false scale. Scale is not the only important thing to convey, one also wants to show relationships and have a model of the whole that fits in a monkey brain. Also, in this interface, the planets serve as big "buttons" to navigate to a celestial body of interest. So they have to be larger. The thing would be unusable, and boring, if it showed specks of dust orbiting a mustard seed.
- nisse72 15y ago
  Here's another take on that, a scale model of the solar system that stretches across much of Sweden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System The sun is 110 m in diameter ("including corona" they say). A 65 cm Earth is 7.6 km away.
qznc 15y ago
There is a switch to scale to realistic proportions. Actually, there are three separate switches for sun, planets, and moons. It also features a gravity grid. So everything you want is already in there?
- leot 15y ago
  First impressions can make a huge difference. Especially in the case of the spatial organization of things, they set the frame we use orient ourselves in a broader context. I should have mentioned that I'd noticed the inclusion of scale-change settings the first time around. But I have strong sense (based in part on years of research in the area) that allowing parts of the environment to change scale arbitrarily (at least early in the user's interaction) will hurt their capacity to form a veridical and long-lasting representation of the organization of space. Of course, I've never done anything close to this in awesomeness; no doubt there are trade-offs of which I'm unaware.
DanBC 15y ago
Have you seen this thing from NASA? (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120312.html http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120312.html) It was posted to HN a while ago here - (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3756044 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3756044) (Only got 7 up votes, which is baffling.) There's also this - (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/03/23/an-ultradeep-image-thats-full-galaxies/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/03/23/an...) Which was posted to HN here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3758047 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3758047)

by leot 15y ago

christiangenco 15y ago

Yes! I'm so glad I wasn't the first person so say this - a complete misunderstanding of the scale of the solar system is one of my greatest pet peeves. Imagine a perfect scale model of the universe where the sun is 4.3 feet in diameter (a foot longer than a meter stick). How big and how far away do you imagine earth to be? Nobody can intuitively come close to the right answer because there's absolutely no attempt at any level of general education for conveying the scale of things in this realm. The correct answer is precisely 0.476 inches, a little smaller than a dime, and 465 feet away, about two football fields. This simulation - while cool - at times depicts Jupiter as being twice as big as the sun, but at this scale it would be 5.332 inches in diameter (about the size of a cantaloupe). At the very least, I'd sleep much better if his "scale" toggle was off by default.

neilk 15y ago
The app creator made the right decision when he defaulted to a false scale. Scale is not the only important thing to convey, one also wants to show relationships and have a model of the whole that fits in a monkey brain. Also, in this interface, the planets serve as big "buttons" to navigate to a celestial body of interest. So they have to be larger. The thing would be unusable, and boring, if it showed specks of dust orbiting a mustard seed.
nisse72 15y ago
Here's another take on that, a scale model of the solar system that stretches across much of Sweden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System The sun is 110 m in diameter ("including corona" they say). A 65 cm Earth is 7.6 km away.

qznc 15y ago

There is a switch to scale to realistic proportions. Actually, there are three separate switches for sun, planets, and moons. It also features a gravity grid. So everything you want is already in there?

leot 15y ago
First impressions can make a huge difference. Especially in the case of the spatial organization of things, they set the frame we use orient ourselves in a broader context. I should have mentioned that I'd noticed the inclusion of scale-change settings the first time around. But I have strong sense (based in part on years of research in the area) that allowing parts of the environment to change scale arbitrarily (at least early in the user's interaction) will hurt their capacity to form a veridical and long-lasting representation of the organization of space. Of course, I've never done anything close to this in awesomeness; no doubt there are trade-offs of which I'm unaware.

DanBC 15y ago

Have you seen this thing from NASA? (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120312.html http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120312.html) It was posted to HN a while ago here - (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3756044 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3756044) (Only got 7 up votes, which is baffling.) There's also this - (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/03/23/an-ultradeep-image-thats-full-galaxies/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/03/23/an...) Which was posted to HN here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3758047 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3758047)