Natural elements — the setting and its science
Bodies & orbits
Planetary & satellite ephemerides — JPL Solar System Dynamics
Standish 1992 planetary elements + JPL SSD satellite/dwarf data; IAU Working Group spin
states.
Informs: the curated solar-system layer — positions, orbits and obliquities of the
planets, dwarfs and major moons.
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov
Lunar rotation — IAU WGCCRE rotational elements (NASA/NAIF pck00011)
Informs: the Moon's spin — its synchronous (tidally locked) rotation and the
orientation of the
Mean Earth/Polar Axis frame that every lunar coordinate in this registry
is published in: the 9,086 lunar Gazetteer features, the 20 impact sites, the 694
catalogued Apollo surface items, and the 101 pieces of hardware resting on the Moon. Constants
quoted verbatim from the generic text PCK (
BODY301_PM = W₀ 38.3213° + 13.17635815°/day,
NASA/NAIF
pck00011.tpc, 2022-12-27):
naif.jpl.nasa.gov · pck00011.tpc.
An honest citation note: that kernel's own header records that the IAU 2015 report
(
Archinal et al. 2018)
no longer
provides rotational elements for the Moon and that its lunar data therefore come from the
2009 report — so the primary citation for W₀/W′ is
Archinal et al. 2011, and the 2015 report
is the right citation for the WGCCRE framework, which points users at the higher-fidelity binary
lunar PCK.
What is declined, with measured magnitudes: the 13 nutation terms in W (they
nearly cancel against the matching pole terms — the one-term model reproduces the full model's
prime-meridian longitude to ≤0.053° over 1900–2150, ~1.6 km on the ground), the 18.6-year Cassini
precession of the pole (≤3.1°; 0.12° at the Apollo 11 landing, 0.76° at the 2026 Falcon-9 impact),
and the Mean-Earth ↔ principal-axis frame difference (~0.03°). The ±7° swing that remains in the
sub-Earth longitude is the real optical libration, not a residual. NAIF's terms: kernels “may be
downloaded and used by anyone”, redistribution permitted unmodified
(
naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/rules).
NASA Exoplanet Archive (Planetary Systems Composite)
Informs: the 4,685 host stars + 6,257 confirmed exoplanets, their orbits and
transit geometry. Cross-joined to Gaia DR3 by sky position: a host that coincides with a Gaia
star (within 0.3 pc) is deduplicated, and Gaia's independent effective temperature is kept as a
corroborating source (agree) or a selectable alternate (disagree) — erase none.
exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu
The temporal convention of stellar positions (Lindegren, Klioner, Butkevich)
Informs: what a catalogued stellar position MEANS in time, and therefore
how every star in the registry is placed (
src/ingest/lib/epoch.ts). Gaia's
astrometric parameters follow the standard model of stellar motion — uniform rectilinear
barycentric motion — whose time argument the mission documentation defines as the time of
light arrival at the solar-system barycentre, not of emission at the source
(Gaia Data Release documentation, Ch. 4 §4.1.4). The published position is therefore
the apparent, retarded direction, and converting it to the registry's declared coordinate-time
simultaneity requires removing the light-travel delay in addition to reconciling the epoch —
a change of convention, not a correction of the catalogue, since for uniform motion the
light-time offset is exactly degenerate with the fitted position.
Astrometric core solution: Lindegren et al. 2012
(
10.1051/0004-6361/201117905);
relativistic observation model: Klioner 2003
(
10.1086/378162);
rigorous light-time treatment: Butkevich & Lindegren 2014
(
10.1051/0004-6361/201424483);
EDR3/DR3 solution: Lindegren et al. 2021
(
10.1051/0004-6361/202039709).
The same standard model governs Hipparcos (ESA SP-1200, Vol. 1 §1.2.8).
Hipparcos main catalogue — the brightest stars (ESA 1997)
Informs: the ~150 brightest stars in the sky (Sirius, Canopus, Vega,
Rigel…) that Gaia DR3 saturates on — the
hipparcos-bright layer, Vmag ≤ 4,
measured trigonometric parallaxes (> 3σ gate, σ_d carried), via
CDS/VizieR (I/239/hip_main; ESA SP-1200).
Effective temperature derived from B−V via Ballesteros 2012
(
10.1209/0295-5075/97/34008),
labelled per record; measured radial velocities joined by HIP number from XHIP,
Anderson & Francis 2012
(
10.1134/S1063773712050015) —
full 3-D space velocities for all 148. ESA mission data, free use with attribution.
XHIP — Extended Hipparcos Compilation (Anderson & Francis 2012)
Informs: the naked-eye COMPLETENESS fill — the
xhip layer's
V ≤ 6.5 stars whose original I/239 parallax fails the registry's 3σ gate (Deneb,
Alnilam…), placed at XHIP's compiled distance (catalogue-corrected HIP2 parallax with
published σ, or a cluster-membership fit labelled MODELLED; no distance → honestly
absent) — and the RADIAL-VELOCITY EXTENSION: the compilation's 46,392 measured RVs joined by
exact HIP number (hipparcos-bright + xhip) and positionally (6′ + magnitude identity
gate) onto the registry's remaining tangential-only stars, completing their 3-D space
velocities (q_RV grade D excluded). Anderson & Francis 2012, AstL 38, 331
(
10.1134/S1063773712050015), via
CDS/VizieR (V/137D). Published compilation —
free use with attribution.
Stellarium sky cultures — Tier-1 constellation lines (per-culture)
Informs: the native constellation overlay — each PUBLISHED sky
culture's figures (western/IAU-88 · chinese · chinese_contemporary ·
korean · indian · norse · egyptian · japanese_moon_stations
· western_SnT · western_rey · western_hlad) as HIP-numbered polylines,
resolved onto the registry's OWN star nodes (the same 6′ + magnitude identity gate as
the IAU name join) and drawn between the real 3-D stars; ONE culture renders at a time
(the Visualisation select / permalink
cn=<culture>). GOVERNANCE
(default-deny,
registry/skyculture.ts): ONLY Tier-1 historical/scholarly
traditions are published; each culture's TEXT/DATA licence is re-verified verbatim at fetch
AND at bake (an upstream licence change refuses the culture pending re-review — the al-Sufi
ND catch); living-community traditions and no-derivatives cultures are never published as
line data. The derived tables ship as a separable per-culture-licensed COLLECTION artifact
(
atlantis-constellations.json, superseding the v2.070 western-only file), each
slice under its own licence (CC BY-SA / GPL copyleft honoured per slice), never blended into
the SSR-GPL bake; illustrations are not used.
github.com/Stellarium/stellarium-skycultures
— snapshot 2026-07-20. Figure-star positions for the join: Hipparcos I/239/hip_main via
CDS/VizieR (ESA mission data, attribution).
