Planet Explorer vs Star Map Night Sky

Take a survey craft anywhere in the solar system. Twenty-four worlds — the Sun, all eight planets, five dwarf planets and ten famous moons — and not one of them is a photograph. Every surface is generated on your device as you arrive: Jupiter's counter-flowing cloud bands with the Great Red Spot drifting between them, Saturn's stripes under real ring gaps, Io's volcanoes, Europa's cracked ice, Haumea tumbling end over end. TWELVE SURVEY MISSIONS Each mission is a clue rather than a waypoint. "Find the moon that orbits its planet backwards." Work out which world it means, fly there, descend close and hold position to survey it. Every debrief is a real fact, and your badges are saved. REAL RELIEF, REAL PLACES Solid worlds carry a height map, so craters have raised rims and Valles Marineris is genuinely a gash four thousand kilometres long — visible on the planet's silhouette and sharpest along the terminator. Turn on landmarks and the real places name themselves at their real coordinates: Olympus Mons, Tycho, the Sea of Tranquility where Apollo 11 landed, Caloris, Sputnik Planitia, the Cassini Division. Worlds we have only ever seen as cloud, like Venus, honestly have nothing to show. THE VIEW FROM A MOON Select a moon and its planet hangs in its sky — Saturn looming over Enceladus, Jupiter's bands churning above Io, Earth floating over the Moon with its clouds still moving. The sky moves too: the planet circles at the moon's real orbital direction and waxes through phases. Every moon is tidally locked, so the host stays over the same face, and Pluto and Charon each keep one face toward the other, as they really do. TIME WARP One second of flight is six minutes of local day on every world. Speed that up to sixty times and the physics becomes something you can watch: the terminator sweeping across the ground, Haumea turning end over end every four hours while Venus barely creeps. SCIENCE LAYERS One tap draws the schematic — spin axis with the poles marked and the real axial tilt, the equator, the direction of rotation, the sub-solar point and the terminator. Uranus lying on its side at 98°, Venus upside down at 177° so its spin runs backwards, Triton turning against its own orbit: things to see rather than take on trust. A SENSE OF SCALE The target and Earth drawn at one scale, which is the point — next to the Sun, Earth is a dot you have to hunt for. Then the whole solar system shrinks until the Sun is a 30 cm beach ball, Earth a peppercorn 32 metres away, Neptune a marble most of a kilometre off. Distances are measured in things that take time: how long sunlight takes to arrive, how long a radio call would take, how many years an airliner would need. YOU, HERE Enter your weight and age and every world tells you what you would weigh there and how high you could jump — 35 metres on Enceladus — from real surface gravity. BUILT TO BE HARMLESS No advertising. No in-app purchases. No accounts. No analytics. No network requests of any kind, so it works in a tunnel or on a plane. Nothing is collected, and nothing can be: the app has no networking code in it at all. Every number, every clue and every debrief is real science, written to be read by someone young.

SpaceUtil is a star map with AR that helps you find constellations, explore a 3D solar system, follow the ISS tracker live and see where Voyager is right now. The whole night sky in one astronomy app, with no account, and almost everything computed on your device without an internet connection. ■ AR STAR MAP AND SKY VIEWER • Point your phone at the sky to see the stars and constellations in that direction. • 120,000 stars and all 88 constellations with lines, names and artwork. • AR mode overlays the sky chart on your camera view. • Red night mode for comfortable stargazing in the dark. • Search for a star, planet or constellation and an arrow guides you to it. • Rewind or fast-forward time to see the sky on any date. ■ 3D SOLAR SYSTEM • An orrery with the Sun, the eight planets and major moons in their real positions. • Rotate and zoom with your fingers, and tap a planet for its story. • Live distances to each planet, Jupiter's four big moons and Saturn's rings. • Follow conjunctions and planet alignments. ■ LIVE ISS TRACKER • See where the International Space Station is right now on a 3D globe and a world map, updated every second. • Visible pass predictions for your location with time, direction and altitude. • A sky-path view of each pass. ■ WHERE ARE VOYAGER 1 AND 2? • Follow the two farthest human-made objects on a 3D map of the solar system. • See their current distance from Earth, computed on your device from public space-agency reference data. ■ TONIGHT • A briefing on tonight's observing conditions based on the moon phase and twilight times. • 5 objects worth looking at right now. • Sun, moon and planet rise and set times. • Civil, nautical and astronomical twilight. ■ MOON, ECLIPSES, METEOR SHOWERS • Moon phase calendar and lunar age. • Upcoming solar and lunar eclipses. • Every major meteor shower with its peak night and how bright the moon will be. ■ ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY HELPERS • 500-rule exposure calculator. • Milky Way planner. • Golden hour, blue hour and moonrise direction. ■ LEARN AND PLAY • Constellation myths and a space quiz. • The sky on your birthday and light travel time. • Light-year, AU and parsec converter. • An exoplanet catalog. • An observation log with badges. ■ GETTING STARTED • Open the star map and hold your phone up toward the sky. • Switch on AR mode to see constellation lines over the camera image. • Turn on red mode once you are outside in the dark. • Search for a planet or star and follow the arrow. • Check Tonight before heading out. ■ WHO IS IT FOR? • Stargazers identifying stars and constellations with AR. • Space fans tracking the ISS, the Voyager probes and planetary alignments. • Astrophotographers planning Milky Way shots. • Anyone learning about exoplanets, myths and moon phases. ■ TIPS • Use time controls to preview the sky on an eclipse date. • Check how bright the moon will be before a meteor shower peak night. • Log what you observe to collect badges. ■ FAQ • Do I need an account? No. There is no account and no cloud. • Does it work offline? Almost everything is computed on your device. • Is the camera image saved? No, never. • Are there ads? A single banner ad at the bottom of the screen supports development. No full-screen or video ads. ■ PRIVACY AND PERMISSIONS • Location is used only on the device to align the sky map. • The camera powers the AR view, and its image is never captured, stored or sent anywhere. Data sources: an open star catalog (CC BY-SA) and public satellite, space-weather and planetary data. SpaceUtil is not affiliated with or endorsed by the data providers. Clear skies from SpaceUtil.