Saturn's north pole has been retouched to bring it up to date with the latest scientifical data. Cassini spaceship mission revealed that there is a hexagonal storm in the north pole of Saturn:
Also please check this outstanding video, produced by young talents out there.
Irregular Galaxy
Name: Small Magellanic Cloud (NGC292)
Constellation: Tucana
Diameter: 20,000 ly
Distance to Sun: 210,000 ly
Observing Distance: 21,000 ly
Right Ascension: 0h 52m 36.0s
Declination: -72º 48' 0''
Spiral Galaxy
Name: Milky Way (with labels)
Constellation: Sagittarius
Diameter: 90,000 ly
Distance to Sun: 26,000 ly
Observing Distance: 98,000 ly
Right Ascension: 17h 45m 35.9s
Declination: -28º 56' 0''
Also, here we have some new videos produced by SpaceTheater, showing images from his show, as well as a music showcase from his album. The videos contain sequences recorded with MPL3D Solar System v1.2:
Back from the summer break, we are proud that MPL3D Solar System appeared in a live show by SpaceTheater, in the city of Tokio. Also, MPL3D has been included in the list of members of the App Developer Group (ADG), a new and exciting website to find cool games and applications:
MPL3D Solar System appeared in a live performance by SpaceTheater, in the city of Tokio, in a cyberpunk videogame bar called Raid=gig. They used video in HD resolution projected on 90inch screen with 21st century cinematic electronic dance music:
The ADG site has been launched for those of you that appreciate the value of Indie Games and Apps. There are already 12 games and apps for you to download and enjoy. Visit the site now to browse the extensive catalogue,and preview upcoming publications before they reach the general public:
25th July 2011:
New images from MPL3D Solar System v1.3 development. Some globular star clusters textured using public domain images from Nasa/Esa. These are the most spectacular ones (click to enlarge):
MPL3D Solar System v1.3: Globular Star Clusters Sample Images
Until now, there where only two textures for two generic globular cluster types. Now each globular cluster has its own texture.
5th May 2011:
This month we would like to present the work our collaborator Carlos Wilkes, who has been responsible for many of the visual effects now running in MPL3D Solar System. Carlos, also known as Darkcoder, has been working in some personal projects that we are proud to present here:
Final Exodus, a 3D space RTS by Carlos Wilkes
You must command your small fleet of ships to defend Sol, all while branching out and taking back the galaxy from the evil Svarog forces. You have several ships at your disposal, some with the ability to construct other ships, and others used just to distract the enemy while you blow them up!
Features:
• Fully 3D space combat
• 4 playable ships(First person and RTS)
• Many solar systems you can visit
• Loads of explosions
A scrolling shooter with an added twist: your ship evolves. The game is set in space, you travel through a solar system (on-rails, though you can move around the screen) fighting off enemies until you reach a boss at the end. Upon killing the boss you can upgrade/tweak your ship to your liking and so on.
Features:
• Ship mutation: Editing of your ship DNA
• Loading/saving of ships in ASCII format so you can share them easily
• Movement through the solar system(map)
• Different types of weapons: Bullets, laser beams, missiles
• Outstanding graphics and explosions!!! Pew Pew!!!
Astrodude (Asteroid Buggy version) by Carlos Wilkes
Set in an extra-terrestrial environment with just enough gravity to keep you planet-bound, the camera view is fixed to the orientation of your dune buggy. Rather than lose your vehicle and starting again when you overturn it, your whole world is turned upside down too. You'll have to wrestle with recovering your vehicle whilst baffled by working out the physical aspects in a upturned world.
Astrodude won the 1st Prize in the 'Best All Around Netbook Game' competition, sponsorized by TGC and the Intel Atom Developer Program.
Bob Duffy, our Intel judge, reports "Astrodude scored the highest across the board. Well done graphics, good game play for a netbook...'track pad' swipe for a boost is brilliant."
Astrodude is a modern side-scroller, designed with the netbook in mind. Unlike most side-scrollers, the player doesn't have any weapons, but you must instead use the items and enemies scattered around the place to your advantage, and blow your way through the destructible levels to victory.
The game contains many challenging levels, each with their own unique themes. There are a variety of new game elements added at each step that you must use to your advantage, mastering them will ensure you complete the levels in a faster time which will allow you to unlock even harder ones.
How long does it take for the sun's light to reach Earth?
Feel like a sunray particle and discover it with us. Ride in our science fiction spaceship, the Columbus, on date April 14th of 2017.
In this simulated travel we will pass between Mercury and Venus. Fortunately the spaceship won't crash with the Earth, as the trip takes 8 minutes and 24 seconds (average time may vary), and in that time, the Earth will have moved around 15,000km in space.