Stellarium sky cultures — Tier-1 star names (cycle 3)
Informs: the cultural star-names overlay — each published culture's own
per-star names (chinese · chinese_contemporary · korean · indian ·
norse · egyptian · western/Rey), resolved onto the registry's OWN star nodes by
the same identity gate as the constellation figures and shown on a selected star with the
source community credited at the author's level; plus (increment 2) each culture's DEEP-SKY
names joined onto the registry's own galaxy/nebula/cluster nodes by EXACT catalogue
designation only (M 31 — the Andromeda Galaxy — carries its classical Chinese name
奎宿增廿一, Legs Mansion XXI); plus (increment 3) each culture's PLANET names joined onto
the solar-system planets by EXACT planet-name identity — the 5 ancient-Egyptian names
(Jupiter
Horus Who Limits the Two Lands · Mars
Horus of the
Horizon · Mercury
Associated with Set/Sebegu · Saturn
Horus the Bull of the Sky · Venus
God of the Morning) render on
the selected planet. A designation or name no registry object carries, or one carried by
≥2 candidates, is counted and never guessed (A5). Admitted through the default-deny governance
(
registry/skyculture.ts): ONLY Tier-1 historical/scholarly traditions; every
living-community tradition is a link-out with zero name data pending documented consent
(CARE/FPIC discipline); no-derivatives cultures excluded — the 2026-07-20 re-fetch corrected
al-Sufi to CC BY-ND 4.0 (text/data) and excluded it. Each culture's licence is re-verified
verbatim at fetch and again at bake; the derived tables ship as a separable COLLECTION
artifact (
atlantis-skynames.json), each slice under its own licence
(CC BY-SA / GPL copyleft honoured), never blended into the SSR-GPL bake.
github.com/Stellarium/stellarium-skycultures
— snapshot 2026-07-20.
Living-community sky cultures — LINK-OUTS only (Tier-2, no data redistributed)
Gaia DR3 (ESA)
Informs: the stars within 50 pc with 4-D velocities — the stellar
neighbourhood and the galactic-frame continuity. Deduplicated against both the curated named
stars and the exoplanet hosts (a Gaia row within 0.3 pc of either is dropped, so a host is never
double-counted), each such match corroborating the host's temperature.
cosmos.esa.int/gaia/dr3
Gaia DR3 — naked-eye bright sky (G ≤ 7)
Informs: the
gaia-bright layer — the familiar naked-eye sky
(Orion's belt, Canopus, Betelgeuse…) at all distances, beyond the 50 pc layer's cut. The
σ_d/d<1% precision gate is deliberately relaxed here: a star is placed at 1/parallax only when
its parallax exceeds 3σ, its distance uncertainty carried per star; rows without a usable
parallax (incl. some of the very brightest, saturated in Gaia) are excluded, never placed at an
invented distance. Deduplicated by source_id against the ≤50 pc layer and positionally against
curated stars + exoplanet hosts. Gaia Collaboration, Vallenari et al. 2023, A&A 674, A1
(
10.1051/0004-6361/202243940) ·
cosmos.esa.int/gaia/dr3
Updated Nearby Galaxy Catalog — the Local Volume (Karachentsev, Makarov & Kaisina 2013)
Informs: the
lvg layer — 864 galaxies within ~11 Mpc, each at
its ADOPTED published distance with the method named per record (TRGB · Cepheids ·
SBF · Tully–Fisher · brightest stars · membership; Hubble-flow rows
labelled redshift-derived) and σ_d carried where the paper’s distance table publishes
an error. 4D honesty: radial velocities are measured, tangential motion is not — no drift
modelled. Local-Group members (D ≤ 1.0 Mpc, the measured zero-velocity radius R0 = 0.96
± 0.03 Mpc of Karachentsev et al. 2009,
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.14300.x)
parent to the Local Group anchor; the rest are field galaxies in the CMB rest frame.
Karachentsev, Makarov & Kaisina 2013, AJ 145, 101
(
10.1088/0004-6256/145/4/101), via
CDS/VizieR (J/AJ/145/101). Free use with
attribution (cite the paper + CDS).
JPL Small-Body Database — Potentially Hazardous Asteroids
Informs: 2,547 PHAs (elements + measured radii where known) and their
closest-approach events — and, on every one of them, the ORBIT SOLUTION behind the elements:
producer, observations used (with the radar subset), observation arc and its first/last dates,
normalised residual RMS, and the MPC uncertainty parameter U. Same for the 1,417 comets.
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb ·
terms verified at fetch against
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/about
Minor Planet Center — Uncertainty Parameter U and Orbit Quality Codes
Informs: the reading of SBDB's
condition_code on all 2,547 PHAs and
1,128 comets. The MPC publishes U's definition — RUNOFF is the in-orbit longitude runoff in arcsec per
decade, CONS = ln(648000)/9, U = INT(ln RUNOFF / CONS) + 1 — so each U value's runoff band is INVERTED
from that formula rather than transcribed from a table; the inversion reproduces the MPC's own U=9
figure of 146502″/decade, which is how it is tested. The page's own caveat is carried with the data:
"the U value should not be used as a predictor for the uncertainty in the future motion of NEAs".
Orbit quality codes for long-period comets rest on Marsden, Sekanina & Everhart 1978, AJ 83, 64
(
10.1086/112177) — those codes are a different scale and are
deliberately NOT mapped onto U here. No DOI for the MPC page itself; stable URL:
minorplanetcenter.net/iau/info/UValue.html
JPL Small-Body Database — Comets
Informs: 1,417 bound periodic comets (1P/Halley, 2P/Encke, Hale-Bopp and the rest of the
well-constrained closed-orbit population, a ≤ 500 AU) placed on their real heliocentric osculating orbits under
Sol; hyperbolic, parabolic and near-parabolic single-apparition Oort-cloud comets are excluded rather than given
an invented orbit (A5); nucleus radius only where SBDB measures a diameter.
sb-kind=c snapshot;
public domain (NASA/JPL-Caltech).
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb
JPL SSD — Planetary Satellite Mean Elements & Physical Parameters
Informs: the 437 known moons of Mars→Pluto beyond the 22 curated majors
(Jupiter's irregulars, Saturn's moonlets, the Uranus/Neptune/Pluto small moons), each on its real
mean-element orbit under its planet. Elements are published per-row against the local Laplace plane
(pole given as ICRF R.A./Dec.), the planet's equator, or the ecliptic, and rotated here into the
J2000 ecliptic (verified against JPL Horizons osculating angles); a row whose frame cannot be
honestly converted is skipped, never emitted on a wrong plane (A5). Mean radius joined from the
physical-parameters table where published (24 moons). Equatorial-frame reference poles from
Archinal et al. 2018, the IAU WGCCRE 2015 report
(
10.1007/s10569-017-9805-5).
Public domain (NASA/JPL-Caltech).
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sats/elem
NEOWISE Derived Diameters and Albedos of Solar System Small Bodies (v2)
Wright et al. 2010, AJ 140, 1868 (WISE,
10.1088/0004-6256/140/6/1868);
Mainzer et al. 2011, ApJ 731, 53 (NEOWISE,
10.1088/0004-637X/731/1/53);
Mainzer et al. 2014, ApJ 792, 30 (NEOWISE Reactivation,
10.1088/0004-637X/792/1/30).
Informs: the PHA layer's small-body radius — 143,318 thermal-model (NEATM) diameter/albedo
records joined by JPL designation onto SBDB asteroid nodes, filling a radius-less node or reconciling
(corroborating/alternate, erase none) against SBDB's own measured diameter; 295 PHAs matched. Public
NASA/IPAC archive data (IRSA
neowisesbpropv2 catalog).
irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/Missions/wise.html
NASA/JPL Sentry impact monitoring (Sentry-II)
Roa, Farnocchia & Chesley 2021, AJ 162, 277 (Sentry-II,
10.3847/1538-3881/ac193f).
Informs: the impact-risk annotations on PHA records — the system's OWN published
cumulative impact probability, Palermo/Torino scales, potential-impact count and year range for
objects on its risk list (15 PHAs at the 2026-07-28 snapshot, Bennu and 1950 DA among them), and
the stated removal date for objects taken OFF the list as observations eliminated their potential
impacts (870 PHAs, 99942 Apophis among them — retired risk stated, never silently identical to
"never assessed"). Never blended with the PHA orbit-class facet; no probability is computed by the
registry. Public domain (U.S. Government work, NASA/JPL-Caltech).
ssd-api.jpl.nasa.gov/doc/sentry.html
IAU Catalog of Star Names (IAU-CSN)
Yarkovsky semimajor-axis drift — scaled diurnal model
Bottke et al. 2006, Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. (
10.1146/annurev.earth.34.031405.125154);
Chesley et al. 2014, Science (
10.1126/science.1256919, the (101955) Bennu calibrator).
Informs: the MODELLED Yarkovsky-drift factory value for small bodies — an order-of-magnitude da/dt
anchored to Bennu's measured −284 m/yr (not a measurement).
Water & ice
The solar-system water map (registry/water.ts → water.json):
every phase, body by body, each reservoir cited and confidence-tagged.
Earth — the reference reservoirs
Mercury & the Moon — polar ice and bound water
Mars — caps, ground ice, hydrated minerals, putative brine
Europa, Ganymede & Callisto — induced-field oceans
Enceladus — the plume ocean
Titan, Triton, Pluto & Charon — outer ocean worlds
Gas & ice giants — deep and superionic water
Ceres, Vesta & the carbonaceous asteroids
Habitability & the limits of life
The habitability map (registry/habitability.ts → habitability.json):
each environment judged against measured biological limits.
Limits of life — the encoded constants
Per-environment verdicts & the "has water ≠ habitable" controls
Exobiology-status ladder — the evidence, ranked (hyper-humble)
Habitable zone — five selectable published methods (factory, modelled)
Kopparapu et al. 2013 (
habitable-zone boundaries)
+ 2014 erratum (
ApJ 787 L29);
Kasting, Whitmire & Reynolds 1993 (
Icarus 101 108);
Selsis et al. 2007 (
A&A 476 1373);
Kaltenegger & Sasselov 2011 (
ApJ 736 L25).
Informs: the habitable-zone rings drawn around a selected star
(factory/natural/habitablezone.ts) — its luminosity derived from the sourced
radius + effective temperature. The model is SELECTABLE:
Kopparapu 2014
(T_eff-dependent S_eff polynomial, default),
flux-scaled (simple sqrt(L)
scaling of the solar boundaries, Kopparapu 2013),
Kasting 1993
(constant runaway/maximum-greenhouse + recent-Venus/early-Mars limits, scaled by
sqrt(L)),
Selsis 2007 (its own boundary-distance scaling law, a
quadratic in T_eff × sqrt(L)) and
Kaltenegger & Sasselov 2011 (the
equilibrium-temperature band 175 K < T_eq < 270 K, their §4,
converted to distances via T_eq = T_eff·√(R★/2a)·(1−A)^¼ at the stated
Earth-like Bond albedo A = 0.29 — the same value Selsis 2007 §2.1
anchor T_eq(Earth) = 255 K with; one band, so its two limits
coincide). Conservative / optimistic limits either way;
the Selsis coefficients, Kasting boundaries and the T_eq bounds are taken verbatim
from the papers (A5). Modelled and declared; absent radius or temperature ⇒ no ring.
Hill sphere — gravitational reach (factory, derived)
Hamilton & Burns 1992 (
orbital stability zones).
Informs: the Hill-sphere shell drawn around a selected body
(factory/natural/hillsphere.ts) — r_H ≈ a(1−e)(m/3M)^⅓ at periapsis, from the
body's sourced orbit and the body + primary masses. Derived; any missing input
⇒ no shell (never invents a mass).
Full-system fill — the statistically-expected unseen planets (factory, synthetic)
Kepler occurrence grids: Fressin et al. 2013 (
FGK planet occurrence, ApJ 766 81);
Dressing & Charbonneau 2015 (
M-dwarf occurrence, ApJ 807 45);
Petigura, Howard & Marcy 2013 (
Sun-like GK occurrence, PNAS 110 19273).
Orbit & spacing distributions: Xie et al. 2016 (
Kepler-multi eccentricities, PNAS 113 11431);
Fabrycky et al. 2014 (
mutual inclinations, ApJ 790 146);
Pu & Wu 2015 (
mutual-Hill spacing survival, ApJ 807 44);
Chen & Kipping 2017 (
mass–radius relation, ApJ 834 17);
review framing Zhu & Dong 2021 (
ARA&A 59 291);
the Fulton et al. 2017 radius valley (
AJ 154 109, a noted refinement, not yet sculpted in).
Informs: the full-system fill overlay (factory/natural/systemfill.ts → the
sf=1
viz): for a selected host star, a deterministic seeded draw of the SYNTHETIC planetary complement
from the cited grids (one Bernoulli trial per size-class × period-bin cell), constrained by the
known planets (occupied cells never re-drawn) and the Δ ≥ 10 mutual-Hill spacing criterion.
Paper packs are cited coefficient-table alternatives only (the HZ discipline — never an invented
split); the dice re-runs the seed (no variant baking). SYNTHETIC by definition — an average-occurrence
illustration, never a claim about the individual system; a host without a measured mass+temperature,
or outside a pack's sample bounds, gets nothing (A5).
GENESIS — a whole system generated from cited distributions (factory, synthetic)
Stellar mass: Kroupa 2001 (
the canonical two-part IMF, MNRAS 322 231);
Chabrier 2003 (
the disc IMF for individual stars, PASP 115 763).
Stellar structure: Eker et al. 2018 (
the interrelated mass–luminosity, mass–radius and mass–effective-temperature relations, MNRAS 479 5491).
Planets: the same Kepler occurrence grids as the fill mode above.
Informs: the Factory's THIRD mode (factory/genesis/) — the one handed no subject at all,
which is exactly why it is the dangerous one. Every quantity is either DRAWN from a published
distribution or DERIVED from a published relation, and there is no parameter by which a caller can
supply a shape: the Factory may invent an INSTANCE, never a law and never a distribution (§4.6) — a
postulated world belongs in the worldbuilding module under GAME provenance, not here. Anything the
literature does not constrain is REFUSED and counted rather than filled: measured over 2,000 systems,
38.2 % of draws fall below the Eker sample's own mass floor and produce no star at all (against
the IMF's analytic 38.6 %), and a further 95 stars are built but given no planets because they
are hotter than any published occurrence grid. Anchored outside itself: one solar mass returns
T
eff 5771.9 K against the IAU nominal 5772 K — and the Sun is not in Eker's
509-star sample. SYNTHETIC by definition, reproducible from seed + the three pack ids.
Biomass
The biomass distribution on Earth
Bar-On, Phillips & Milo 2018, PNAS (
10.1073/pnas.1711842115).
Informs: the 5.5×10¹⁷ kg C Earth baseline against which the modelled off-Earth biomass
ceilings (registry/biomass.ts →
biomass.json) are expressed as % of Earth.
Interior structure (icy-world cutaway)
Ice-shell and ocean thicknesses of the candidate ocean worlds
Stars, galaxies & the galactic frame
Galactic structure map & rotation
NASA/JPL-Caltech R. Hurt structure map (Spitzer/GLIMPSE-informed); R₀ = 8.1 kpc (GRAVITY
Collaboration class); flat 229 km/s curve
(
Eilers et al. 2019).
Informs: the
SYNTHETIC galactic field-star population (circulating about the galactic centre) and the
Milky-Way disc.
Stellar velocity convention — the solar motion
Eilers et al. 2019, ApJ 871, 120
(
10.3847/1538-4357/aaf648) — the measured
LSR circular speed v
c(R₀) = 229.0 km/s; Schönrich, Binney & Dehnen 2010, MNRAS 403,
1829 (
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.16253.x)
— the Sun's peculiar motion (U,V,W)
⊙ = (11.10, 12.24, 7.25) km/s.
Informs: every measured star's galactic-rest drift (Gaia, Gaia-bright,
Hipparcos-bright, XHIP layers and the curated local-universe named-star anchors:
drift = measured heliocentric velocity + the Sun's full
galactocentric motion) and Sol's own drift; consistent to 0.8 km/s with the Irrgang et al. 2013
Model I potential behind the star-trajectory line (
so=gal).
Galactic reference frame (IAU 1958)
Hipparcos Vol 1 §1.5.3 (ESA SP-1200). Informs: the galactic axes the Milky-Way
frame is built on (the 60.2° ecliptic↔galactic tilt). External-galaxy disc orientations from
RC3 / NED (M31, M33, LMC, SMC).
Local Group dynamics — the approach of Andromeda
van der Marel, Besla, Cox, Sohn & Anderson 2012, ApJ 753, 9
(
10.1088/0004-637X/753/1/9) — the future
MW–M31–M33 orbital evolution and its canonical initial conditions (masses, positions, velocities);
the M31 velocity vector from HST proper motions, Sohn et al. 2012, ApJ 753, 7
(
10.1088/0004-637X/753/1/7); the M33 velocity
from VLBA water-maser proper motions, Brunthaler et al. 2005, Science 307, 1440
(
10.1126/science.1108342); the founding timing
argument, Kahn & Woltjer 1959, ApJ 130, 705 (
10.1086/146762);
the Local Group mass, Peñarrubia et al. 2014, MNRAS 443, 2204
(
10.1093/mnras/stu879); the LMC/SMC first-passage
exclusion, Besla et al. 2007, ApJ 668, 949 (
10.1086/521385).
Informs: the default Local-Group-dynamics model (
lgd) — the MODELLED few-body
motion of the massive members so Andromeda (M31) and Triangulum (M33) move along their measured
mutual orbit and Andromeda approaches the Milky Way in deep time; the cited velocities are also
surfaced in the M31/M33 registry notes. MODELLED, display-only; softened point masses, no dynamical
friction (first approach representative, merger not modelled); the Milky Way is the fixed anchor and
the LMC/SMC/dwarfs are not moved (A5).
Stellar kinematics — Gaia DR3
Gaia Collaboration, DR3 (
data release).
Informs: the 4D velocities of nearby stars — drawn as the optional
proper-motion velocity arrow (where a selected star's sourced space velocity
carries it over ~100,000 years). The drift is sourced, not modelled.
ATNF Pulsar Catalogue (psrcat)
Manchester, Hobbs, Teoh & Hobbs 2005,
The Australia Telescope National Facility Pulsar
Catalogue, AJ 129, 1993 (
10.1086/428488);
catalogue home
atnf.csiro.au/research/pulsar/psrcat.
Informs: the 4,178-pulsar population placed in the galactic frame (positions from DM/parallax-derived
distances); pulsars without a catalogued distance are excluded rather than guessed (A5).
Gravitational-wave events — LIGO/Virgo (curated)
Abbott et al. 2016,
Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole
Merger, PRL 116, 061102 (
10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102);
Abbott et al. 2017,
GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star
Inspiral, PRL 119, 161101 (
10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.161101);
the GWTC catalogue via the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center
(
gwosc.org, strain data CC0).
Informs: the two curated
compact-binary mergers (GW150914 · GW170817), each shown as a disturbance expanding at the speed of
light from its detection epoch. Sky-localization centroids are representative directions within large
credible regions, not precise source points (declared per record); parameters are taken only where
the discovery paper gives them confidently, never guessed (A5).
Gravitational-wave events — GWOSC full confirmed catalogue
Gravitational-Wave Open Science Center (GWOSC), event API
(
gwosc.org/eventapi); confirmed catalogues GWTC-1
(Abbott et al. 2019, PRX 9, 031040,
10.1103/PhysRevX.9.031040),
GWTC-2 (2021, PRX 11, 021053,
10.1103/PhysRevX.11.021053),
GWTC-3 (2023, PRX 13, 041039,
10.1103/PhysRevX.13.041039)
and the later O4 confident releases; GWOSC software Abbott et al. 2021, SoftwareX 13, 100658
(
10.1016/j.softx.2021.100658). Data CC0.
Informs: the full confirmed-merger population (394 events beyond the two curated ones), each an
expanding shell at c from its detection epoch. Only CONFIDENT-catalogue events are kept (marginal /
independent-analysis / external-trigger / injection entries are dropped, A5). GWOSC gives no point sky
position, so each node's DIRECTION is a deterministic seeded placeholder (labelled display-only), at the
real published median luminosity distance.
Planck PSZ2 — the second Sunyaev-Zel'dovich galaxy-cluster catalogue
Planck Collaboration 2016,
Planck 2015 results. XXVII. The second Planck catalogue of
Sunyaev-Zel'dovich sources, A&A 594, A27
(
10.1051/0004-6361/201525823), via
CDS/VizieR (J/A+A/594/A27).
Informs: the
clusters layer — 1,094 galaxy clusters (every PSZ2 detection with a measured redshift)
in the CMB rest frame, each at a MODELLED line-of-sight comoving distance converted from its
published redshift through one cited flat-ΛCDM door (Planck 2018 parameters,
10.1051/0004-6361/201833910); the 559
redshift-less detections are excluded, never placed (A5). SZ-proxy masses (M500) carried with their
published σ; no invented radius, no drift.
The largest structures — per-structure citations (curated)
Supernovae — historical & landmark (curated)
Williams et al. 2011, ApJL 732, L11 (
10.1088/2041-8205/732/1/L11, SN 185 / RCW 86);
Winkler, Gupta & Long 2003, ApJ 585, 324 (
10.1086/375314, SN 1006);
Hester 2008, ARA&A 46, 127 (
10.1146/annurev.astro.45.051806.110608, the Crab / SN 1054);
Ritter et al. 2021, ApJL 918, L33 (
10.3847/2041-8213/ac2edf, SN 1181 / Pa 30);
Krause et al. 2008, Nature 456, 617 (
10.1038/nature07608, Tycho SN 1572 & Cas A light echoes);
Reynolds et al. 2007, ApJL 668, L135 (
10.1086/510515, Kepler SN 1604);
Perets et al. 2011 (
10.1086/504413, SN 1885A / S Andromedae);
Arnett et al. 1989, ARA&A 27, 629 (
10.1146/annurev.aa.27.090189.003213, SN 1987A).
Informs: the 9 witnessed supernovae (7 Galactic naked-eye events + SN 1885A in M31 and SN 1987A
in the LMC), each a point placed in the galactic frame at its catalogued distance, appearing in TIME at
its observed peak (A2). Positions/dates/types/distances are established astronomical facts (not
copyrightable); a value not confidently citable is omitted, never guessed (A5).
Naked-eye deep-sky objects — clusters & nebulae (curated)
Cantat-Gaudin et al. 2020, A&A 640, A1 (
10.1051/0004-6361/202038192,
Gaia DR2 cluster census — open-cluster centroids, half-members radii r50 and distances, queried verbatim from
VizieR J/A+A/640/A1); Harris 1996, AJ 112, 1487 (
10.1086/118116,
Milky Way globular-cluster catalogue — distances and integrated V, VizieR VII/202);
Melis et al. 2014, Science 345, 1029 (
10.1126/science.1256101,
the Pleiades VLBI parallax distance, 136.2 ± 1.2 pc);
Menten et al. 2007, A&A 474, 515 (
10.1051/0004-6361:20078247,
the Orion Nebula VLBI parallax distance, 414 ± 7 pc);
Göppl & Preibisch 2022, A&A 660, A11 (
10.1051/0004-6361/202142576,
Gaia EDR3 distances of the Carina Nebula's clusters, ≈2.35 kpc);
Smith 2006, MNRAS 367, 763 (
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10007.x,
the classical Carina census anchor).
Informs: the 31 classical naked-eye deep-sky objects — 20 open clusters (Pleiades · Hyades ·
Beehive/Praesepe · Ptolemy · the Double Cluster · NGC 6231 …), 9 globular clusters (ω Centauri · 47 Tucanae ·
M13 · M22 …) and 2 nebulae (Orion · Carina) — each a point under the Milky Way at its published distance.
Every value is the cited catalogue's, verbatim; a size the source does not publish is absent, never invented
(A5). Node names carry the M/NGC/IC designation, so the sky-culture deep-sky join (strict
exact-designation match) attaches the published cultural names — M 7 · M 44 · M 45 · ω Cen · Carina ·
NGC 6231 — with no join change.
Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature — IAU/USGS named surface features
International Astronomical Union Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature,
"Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature", maintained by the USGS Astrogeology Science Center
(
planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov — the stable reference;
the Gazetteer itself carries no DOI, so the citation is the site's own requested form: IAU WGPSN,
access date, site URL). Snapshot 2026-07-29 from the site's documented nightly per-target KML bulk
exports; public domain per the site's own FAQ ("Everything in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature
is in the public domain") and the per-target FGDC metadata (
useconst: Public domain).
Informs: the named natural surface features of 39 bodies — 15,870 IAU-approved names
(craters · montes · valles · planitiae · coronae …), each a surface-fixed co-rotating mark at its
published planetocentric +East center lat/lon with the published diameter as its size and the IAU
origin/etymology on the record. The source's own "Satellite Feature" class keeps the 7,063 systematic
lettered designations ("Einstein A") distinct from the 8,807 deliberate proper names; features of
bodies the registry does not carry are counted and held out, never fabricated (A5).
Coronal mass ejections — NASA/CCMC DONKI CMEAnalysis
NASA Community Coordinated Modeling Center, DONKI (Space Weather Database Of Notifications,
Knowledge, Information), CMEAnalysis web service
(
kauai.ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/DONKI; the
api.nasa.gov/DONKI/CMEAnalysis DEMO_KEY mirror serves the same data). US-government work,
public domain; no DOI — cite NASA/CCMC DONKI.
Informs: a dated snapshot of the FULL DONKI archive
of analysed coronal mass ejections (8,435 events, 2010-04 → 2026-07 — the catalog's whole record,
tracing both solar cycles, including the May-2024 Gannon storm) as transient events at the Sun, each
carrying its cited directed-cone parameters (apex heliographic lat/lon, half-angle, bulk speed, time to
21.5 R☉) — an event missing cone geometry is skipped, never completed with a guess (A5). An optional
overlay (permalink
dc=1) renders each event's measured cone expanding ballistically from
the Sun near its epoch, in a double-verified Stonyhurst→ecliptic solar frame (Fränz & Harper 2002,
10.1016/S0032-0633(01)00119-2; IAU pole
cross-check); the extent beyond the 21.5 R☉ fit is a constant-speed extrapolation, labelled MODELLED.
Anthropogenic effects — humanity's footprint
Orbital objects & the catalogue
GCAT — General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (J. McDowell)
Informs: the 47,650 catalogued artificial objects — payloads, rockets,
components — with multistage trajectories and landings; since 2026-07-20 (sub-catalog completion)
also 1,797 FAILED-TO-ORBIT objects (ftocat — placed at their launch site, existence-windowed to
their fall; no fabricated suborbital orbit is drawn), 363 uncatalogued analyst objects (csocat —
the WT1190F class, on their catalogued orbits; 222 further csocat rows reconcile onto existing
objects by shared COSPAR piece), payload detail for auxcat objects (pauxcat — category/activity),
and the hardware-identity columns (alternate names, manufacturer, bus, dry/total mass where they
differ from the reference mass, operational-orbit class) in the searchable notes. Marked-erroneous
(ERR) phantom entries and 0/0 undetermined-orbit rows are honestly excluded. worlds.tsv (the
292-world reference table, snapshot 2026-07-20) joins as a CORROBORATION source: its independent
radii/masses reconcile onto 52 matching solar-system bodies (56 corroborating · 33 kept as
alternates, erase none — equatorial-vs-mean radius conventions are a real, honestly-kept
difference class), identity constrained by each row's Primary so the moon Europa never joins
asteroid (52) Europa; reference-only, never a node producer. Still deferred with stated reasons
(parser header): ecat (object-parented attached-phase/EVA history) and tmpcat (provisional
scratch rows). CC-BY.
planet4589.org/space/gcat
Celestrak — General Perturbations (GP) element sets (Dr T.S. Kelso)
Informs: the orbital-phase join — 28,390 currently-tracked element sets,
matched onto GCAT Earth-orbit objects by SATCAT/NORAD number; the join upgrades every
currently-tracked Earth-orbit object the snapshot covers, its orbital-plane
orientation (Ω) and phase angle (M₀) going from GCAT's deterministic placeholder spread to MEASURED
values at the element set's own epoch (GCAT's own a/e/i stay as GCAT gives them). Public US Space
Surveillance Network data, redistributed by Celestrak with attribution; Space-Track is deliberately
not used as a source (its terms forbid automatic redistribution). Snapshot 2026-07-09.
celestrak.org/NORAD/elements
CelesTrak — SATCAT satellite catalog (Dr T.S. Kelso)
Informs: the independent-catalog reconciliation of GCAT's launch/decay
history — two catalogs of the same population cross-checking each other for resilience. 69,870
rows (incl. decayed objects) matched onto 42,253 GCAT objects by NORAD number (COSPAR fallback):
agreeing launch/decay dates (same UTC day) are recorded as corroborations (
corr —
41,554 launch · 15,998 decay), disagreeing ones are kept as alternates (
alt — 699
launch · 2,929 decay; erase none, the GCAT canonical never rewritten), and 139 objects GCAT left
open-ended gained a labelled Earth-reentry end date. Public US Space Surveillance Network data,
redistributed by CelesTrak with attribution; Space-Track is deliberately not used as a source
(its terms forbid automatic redistribution). Snapshot 2026-07-14.
celestrak.org/pub/satcat.csv
GCAT launch log & launch-site catalogue (J. McDowell)
Informs: the launch-log join (launch.tsv) onto every catalogued object by
Launch_Tag — the
site: (launch site),
lv: (launch vehicle) and
outcome: (success / failure / partial, from the LaunchCode result letter — 'U' unknown
left unset, A5) search facets, plus a launch-time upgrade to minute precision where the log carries a
time-of-day. And the launch-site catalogue (sites.tsv) → the 687 launch sites on Earth's surface as
their own
gcat-sites node layer (kind:launchsite), each existence-windowed from its
operational span; coordinate-less generic entries (e.g. "Ocean") are skipped. CC-BY.
planet4589.org/space/gcat
Launch Library 2 — upcoming & recent launches (The Space Devs)
Informs: the
launchlibrary layer — announced UPCOMING launches as
PLANNED markers on their pads (agency · rocket · mission · target orbit · announced window; existence
from window-lo; no invented orbit, A5; superseded when GCAT already logs the launch), and the
corroboration cross-check of recent PAST launch times against the GCAT launch log (designator ↔
Launch_Tag, to the minute; disagreements kept visible, erase none). Terms (The Space Devs FAQ): free
to use "in any way, shape, or form" and to share what you create; no raw forwarding without added
value; attribution encouraged — given here. Per-image licences on API image assets → images not used.
ll.thespacedevs.com ·
terms (FAQ)
UNOOSA Online Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space
Informs: the registration facet (declared / undeclared / unknown) joined onto
catalogue objects by COSPAR. © United Nations.
