Duration: 3:16

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Here is a side project that i have spent some time working on using the Unity engine: it is our solar neighborhood, mapped out in 3D using data from a variety of star catalogues, most notably data from the Hipparcos mission. It is not complete just yet due to the lack of a GUI, but most of it is there. The dataset used in the program contains "only" 88 thousand stars compared to the Milky Way's estimated 300 billion, but the plane of our galaxy is still clearly recognisable in the video. Astrometry has advanced in leaps and bounds since the late 1980s, and soon the ESA will be launching a new mission called "Gaia" in October 2013, designed to map an even greater amount of stars than before.