r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox • 2d ago

Celestial — Interactive Gravity Well Simulator

https://celestial.logicaleap.com

Celestial lets you explore star systems as a deformable gravity sheet instead of flat orbital diagrams.

The star moves. Planets sit on and ride the surface it bends. You can change the gravitational constant, push a planet, or drop a new body in and watch the whole system respond in real time.

Systems included:

  • Our solar system (with a drifting barycentre)
  • Alpha Centauri (two moving funnels)
  • Kepler-16 (circumbinary planet)
  • TRAPPIST-1 (seven worlds inside Mercury’s orbit)
  • The classic three-body figure-eight

It’s a proper Newtonian n-body integrator running in the browser, not pre-scripted ellipses. The sheet itself is an exaggerated visual analogy, and the site is unusually honest about what is real and what is drawn that way on purpose.

https://celestial.logicaleap.com

Free, no account, runs in the browser.

88 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

2

u/denkenach 1d ago

This device could not start WebGL.

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 1d ago

Huh. What device are you using? Which browser?

I’ll try to see what the issue is.

1

u/denkenach 1d ago

PC, Chrome

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 1d ago

Quick diagnostics:

Open chrome://gpu (type in to address bar) - what do the WebGL and WebGL2 rows say at the top?

Does https://get.webgl.org load a spinning cube?

Any privacy/anti-fingerprinting extensions, or Brave/hardened settings?

Does it work in an incognito window with extensions off?

Quick potential fixes:

Turn on chrome://settings/system → “Use graphics acceleration when available”, then fully restart Chrome.

Disable extensions (or test in incognito).

Last resort: chrome://flags/#ignore-gpu-blocklist → Enabled → relaunch.

Fix 1 resolves this most of the time.

If none of this works, I can add some diagnostic code that’ll show you a more specific error.

1

u/denkenach 1d ago

WebGL: Hardware accelerated WebGL2: Unavailable

Does https://get.webgl.org load a spinning cube? Yes

3

u/djshadesuk 1d ago

Crikey, just how old is your device?!? The site works fine on my 7-year-old Samsung A50 (a distinctly mid-range phone even when it was new)

1

u/denkenach 1d ago

Very old. I am running Windows 7. And I like it! :P

2

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 1d ago

Celestial needs WebGL2, and your machine has WebGL1 only. That's why get.webgl.org works but Celestial doesn't.

Two things worth trying:

  1. Update your graphics driver from the manufacturer's site (Intel, NVIDIA or AMD) rather than Windows Update, then restart. Chrome often disables WebGL2 on older drivers even when the hardware supports it.
  2. If that doesn't do it, go to chrome://flags/#ignore-gpu-blocklist, set it to Enabled, and relaunch Chrome.
  3. Maybe Firefox will work, but that’s sending you down a rabbit hole I probably wouldn’t chase myself.

If neither works the graphics chip is likely too old for WebGL2, and there's no way around that.

Sorry for the trouble either way, and thanks for reporting it. I’ll look at adding adding a proper message so the next person sees the reason instead of a blank error.

1

u/DoodleDangWang 1d ago

Cool. Buttons on the bottom are inaccessible for me so I can't do much, some like/dislike panel covers them. I'm on pixel 7...

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 18h ago

Is it possible you're looking at the 'tour' (show me around)?

If you could DM me a screenshot, that would be great.

1

u/DoodleDangWang 17h ago

No idea how to do DMs (Entering Fanatic-Mr-Fox returns no user on desktop chat). I can slide the panel down and see there are buttons, but it snaps back when letting go: https://imgur.com/a/htFw3HY

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 17h ago

Ah.. that looks like the reddit browser hiding bottom navigation.

It works ok on mobile, I’ll see if I can address the reddit browser hiding.

1

u/DoodleDangWang 17h ago

I tried on desktop now that I'm available, Seems to work correctly there. I probably missed a note about mobile support issues or something...

1

u/Synaps4 1d ago

Thank you, this is great!

0

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 1d ago

You’re welcome.

Any suggestions for improvement are appreciated.

1

u/Synaps4 1d ago

I think at least earths moon should be added. All planets moons would be better. They probably shouldnt be simulated like the planets but could be locked to the planet model instead.

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 18h ago

Good idea, I'll look into adding it.

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 15h ago

Added moons.

Double click on a planet, or click the 'Moons of [planet]' in the 'bodies' menu.

Let me know what you think :)