unoosa.org/oosa/osoindex
UCS Satellite Database (Union of Concerned Scientists)
Informs: the operational
purpose: and
users: facets
(communications / Earth observation / navigation · commercial / government / military / civil),
joined onto ~7,506 catalogue objects by COSPAR — a second, independent view of the operator
alongside the GCAT-derived
originator. Free, use unrestricted (acknowledgement
requested); version 5-1-2023.
ucs.org/resources/satellite-database
Object class & nationality (GCAT psatcat)
Informs: the class split (
kind:spacestation ·
probe ·
telescope from psatcat Category SS/PLAN/AST) and the
nation: facet (GCAT
State code → country name).
planet4589.org/space/gcat
International Space Station — NASA assembly & spacewalk records
Destructive anti-satellite (ASAT) intercepts — public records (curated)
Informs: the 5 destructive ASAT intercepts 1985–2021 (Solwind P78-1 · FY-1C ·
USA-193 · Microsat-R · Cosmos 1408) as events on the targets' documented orbits — the intercept point
along the orbit is not catalogued, so the anomaly is a declared placeholder, never presented as
measured (A5). Public intercept records: tracking data and official statements; the resulting debris
objects are GCAT's.
NASA/JPL Deep Space Network — DSN Now (validation layer)
Informs: the small measured deep-space fix layer (
dsn-now) used to
validate the coordinate cascade against independently measured spacecraft ranges — a check on our own
rendering, not a catalogue.
eyes.nasa.gov/dsn
(public NASA/JPL feed).
Future missions — NASA & ESA announcement pages (curated)
Informs: the small curated set of announced / en-route missions, each placed as a
planned-marker annotation on its target body (no invented trajectory) — Europa Clipper
(
science.nasa.gov/europa-clipper),
JUICE (
esa.int/juice), Dragonfly
(
science.nasa.gov/dragonfly), the Artemis
crewed lunar landing (
nasa.gov/artemis), the Mars Sample
Return concept (
nasa.gov/mars-sample-return).
Mission announcements, not papers — the stable official page is the citation; launch windows/years
carried only where publicly known (A5). Each record also carries its Launch Library 2 launch UUID
where one exists (
The Space Devs, free-use terms,
checked 2026-07-21) — the dedup key that keeps a curated mission and its LL2 upcoming-launch row
from double-rendering — and, for launched missions, the flown object's COSPAR cross-reference.
Quarterly manual curation.
Predicted trajectories — JPL Horizons predicted ephemerides (horizons-predicted)
Informs: the published PREDICTED cruise arcs of in-flight future missions, baked
onto the flown spacecraft's own node (showcase: Europa Clipper, NAIF -159 — monthly heliocentric
osculating arcs 2024→2030 through the announced 2030-Apr-11 Jupiter arrival). Horizons' object header
states the boundary verbatim ("based on tracking data through 2026-Jun-30. Trajectory thereafter is
predicted"); arcs beyond it are labelled
horizons-predicted — a published projection, never
flown history (A5). NASA/JPL Horizons (
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons),
US-government public domain; trajectory files are the JPL mission-design / navigation team's own
solutions. Dated snapshot 2026-07-21; quarterly manual refresh.
Deliberate impacts & landing scars
Located human-made impact craters (LROC / HiRISE)
Predicted lunar impact of 2025-010D — Bill Gray / Project Pluto
Informs: the ONE forecast in the impact-site catalogue (
IMP_2025_010D,
flagged
predicted) AND the flown object's own record —
GCAT_S62719, the
Falcon 9 upper stage, now carries the published terminal fix (at the predicted point at the
predicted instant, 2026-08-05 06:34:32.9 UTC, 19.455°N 266.406°E near crater Einstein, 2.43 km/s)
and its end-of-existence epoch corrected to that instant, GCAT's own 06:44 decay epoch kept as an
alternate (erase none). This page publishes no arrival azimuth, so ITS approach curve would have been
invented geometry and was refused; the drawn descent comes from JPL Horizons instead (entry below).
Licence is PER PAGE: this one page declares itself public
domain ("anything on this page is in the public domain"); the rest of projectpluto.com is copyrighted
and is not used. Orbit determination by Bill Gray from 1,053 observations (asteroid surveys + amateurs).
projectpluto.com/25010d.htm
Terminal lunar approach of 2025-010D — JPL Horizons
Informs: the DRAWN DESCENT of the Falcon 9 upper stage
(
GCAT_S62719) — 184 sourced osculating element sets in the Moon's frame, one every
~10 minutes from 2026-08-04 00:00 UTC (the start of the object's own GCAT lprcat phase,
i.e. the catalogue's own statement of when the Moon becomes its primary) to impact, carrying it from
80,005 km out to the surface where it previously vanished a quarter of a million kilometres
short. Horizons carries the object as
spkid -162719; the trajectory is solution
2025-010D_GA1A2_15 (S. Naidu, JPL), a fit to 78 measurements spanning 2026-Jun-02 to
2026-Jul-07 including estimated non-gravitational accelerations — so the whole arc lies in that
solution's own future and is labelled PREDICTED. The cadence was chosen by measurement, not habit:
propagating each set to the next epoch against Horizons' own state vectors gives a worst-case
intra-arc error of 0.19 km at 10 minutes (1.73 km at 30, 6.9 km at 60), an order
of magnitude below the impact solution's own stated few-kilometre uncertainty.
The two determinations disagree, and both are kept: at the Project Pluto instant
this solution still has the stage 28.5 km up, reaching the ground 23.3 s later and
14.8 km away (19.886°N 266.162°E); the impact point shown is the chosen one and the
Horizons instant is recorded as an
existsUntil alternate beside GCAT's.
The gap between the drawn descent and the drawn crater has been closed and MEASURED:
the arc missed its own impact marker by 1,108 km because the registry's Moon was not tidally
locked; with the IAU/NAIF lunar rotation ingested (see “Lunar rotation” below) the miss is
40.4 km, of which 32.1 km is simply the altitude this solution still
carries at that instant — the two determinations' own disagreement, not a model error — and
24.3 km is sideways, essentially all of it the deliberately unmodelled 0.76° Cassini
precession of the lunar pole at that date.
US-government work, public domain; cite JPL Horizons.
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons
Which spacecraft can be placed at all — the JPL Horizons major-body index
Informs: two COVERAGE statements about this registry's artificial holdings,
both re-computed from a dated snapshot of Horizons' own index of every body it can place
(825 rows, 256 of them flown spacecraft) rather than asserted once.
(1) How complete we are: of the 247 Horizons spacecraft carrying a COSPAR
designation, this registry holds 237 by designation and 5 more by name alone — 98.0%. The
designation match and the weaker name match are kept as separate figures; the 5 absent are named
(Deep Impact Impactor · OMOTENASHI · EQUULEUS · NEA Scout · BioSentinel).
(2) The orphan roll: 29 objects GCAT catalogues across its deep-space
sub-catalogues while publishing no geometry for any of their phases, so the registry cannot place
them without inventing a position — the Soviet planetary programme (Mars-4/6/7 ·
Venera-12/13/14 · Vega-1/2 · Fobos-1), Mariner 10, the Blok-D and Centaur stages that
carried them, and three recent objects. Horizons carries exactly one of the 29
(New Horizons,
spkid -98, already drawn from its navigation solution);
the other 28 have no public SPK, so they remain unplaced and COUNTED.
