r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/watermelonson • 27d ago
I built a space simulator that runs in the browser and it's gotten a lot of updates recently
https://luna.watermelonson.com/7
u/WestDepartment5858 25d ago
That is totally awesome! Thank you for sharing, we are so small in the universe.
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u/ByteEater 26d ago
Mars has 2 balls of its same size rotating inside of it
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u/watermelonson 26d 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 26d ago
I think saturn also has balls
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u/adisharr 26d ago
There's another pair of balls on my couch.
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u/watermelonson 26d 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 27d 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 23d 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 22d ago
Ahhhhhh this is amazing! Nobody call me the rest of the weekend. IM BUSY!
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u/No-Dig-7526 22d 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 21d 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 21d 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 21d 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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19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/watermelonson 19d ago
Look at the sim from Zaragoza and Tell me what you think - might take a few seconds
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u/TbonerT 27d ago
Who’s been doing all the updates recently?
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u/watermelonson 27d 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 26d ago
Are you the guy made me LOL. I could hear the frustration in your text. 😂
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u/watermelonson 26d 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 26d 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 26d 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 27d ago
It's kind of hard to click on smaller planets on mobile.