Skip to main content

Planets are coming

Sunholo
Sunholo
Stapledon's Voyage team

A new milestone, M5, brings planets, moons and flybys inside a star system, with the same rule as the sky: real data, real physics.

What's done​

  • The design and the sprint plan are approved (#84, #86).
  • A new AILANG package, sunholo/celestial 0.1.0, published with 93 tests: a Kepler solver, JPL planetary ephemerides for 3000 BC to 3000 AD plus moons, IAU reference frames, light-time, gravity, reflectance, and planetary rings.
  • sunholo/relativity 0.6 and 0.7: the bubble's forward glow, and the aberrated outline of a nearby sphere, which is what a planet looks like as you pass it near light speed.

What's planned​

Start held above Earth, pick a body on a system map (the Sun, 8 planets, 11 moons, 4 ring systems), choose to stop or fly by at 0.001c to 0.99c, commit, and ride the leg. The views will be exact: light-time delay, aberration, and the Terrell rotation that makes a passing sphere look turned. At α Centauri, the known and candidate planets will show as points only, with a badge saying how sure the astronomy is. The first step, the Sol and α Cen data and the game's package pins, has merged (#99).

See the roadmap.