Identity is resolved on the COSPAR designation only. Horizons matches a text
query with a prefix glob, and on this very roll that returns MARINER 2 for "Mariner 10" and
Tianwen-1 for "Tianwen 2" — full, confident object pages for the wrong spacecraft. A name-keyed
ingest would therefore have drawn Mariner 2's arc labelled "Mariner 10": plausible, sourced-
looking and false. The name route is kept only as a falsification instrument, and what it would
have returned is archived per refused object in the snapshot manifest.
US-government work, public domain; cite JPL Horizons.
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons
Interplanetary cruise arcs — JPL Horizons (horizons-cruise)
Informs: the heliocentric position, during cruise, of 49 deep-space craft
and upper stages that until now were drawn at a position nobody had measured. The reason is a
gap in the catalogue rather than a lack of precision: GCAT publishes
a,
e and
i for its heliocentric rows and does NOT publish Ω, ω or M₀, so the ingest fills those
with a documented placeholder spread. The ellipse is roughly right and the point on it is
filler — measured through the engine's own compose, Perseverance sat 466,032,238 km from
Mars four days before it landed, on very nearly the opposite side of the Sun, and was already
316,515,757 km from Earth at the epoch of its own element set, four days after launch.
1,530 osculating arcs (24 epochs per window, ecliptic, AU-D) replace that for the windows GCAT
itself labels heliocentric.
Anchored on something the arcs cannot force:
InSight and the two MarCO cubesats flew on one launch and are held here in three SEPARATE JPL
kernels, fetched in three separate requests and joined through three different registry nodes;
the placeholder spread put them 96, 323 and 343 million km apart at cruise midpoint, and the
arcs put them 4,489 · 6,981 · 8,157 km apart — the formation the mission actually flew.
Two limits stated: JPL's heliocentric coverage ends at planetary capture, so
the last arc is days short of arrival and the residual at the catalogued arrival instant is
~1.2 million km (2–3 orders better than before, and not zero); and 15 of the 91 windows are not
covered by JPL's kernels at all — the Apollo S-IVBs beyond translunar injection, Clementine
after its lunar phase, Hayabusa before its return leg — which the fetcher records by quoting
JPL's own refusal rather than narrowing the request by hand.
Precedence, not arrival order: where an arc and a catalogue element set cover
the same window, the arc wins by declared rank (integrated ephemeris 3 > catalogue mean
element 1) and the superseded set stays on the record with its epoch, its a/e/i and the reason
it lost. Two objects are REFUSED because Horizons and GCAT disagree about which piece letter
carries which object of a shared launch (2024-179A · 2025-260C); attaching either would put a
trajectory on the other catalogue's spacecraft.
US-government work, public domain; cite JPL Horizons.
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons
Rover tracks from orbit — HiRISE (MRO)
Informs: the orbital rover-track observations (Curiosity · Perseverance ·
Opportunity) as Mars-linked surface marks. NASA/JPL · University of Arizona HiRISE.
uahirise.org/releases/msl-tracks
Catalogue of Manmade Material on the Moon (NASA History Program Office)
Informs: the
nasa-mmm layer — 694 catalogued line items left at the
six Apollo landing sites (tools, experiment hardware, flags, symbolic objects), each a child of its
lunar module, deployed at the landing instant and co-rotating with the Moon; GCAT-tracked hardware is
never duplicated. US government work (public domain).
NASA History Program Office, 2012
Mars surface traverses & the Ingenuity flight log — NASA/JPL MMGIS
Informs: the
roverpaths layer and the rover traverse joins — the
published MMGIS waypoint feeds place Perseverance and Curiosity on the rotating Martian ground at each
logged sol (distance-decimated to a declared cap, shape-preserving), and the Ingenuity helicopter's
flights are expanded from the log's start time, duration and maximum altitude into a simple MODELLED
climb–cruise–descent profile so the hops read as flight (declared modelled; a log row whose own timing
fields contradict is kept as a single ground move, A5). The waypoint feeds also carry an ELEVATION,
which the launch catalogue's landing record does not: a catalogued landing is therefore placed at the
body's mean radius, and where a traverse measures the same object on the same body that datum
placement is superseded — dropped, with the traverse's first waypoint re-anchored to the catalogued
landing instant — rather than interpolated toward, which used to draw Perseverance descending 2,570 m
over 13.4 days and Curiosity 4,501 m over 3.1 days through altitudes nobody measured. A placement
carrying a real elevation is never dropped. Public domain (NASA/JPL-Caltech).
mars.nasa.gov/mmgis-maps (M20 + MSL waypoint JSON)
Surface imagery (sourced terrain)
Global body mosaics — NASA Trek & NASA GIBS
Informs: the real surface imagery draped on a body when terrain is on —
Mars (Viking MDIM 2.1 colour mosaic, 232 m) and the Moon (LRO WAC) via
NASA Trek (plate-carrée WMTS); Earth (Blue Marble +
daily true-colour cloud cover) via
NASA EOSDIS GIBS.
Open tile services; the body stays a smooth sphere (no global DEM). Public domain (NASA/JPL/USGS/GSFC).
Moon & small-body global mosaics — NASA Solar System Treks
Informs: the real surface imagery on Titan, Enceladus, Mimas, Tethys, Dione,
Rhea, Iapetus (Cassini ISS / Cassini-Voyager mosaics; DLR Roatsch et al. & USGS control networks),
Io, Europa, Ganymede (Galileo SSI / Voyager, USGS), Phobos (Viking VIS, DLR-controlled), Ceres and
Vesta (Dawn Framing Camera, NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA), Mercury (MESSENGER MDIS BDR) and
Venus (Magellan C3-MDIR SAR), via
NASA Solar System Treks
(per-body plate-carrée WMTS). Bodies with no published mosaic keep the labelled generic
texture (A5). Public domain (NASA/JPL/USGS/JHUAPL; producing teams credited in-app).
Apollo landing-site mosaics — LRO NAC (NASA Trek)
Informs: the ground imagery of the historic Moon-landing scenes — LRO Narrow
Angle Camera site mosaics at Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17, streamed as bounded overlays over
the LRO WAC global mosaic via
Moon Trek.
NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University (LROC). Public domain (U.S. Government work).
Sun imagery by date — NOAA SWPC GOES-SUVI
Informs: the real dated solar-disc image mapped onto the Sun when Sun-imagery
is on (kill switch
si=1, off by default) — the full-disc frame nearest the sim clock, from
NOAA SWPC
(GOES-SUVI 195 Å, a CORS-open timestamped animation index). The earth-facing hemisphere is
observed; the rest is a disclosed 90/180/270° replica hypothesis, never claimed observed on the far
side (A5). Rolling recent buffer (~2017-present, GOES only) — outside it the generic Sun shows.
Public domain (US Government — NOAA / GOES-R).
Rover/lander super-detail — HiRISE site orthos (NASA Trek)
Informs: the local 25-cm-class imagery shown at rover/helicopter/lander zoom
(the sanctioned no-DEM exception): Perseverance + Ingenuity (Jezero 25 cm controlled ortho),
Curiosity (Gale), Opportunity (Meridiani), Spirit (Columbia Hills), InSight (Elysium), via
NASA Trek (Mars EQ WMTS HiRISE layers). HiRISE / MRO,
NASA/JPL · University of Arizona. Public domain (imagery); HiRISE credit University of Arizona.
Scale-model builder basemap — OpenStreetMap · Nominatim · Leaflet
Informs: the real-world Earth map under the scale-model builder mode
(plan a physical to-scale model of the selected system, schoolyard → city). Entirely KEYLESS:
map data + tiles ©
OpenStreetMap
contributors (
ODbL 1.0; attribution
always shown on the map), streamed straight from the OSMF standard tile layer under the
OSMF tile usage policy
(light, user-initiated use only — tiles load only while the mode is open, nothing proxied or
hosted by us); place search via
Nominatim (explicit
submit only, ≤1 request/s per its usage policy); rendered with
Leaflet 1.9.4 (BSD-2-Clause, © Volodymyr Agafonkin),
lazy-loaded from a pinned CDN only when the mode engages. Display-only — never enters the
registry. (Replaces the earlier bring-your-own-Google-Maps-key path — retired 2026-07-19.)
