Hi guys! It's Danielle, the space/new media anthropologist who some of you may have already met and chatted with. If we haven't had the pleasure yet, it's so lovely to meet you! I'm researching the use of social and new media for various projects in the space industry and in its networks and publics, and Space Engine and its community is such an interesting case!

I wanted to throw a question at you, as part of my ongoing online research - please let me know what you think! I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences

Do you think that you learn things by using Space Engine, and being in its community (here, on Discord, etc.)? What kinds of things? How? Have you noticed your knowledge, interest, skills, or perspective change over time? What about SE, the community, & the specific supporting sites and platforms, make that happen for you?

More details on my research can be found here And original introductory thread is here

SE, in my experience, has been the tool that best represents the scale and size of the universe. Most people learn about the solar system with a map similar to this:


These diagrams do not represent distances and scale correctly. It's very saddening that many children are not told that these maps are wildly out of scale. When I stumbled on Space Engine a couple years back, I already knew how vast distances are in the universe, but this program has helped me visualize this even better. I'm sure this program would affect others similarly.

I learned a lot about the classification of stars and galaxies in SE, remembering how every type works and how it is spread on our universe. Also learned about space flight (orbital mechanics, warp, atmospheric flight, etc.), and planemos.

I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this question- how many "real" exoplanets does SE currently have?  I think it's got to be more than SNPP7 which has 2,763 as of the last update (7.6.1) from what I can see.

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this question- how many "real" exoplanets does SE currently have?  I think it's got to be more than SNPP7 which has 2,763 as of the last update (7.6.1) from what I can see.

According to the data in the corresponding files, 3566 confirmed planets and 1804 unconfirmed planets.
As well as some later added planets.

JackDole wrote:

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this question- how many "real" exoplanets does SE currently have?  I think it's got to be more than SNPP7 which has 2,763 as of the last update (7.6.1) from what I can see.

According to the data in the corresponding files, 3566 confirmed planets and 1804 unconfirmed planets.
As well as some later added planets.

Thanks, Jack- I was hoping the later added planets could all be installed via one file, so far the only two I've added manually is Proxima's planet and the Trappist-1 system.

Perhaps there is some way to release a patch once a year that includes all the planets discovered that year?

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post so far the only two I've added manually is Proxima's planet and the Trappist-1 system.

Proxima b and the Trappist-1 planets are already added in SE 0.98e.

JackDole wrote:

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post so far the only two I've added manually is Proxima's planet and the Trappist-1 system.

Proxima b and the Trappist-1 planets are already added in SE 0.98e.

Jack, I hope the Trappist-1 file was updated, as I reported a bug in the latest manual add-on for Trappist-1 (wasn't able to land on most of the planets.)  I had to roll back to an earlier version of Trappist-1 to re-enable the feature that allows you to land on the planets.

Anthro_Danielle wrote:

Hi guys! It's Danielle, the space/new media anthropologist who some of you may have already met and chatted with. If we haven't had the pleasure yet, it's so lovely to meet you! I'm researching the use of social and new media for various projects in the space industry and in its networks and publics, and Space Engine and its community is such an interesting case!

I wanted to throw a question at you, as part of my ongoing online research - please let me know what you think! I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences

Do you think that you learn things by using Space Engine, and being in its community (here, on Discord, etc.)? What kinds of things? How? Have you noticed your knowledge, interest, skills, or perspective change over time? What about SE, the community, & the specific supporting sites and platforms, make that happen for you?

Kind of a broad question. SE is fantastic for understand the true scale of things, but it doesn't have enough science for my taste... I'd like to see magnetic fields, material composition of stars and planets, actual temperature variations, etc. The Anton Petrov videos make up for it though.

Hi everyone! Thank you so very much for your thoughtful, measured, and generous responses - I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to respond, and I hope you don't mind my responding with a few more questions!