That means that, if we were to try to hit the Earth with a laser positioned as far as the Sun is, we would have to point it to where the Earth would have been placed 8 minutes and 24 seconds later, 15,000km away, or the laser hit would miss. If you think it like that, isn't light speed amazingly slow?
Curiously, on the side of the astronauts, or the light particle, the time would have been suspended, because time is stopped when travelling at light speed. At least the time as we know it.
The red shift & blue shift, that can be seen from the spaceship view, is due to the doppler effect in light.
Don't miss the Earth flyby at the speed of light!
6th February 2011:
This month we have the release of a free space game, Earth Space Fleet, a science fiction space game that takes place near the end of the 22th century. The game has been released by ErmesDesign Freeware, led by our collaborator and friend Bertone Ermes. The result is a neat and huge space game with more than 120 spaceships and 60 missions, it even comes with its own mission editor. Take a look at the visuals:
"A new and huge space sim, 120+ different ships, 60+ missions, unlockable ships and missions. The game is in italian and in english. The game provides a tutorial to learn to play,
the first 3 missions are tutorials, then you start assembling your fleet and fight
for the Earth freedom! Control with mouse & keyboard or gamepad (best). The game also includes music by Benigno Filippo."
Here is the final part of 'All planets of MPL3D Solar System', a great serie of videos produced by our friend Robin:
In this last video, Robin show us all the ammonium hydrosulfide cloud jovians, ammonia cloud jovians, methane cloud jovians, and brown dwarfs, available in MPL3D Solar System 1.2:
There are some new videos that we would like to show. Here is the first part of 'All planets of MPL3D Solar System', an ambitious project from Robin.
In this first video Robin show us the terrestrial and dwarf planets, cloudy hot jovians, dark hot jovians and clarified jovians, available in MPL3D Solar System 1.2:
The Galilean moons are the four moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo Galilei 400 years ago, in January 1610.
Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are the largest of the many moons of Jupiter.
In fact, they are among the most massive objects in the Solar System.
Ganymede, is larger than Mercury while the other three are larger than any of the dwarf planets.
Galileo's discovery revoked the geocentric theory in which everything orbits around the Earth.
Ganymede, Europa and Io participate in a 1:2:4 orbital resonance around Jupiter.
It is possible to see view of Jupiter and its four main moons from any telescope on Earth.
11th June 2010:
A japanese music composer, Space Theater, has produced this new video to help selling his music:
The surface of a star usually oscillates, and this oscillation can be tranformed into an audible sound wave.
Stellar seismology is the study of the propagation of these wave oscillations in the stars, particularly acoustic pressure waves.
Star pressure waves are generated in the convection zone near the surface, then the acoustic waves are transmitted to the outer photosphere of the star. The oscillations are detectable on images of the Sun, or by measuring the doppler shift of photospheric absorption lines of a star.
20th April 2010:
New release available!
MPL3D Solar System (Quantum) v1.2 is ready to be downloaded from the Intel AppUp Store, under the Education/Reference category:
(It is needed to download and install the "Intel AppUp Center Beta" software to access the Intel Store).
MPL3D Solar System (Quantum) v1.2 is a reduced version of the formal desktop computer version, specially tailored for the netbooks based on the Intel Atom (tm) processors.
These are the particular changes in this version:
Limited quality of objects.
Reduced textures size (up to 2Mb).
Reduced audio quality (22000Mhz).
Limited maximum level of DirectX effects.
No stencil shadows available.
Limited maximum number of solar particles.
Reduced file size and hard disk space consumption.
No free updates.
Reduced price, only 1.99$.
These changes have been made to match the hardware specifications of netbooks based on the tiny Intel Atom processor, much less powerful than the common desktop PC of nowadays.
Also please note that, due to the Intel Store specifications, this version has been verified to run on Microsoft Windows XP Home SP3 and Microsoft Windows 7 Starter versions only. Other versions of Microsoft Windows are currently not supported.
So, if you own an Atom, or your PC has low performace and you are not going to use the full quality options of the formal desktop version, now you can consider MPL3D Solar System (Quantum) v1.2 as a good alternative.
A new official video that shows some of the features of the MPL3D Solar System v1.2 simulation, as the atmospheric effect, the star colours based on their spectral class, the brightness compensation that, based on the visual magnitude, attenuates the brightness of background stars when a brigther object appears on screen. The new calculus for planetary rings illumination, and the new, and more friendly, camera control, are also observable.
The video title is 'Alien skies', and shows an artist concept about how skies might look like in other planets:
Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
MPL3D Solar System software, including all graphic media and music, is a registered intellectual property of Manuel Perez de Lema Lopez. Spanish Culture Ministery, Central Register of Intellectual Property Nº AB-26-2007.
