Zoom Out Universe

Zoom Out Universe starting at Earth.

From Earth to Infinity

Starting at Earth, Zoom Out Universe takes you out by a scale factor of ten for each jump. The wireframe scale model of Earth is accompanied by two geosynchronous orbits. As you zoom out, these will get smaller and smaller until they disappear. All the while, Earth remains at the center of the cube.

Solar neighborhood of stars in natural brightness view.

Solar Neighborhood of Stars

After passing through the various scales of the Solar systems, you come to the next-door neighbors of Sol (our sun). The view shown gives a natural "brightness" view of the stars, with 5 magnitudes of brightness added for easier visibility (and you can turn this off, if you choose).

Again, Earth and our sun are at the center.

The Solar sector of the Milky Way, showing the Locator Cube and Viewing Cube to scale.

To the Galactic Level

Here, we see the Solar sector of the Milky Way galaxy. This extends beyond the Locator Cube seen on the main window of the software. Included outside the Locator are such bright stars as Antares (Alpha Scorpii), Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), Rigel (Beta Orionis) and Polaris (the North Star).

The purple marker shows the direction of the galactic center.

The Solar sector of the galaxy, seen edge on.

Putting Things into Perspective

When the programmer first looked at this view, he was surprised to discover that the Viewing Cube he had labored over for so many weeks was actually the thickness of the galactic disk. What you are actually looking at here is the plate of the galaxy seen edge on—at least the portion near our sun. Of course, the galaxy is far larger than this.

The Local Group of Galaxies with the Milky Way at the center. Moving your mouse over the picture with Javascript enabled will display the labels for these galaxies.

The Local Group

This view looks pretty empty and it is. At the center stands the Milky Way—only a rather large dot at this scale. Below it float the Magellanic Clouds. High above fly the Andromeda cluster of galaxies, and to the side of that hovers the Triangulum galaxy.

Beyond these remain many billions of galaxies, too numerous to recount, and most of them with too little data about them.