Eyeson thesolar system

NASA’s Eyes can be easily embedded in web pages and blog posts using an HTML iframe tag – you can see examples of this all over NASA’s Solar System Exploration site. the simplest way to do this is to add “?embed=true” to the end of the Eyes URL – this will close all the panels and leave you with just the 3D.

There’s a button that will compare the selected exoplanet system with our solar system. There’s also a ‘Browse Destinations’ link in the upper right that displays a graphical menu with of some of the more interesting exoplanets that have been discovered.

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The apps have gone through quite the technological evolution in recent years – originally released as an installable app for Windows and MAC, the Eyes apps now run in a web browser. This means the apps run cross-platform on smartphones, tablets, desktop PCs – anything with a web-browser and an internet connection. And the apps run fast!

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You can click-on and zoom-to several labeled asteroids, or do a search. Asteroids that have been visited by spacecraft have (fairly) accurate shape models; asteroids like 16 Psyche have an artist representation.

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Eyeson Exoplanets

There’s a clickable link in the upper right of Eyes on Asteroids that will zoom you in to the Earth, and show you 5 asteroids that will make close-passes; the closest is highlighted in an info box on the left; if you click on a different asteroid, the info in the box changes. The viewpoint slowly rotates around the selected asteroid – really adding to the 3D effect without triggering motion sickness.

It’s amazing to think that when I was a kid, the term ‘exoplanet’ didn’t even exist (but everyone knew what one was from Star Trek) – but now, school kids can learn about the multitude of REAL planets orbiting other stars.

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There is so much content in Eyes on the Earth, and entire post or presentation could be done about it, so I’ll only discuss a couple features. In the upper right of the screen are several links: the ‘Visible Earth’ link shows global cloud cover from yesterday, and the ‘Vital Signs’ link shows you a menu of various key indicators. If you click-on any of the globes, that data is mapped onto the Earth.

When you launch Eyes on Asteroids, you are shown a real-time visualization of thousands of near-Earth objects; I have a wide-screen, and when I launched Eyes on Asteroids to grab a screenshot, I sat there with my eyes bugging-out and exclaimed something unprintable. You can click and drag the time-control, and the asteroids will move in their orbits as the animation speeds up – it’s quite startling to watch!

A graphical menu in the lower right allows you to switch between views to show the entire system – with the host star, and any other exoplanets that are there.

When you launch Eyes on the Earth you are shown an animated view of the Earth, and the climate observing satellites orbiting it.

Eyes on the Solar System has hundreds of objects: planets, moons, dwarf planets and asteroids, comets and spacecraft. You can search for and go to any of these objects, and view animated recreations of some historic missions. There are so many things to do, it’s easy to find that you’ve spent an hour or more without realizing it.

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I attended a NASA Solar System Ambassador teleconference with Jason Craig, who showed many of the features of the different Eyes apps – he lamented that he didn’t have enough time to show a LOT more.

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The older installable Eyes app is still available, but it’s not being supported anymore – updates and new missions will only be added to the web-based apps. Some recent additions to the web app include: visualization of Jupiter’s radiation belt and magnetic fields, and the Europa Clipper, NuSTAR and TDRS‘s missions. I’m told the JUICE mission will be added soon.

When you launch Eyes on Exoplanets, you are presented with a bewildering splash of stars. Each ‘star’ represents an exoplanet, or system of exoplanets. Confirmed exoplanets and candidates from both the Kepler and TESS missions can be displayed.

NASA’s Eyes apps are a great way to explore our solar system, view the Earth’s climate and explore the thousands of exoplanets that have been discovered.

One of the teleconference participants asked if Eyes on the Solar System could be used in a planetarium? Jason said it could, but OpenSpace was more suited for planetarium use. I’ve played with OpenSpace for about 20 minutes, expecting it to be similar to SpaceEngine… which it wasn’t... I should probably give it another try.

If you can see it, you can click on it. Everything you see in Eyes you can click-and-zoom-to. If you click on Earth or Mars, you will see a real-time visualization of many orbiting spacecraft; you can click on and zoom to the International Space Station – which has the highest resolution model in the app (and it’s beautiful).

Every object you can click-on has a name that be be used for embedding – here’s an example of embedded Eyes showing Jupiter in real-time: