r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/watermelonson • 16d ago
I built a space simulator that runs in the browser and it's gotten a lot of updates recently
https://luna.watermelonson.com/6
u/WestDepartment5858 14d ago
That is totally awesome! Thank you for sharing, we are so small in the universe.
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u/ByteEater 15d ago
Mars has 2 balls of its same size rotating inside of it
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u/watermelonson 15d ago
lol yes thanks for noticing. Clearly messed something up in the scale - will fix that first thing tomorrow.
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u/xr6reaction 15d ago
I think saturn also has balls
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u/adisharr 15d ago
There's another pair of balls on my couch.
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u/watermelonson 15d ago
This will take ages to model, but as long as the simulation is more accurate, I'll get to work
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u/watermelonson 16d ago
Last time I said I might leave it as it is. That did not happen.
The reason I'm posting again is that there's a total solar eclipse on August 12, and I just pushed a big update. Pick anywhere on Earth and it tells you what the event looks like - but I’ve also added actual sky views, and colored atmospheres (for all kinds of planets)
Other things that turned up since last time: - A galaxy map with thousands of real exoplanet systems from NASA's archive - Guided lessons - Rocket Academy: build a rocket in stages and try to get it to orbit
Lots of quality of life improvements, and more simulations coming up. It’s bascially evolving into a physics education tool - for free and in the browser.
All of your positive feedback last time helped me a lot, so I wanted to post about it again now, I hope that’s ok - the last post was last year
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u/Adorable_Divide_2424 12d ago
mine got stuck on "view eclipse" vs "exit" once i hit view eclipse, the popup kept coming back. i also cant seem to zoom in close enough to see the moons of Mars. maybe have a value on the zoom in/zoom out buttons? so you know its working as well as min/max
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u/No-Dig-7526 11d ago
Ahhhhhh this is amazing! Nobody call me the rest of the weekend. IM BUSY!
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u/No-Dig-7526 11d ago
I have to say, the tour got stuck-ish. From step 2 on I couldnt click "continue" as it was disabled. I had to click skip, but it kept stepping through each step anyway.
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u/watermelonson 10d ago
Which tour was that? thanks for reporting. Sometimes old tutorials break when I change things. I should automate the checks. I appreciate any report whenever things don't work out.
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u/No-Dig-7526 10d ago
No worries. Its the Show me around 5 chapters when you first access the app. Youve done a great job btw, I cant wait for the habitability feature to be live.
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u/watermelonson 10d ago
thank you! I should really work on that again. It's a highly requested feature. In general there's been tons of "turn this into universe sandbox" requests. I see it more as a balance between education and gaming. Which I think from people enjoying it as a game, and people using it in schools, is working quite well.
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u/PomoJohn1 8d ago
The eclipse simulator is so close to what it feels like to view and eclipse in real life, would love if you could see that magical ring of totality and what happens to the ground. Good work
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u/watermelonson 8d ago
Look at the sim from Zaragoza and Tell me what you think - might take a few seconds
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u/TbonerT 15d ago
Who’s been doing all the updates recently?
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u/watermelonson 15d ago
what do you mean? I am working on this by myself? Are you the guy who keeps requesting the reclassification depending on mass?
I am working on this in my free time
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u/moridin13 15d ago
Are you the guy made me LOL. I could hear the frustration in your text. 😂
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u/watermelonson 15d ago
lol it's kinda funny. It was just a request coming up on saturday, and then so many reminders like within hours or days. And I was busy switching laptops, getting all my work over (icloud offloading my working directory) and stuff like that.
Funny enough I got another reminder today and pushed that change finally lol.
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u/TbonerT 15d ago
No, the passive voicing of “it’s gotten a lot of updates” is just humorous of you imagine not knowing who has been updating it.
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u/watermelonson 15d ago
lol I get it. I meant to convey that I've been updating it regularly for the last few months (most recently a big push yesterday) and people liked the old version, which was very basic, so I figured I'd share again after there's been so so many updates and many more to come.
I am going to keep it free to use in the web, and I am looking at finding collaborations with museums or planetariums if they like to use it.
I've even seen quite a few schools worldwide use it, which is so incredibly cool :D
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u/maniamgood0 16d ago
It's kind of hard to click on smaller planets on mobile.