| PackageDescription | A real-time visual space simulation (Gnome frontend)
Celestia is a real-time visual simulation of space. Choose a point
within the Local Group of galaxies, and Celestia will show you an
approximation of how it would appear to your eyes were you actually
there. Some of what Celestia shows is necessarily hypothetical--the
farther away from Earth you get, the less real data there is and the
more guesswork is involved. Thus Celestia supplements observational
data with good guesses based on models of stellar and planetary
processes.
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Celestia is unique in its ability to allow you to navigate at an
immense range of scales. Orbit a couple kilometers above the surface
of a tiny, irregular asteroid, then head off towards Jupiter, watching
it grow from a bright point of light into a looming sphere filling your
field of vision. Leave our solar system entirely and observe the sun
as it fades from a brilliant disk to a bright star, disappearing almost
entirely as you head off toward the Upsilon Andromeda system to orbit
around its innermost giant planet. |