I love the range of examples and angles that you've all raised here. If I'm summarising fairly, it seems like SE is useful in helping to learn some more technical scientific concepts and language with regards to space science, flight, and physics, and is good in that it can give users a better sense of the universe as it is - correcting faulty assumptions based on popular thinking/models (like the maps of the solar system that misrepresent distance and scale), and can make more realistic representations 'stick'/feel more accessible, because in SE you can actually visualise, manipulate, move in and around things. I imagine the difference between abstractly knowing some of these facts about the universe, and actually seeing them, moving through them, is pretty huge when it comes to *really* understanding or comprehending?

Of course I'm not an expert in the work that goes into simulating such systems and phenomena, but I imagine it must be no easy task! What would the main draw be (@Mouthwash?) in making the SE universe contain more 'science' (ie., realistic magnetic fields, variable composition of stars/planets, etc.? Why would that be better? Because it would allow you to do more realistic or lifelike or authentic exploration? Or it would allow for you to learn more, access more accurate or educational information?

Do you guys find that you already had lots of the core scientific concepts/knowledge of terms, etc. before you started using SE? Or have you picked this up in the forums or by encountering things in the simulation that drove you to explore & learn more? It seems as though there is pretty widespread use of some pretty technical scientific terms and concepts in this community - I'd love to know if this is something that feels like prerequisite or assumed knowledge for one to participate at all, or if it's something that you kind of pick up as you go, or teach/learn with each other.

Those Anton Petrov videos are so great - I hadn't seen them before, thank you! Do you guys find that you often spend time watching, learning, consuming SE content outside of the core game/application (other users' videos and posts, screenshots, tutorials, etc.) or that using SE drives you to go check out other, more general space-related news, scientific content, developments day-to-day? Does using SE help you feel more interested in other space science and content and news, or make it feel like that is more accessible?

For example, the Trappist-1 situation seems like a great discussion point - what was it like here when the discoveries were announced? What has the process of developing patches for them been like? What do you hope to get, learn, or access by integrating the system into SE? Did you learn more about the system, follow the news and announcements in the media and externally to SE? How did this knowledge feed into or fit with your SE use/practices? How do you all stay on top of monitoring exoplanet discoveries and integrating them into SE/patches? It's incredible and inspiring of course, but so much work! How do you all do this? Why?

Thank you so much for your time, everyone! I hope to hear back from you and continue this really interesting discussion (I sincerely apologise for the delay in my own response, I've been locked down with my manuscript for the upcoming IAC and oh my gosh did it kick my butt! I'm looking forward to it of course, but also to it being wrapped up so that I can spend more time on fieldwork again, in amazing exciting places like the community here!)

I don't personally like Anton Petrov videos, his videos are too dispersive.
It's like "let's make a video about x topic", and he randomly record some footage from SpaceEngine/UniverseSandbox without having a clear idea of what he's going to do.
He has margins of improvement though, but right now I can't enjoy them like I should.

@Salvo - That's fair enough! Are there other videos or content creators that you do follow or like, that are more focussed, or more scientifically accurate, or more educational? What works for you and why, what's interesting and engaging, is all super interesting! 

I have a question i dont know if its on the right thread. If not I am sorry.. How many known stars and their positions are represented in SE?

tornadotodd wrote:

How many known stars and their positions are represented in SE?

I'm sure there's an answer for that somewhere in the documentation for SE, but I don't remember now.
However, I'd take this opportunity to quip in. I have a friend who's a teacher and I recommended SE to him as a wonderful tool to teach the class about the Universe. But I'm also wondering if the program is realistic enough at this time to be used as a serious educational tool. And don't get me wrong, I love the software and I think it's improving day by day, but is it perfectly accurate? As opposed to, for instance, Starry Night (https://starrynight.com/starry-night-7- ... tware.html), which can be used reliably for observations of the night sky.
But all in all, SE is certainly worth considering as the next step in visualizing the vast structure of our cosmos. I can only think how amazed I would have been at an early age, if instead of my (many) books about astronomy I could have had access to a realistic and virtually boundless 3D representation!