SpaceEngine

SpaceEngine is an interactive 3D planetarium and astronomy software initially developed by Russian astronomer and programmer Vladimir Romanyuk and released in June 2010. Romanyuk and the SpaceEngine team later founded the American game studio Cosmographic Software in Connecticut in February 2022 to continue development. SpaceEngine creates a 1:1 scale three-dimensional planetarium representing the entire observable universe, combining real astronomical data with scientifically accurate procedural generation algorithms. Users can travel through space in any direction or at any speed and can move forwards or backwards in time. SpaceEngine is currently in beta status. Up to version 0.9.8.0E, released in August 2017, it was available as freeware for Microsoft Windows. Version 0.990 beta, the first paid edition, was released on Steam in June 2019. The program fully supports VR headsets. Properties of objects, such as temperature, mass, radius, and spectrum, are presented on the HUD and in an accessible information window. Users can observe a wide range of celestial objects, from small asteroids and moons to large galaxy clusters, similar to other simulators like Celestia, OpenSpace, Gaia Sky, and Nightshade NG. The default version of SpaceEngine includes over 130,000 real objects, featuring stars from the Hipparcos catalog, galaxies from the NGC and IC catalogs, many well-known nebulae, and all known exoplanets and their stars.