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Callisto, the bubble wall, and a shorter voyage

Sunholo
Sunholo
Stapledon's Voyage team

Callisto was a smooth grey ball because its surface map was missing. It now has its own crater mosaic, and nine other moons gain source imagery too. Dust impacts leave short curved marks across the bubble wall, the gas chart gains density shading, and the guided voyage reaches its distant highlights once each.

Callisto has a surface​

Callisto with its pinned USGS/NASA mosaic

This is the native planet renderer, staged at six Callisto radii for a fixed-exposure comparison. The USGS/NASA monochrome mosaic resolves craters and the bright scars around impact basins. Its mean brightness is normalized to the body's adopted visible albedo.

The added maps cover Callisto, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea and Triton. Export checks now require all nineteen declared textured bodies, closing a loophole that only checked the original nine.

Most new mosaics are monochrome; Io and Triton use enhanced or filter-composite colour. Source seams and missing coverage remain visible, including Triton's unmapped north. Titan's surface maps use radar or infrared beneath its haze, so they are not used as ordinary visible-light terrain. Image sources and credits.

Marks attached to the wall​

The same seeded flight with surface marks at a 60-degree field of view

The impacts retain their frequency, energy, temperature and decay. Their wall patches now stretch along incidence and bend slightly, preserving the original emitting area. They are still G-AG, the labelled wall-afterglow approximation. They do not claim simulated particle trails or lateral scattering.

A magnified three-degree view of one of those same impacts

The second image magnifies one of the same seeded events to a three-degree field of view. CPU and GPU checks cover normal, glancing and off-centre views, overlaps and the integrated light budget.

Clouds as instrument data​

The native navigation station with false-colour density shading

Press D or use Interstellar medium, then Local ISM, to see the local gas. Density shading fills the adopted LIC surface and published warm-cloud angular outlines at their approximate depths. Construction spokes are optional under Depth guides; labels separate where they would overlap. The colour scale describes gas density.

These nearby clouds are extremely tenuous and emit little visible light. Astronomers infer them from absorption in starlight; the hot gas of the Local Bubble is associated with soft X-rays. The chart is a false-colour instrument view, and flight keeps the impact-driven wall light. We have not added eye-visible nebular fog. NASA's local-ISM description, NASA's Local Bubble explanation.

A journey you can start​

Mars selected in the real navigation station, with zoom and review controls visible

The standalone Galaxy map now starts at rest, matching the ship's manual mode. Its former moving Sol session could refuse local journeys. The destination list scrolls while the zoom and review buttons stay reachable.

Select Mars or another destination, press Enter to review, then hold Space for 1.5 seconds to confirm. Settings' press-twice mode uses Space twice. Esc backs out of the review. Zoom with the visible buttons, +/−, wheel or pinch; drag the chart to look around it.

Seven legs, one arrival per distant highlight​

The accepted trip is Earth → Sun → Jupiter → Callisto → Saturn → Alpha Centauri A → TRAPPIST-1 → Aldebaran. Alpha Centauri, TRAPPIST-1 and Aldebaran now use the existing close-star stop rule directly, replacing each outer 1,000-AU stop followed by a second inward journey. The real three-dimensional distances and both simulation clocks remain intact. Old ten-leg replay fixtures retain their historical route.

The actual direct arrival beside Alpha Centauri A

At this stop Alpha Centauri A spans about 11°. TRAPPIST-1 spans 3.46° and Aldebaran about 61°. These are native simulation arrivals with the existing body brightness aid; stellar discs remain uniform photospheres. The TRAPPIST stop is a close view of its star, rather than the former specially placed stop beside planet e.

The Sgr A* button at Navigation starts the existing, separate black-hole demo. It is clearly labelled and becomes available after the guided voyage completes; it is outside the nearby-star chart and is not another leg of this trip.

More native captures in the gallery, including the recent black-hole orbit and Saturn-arrival videos. See Try it for build access and Roadmap for the remaining work.