Cultural sky heritage — governance (in development)
CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance
Informs: the default-deny governance spine for the cultural sky layer
(sky-cultures, star names, legends) — sensitivity & consent carried at the schema level.
Carroll et al. 2020,
Data Science Journal (
10.5334/dsj-2020-043);
operationalised, Carroll et al. 2021,
Scientific Data
(
10.1038/s41597-021-00892-0);
TK/BC Labels —
Local Contexts.
Star-name & sky-culture sources (licence-triaged)
Informs: the names/etymologies + per-culture constellations, each ingested
only under a verified licence + explicit public sensitivity (default-deny). IAU-CSN official
names (CC BY); HYG v4.2 (
codeberg.org/astronexus/hyg,
CC BY-SA — copyleft, cordoned); Stellarium sky-cultures
(
per-culture licences,
classified individually); All Skies Encyclopaedia (
ase.exopla.net).
Concept missions (projected)
Photogravitational lightsail navigation (A. Normier, 2020)
Planetary protection & bioburden
COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy & the classification reconstruction
COSPAR
Policy on Planetary Protection (Kminek, Conley, Hipkin & Yano; a policy instrument, so
an authoritative stable URL rather than a DOI), with the 2024 Icy-Worlds restructure
(Space Research Today n°224); NASA NPR 8020.12 / NID 8715.129; NRC reports; MEPAG SR-SAG2
(Rummel 2014,
10.1089/ast.2014.1227);
Coleman–Sagan.
Informs: the per-object COSPAR category + modelled bioburden facet
(registry/pp.ts) and the per-body governance metric. The policy's own
"Category-specific listing of target body/mission types" is what the body table encodes —
Category I for Io and undifferentiated metamorphosed asteroids, Category II for
Venus, the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, Category III for
flyby and orbiter missions to Mars, Europa and Enceladus and Category IV for
landers there — and the Mars numbers come from the same text: a Cat IVa lander is held
to a surface bioburden of ≤3×10
5 spores, a Cat III Mars
orbiter to a
total of ≤5×10
5, one branch of a two-branch requirement whose other branch is an
orbital-lifetime probability.
method article
The whole-population classification — from the trajectory, not from a landing list
Same policy sources; no new dataset. Informs: the COSPAR category carried by
100% of the 51,772 launched objects (registry/ppframes.ts), derived from the bake's own
PHASE STRUCTURE — GCAT expresses a destination through its sub-catalogues, which the bake
materialises as phases under their own parent body, so an orbiter, a jettisoned stage and a
spacesuit riding a lunar module are each classified on their own merits. Measured on the
shipped bake: 1,220 objects reached a body beyond Earth (Moon 1,017 · Mars 94 · Venus 90 ·
Jupiter 21 · Saturn 8 · Mercury 6 · seven bodies and 2 asteroids one each); 50,552 reached
none, which is a classification and not a gap. 96 objects carried a decontamination
obligation; the documentation is publicly traceable for 0 of them — the two are asymmetric
by nature (the obligation follows from body × mission class × launch epoch, all in the bake;
the conformity follows from public documentation), and the difference is never a
non-compliance count. Declared limits: a passenger inherits every body its carrier reached,
including bodies it may have been jettisoned before; a flyby the catalogue kept in
heliocentric elements is invisible; and where the phase shape leaves orbiter and lander both
open and their categories differ, none is claimed.
EM emissions & directed signals
Intentional interstellar transmissions (METI) — Zaitsev 2006 + public records (curated)
Zaitsev 2006,
Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
(
arXiv:physics/0610031) and the public records of
the transmitting observatories.
Informs: the curated
signals layer — 9
intentional interstellar transmissions (Arecibo 1974, the Evpatoria Cosmic Calls…), 5 emitter sites
(incl. Arecibo with its collapse date) and 3 reference pulsars as the natural EM context; each
transmission rendered as a light-speed front with its documented date, target and beam where
published.
"A Profile of Humanity" (Paul Quast / Beyond the Earth Foundation)
Informs: 91 transmissions, 110 artifacts (83 matched onto their GCAT carrier),
14 bio-footprints — the directed-message and EM-emission layer.
beyondtheearth.org
Pulsar & natural-emission reference
Informs: the natural EM controls (the quiet Sun, pulsars) the emission ontology
renders alongside the human carriers — the "humankind colour vs the cosmos" legend.
Nuclear detonations
SIPRI 2000 + CMR rev.3 — reconciled detonation record
Informs: the 2,173 detonations + 19 sites, 576 yield-scaled EMP emissions
(MODELLED, Starfish-anchored). Effects fits: Glasstone & Dolan 1977. Import specification
© Adrien Normier (in the registry; sources public domain).
Our World in Data — Nuclear weapons tests (aggregate cross-check)
Our World in Data, "Nuclear weapons tests"
(
ourworldindata.org,
CC BY), compiled from the Federation of American Scientists / Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
(drawing on SIPRI).
Informs: a bake-time CROSS-CHECK only (adds no nodes) — OWID's annual
per-country test tally is diffed against our SIPRI+CMR detonation count and the discrepancy is written
onto the nuclear-tests layer card. A5: OWID counts "tests" (a salvo may detonate several devices) and
runs to the present, while our base counts individual detonations and ends ~1998 — a labelled systematic
offset is expected, never reported as silent agreement.
Nuclear power sources carried on board
A different class of effect from the detonations above: energy carried ON a space
object. The three device classes are kept apart deliberately — a radioisotope heater unit is grams
of decay heat, a radioisotope thermoelectric generator is tens of watts electric, a fission reactor
is tens of kilowatts thermal with a fuel core to dispose of.
UN Online Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space — nuclear-source declarations
United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs
(
unoosa.org/oosa/osoindex), read together with the
Principles Relevant to the Use of Nuclear Power Sources in Outer Space, UN General Assembly
resolution 47/68 (1992)
(
unoosa.org),
whose notification regime is why the register carries the fact at all.
Informs: the on-board nuclear-source facet — 57 objects, 58 declarations, from the register's
own remarks: 29 fission reactors (the RORSAT class, every one stating its disposal — reactor shut down
or fuel core ejected to a storage orbit — with the register's own estimate that the bodies stay up
400–2,310 years and the ejected cores 2,020–3,340 years), 4 radioisotope heater units (Lunokhod 1 and 2
with Po-210, Sojourner with Pu-238, Chang'e 4), 1 device-named RTG pair (Nimbus 6, SNAP-19), and 24
declarations that say only "a nuclear power source". THAT LAST NUMBER IS THE POINT: in UN usage "nuclear
power source" is a genus covering reactors and radioisotope generators alike, so those 24 are recorded
as
unspecified and never promoted to "RTG" by us. Each declaration carries its authority rung —
a COPUOS document symbol (a State's own notification, 8), the UN register (33), or UNOOSA's secondary
compilation (17) — and the sentence it was read from. Absence is UNKNOWN, never "carries nothing":
no source enumerates the objects that carry no nuclear material.
© United Nations, reused under the UN terms of use.
NASA Radioisotope Power Systems programme — device inventory
NASA/DOE Radioisotope Power Systems Program
(
science.nasa.gov),
snapshot 2026-07-30.
Informs: the DEVICE half of the same facet, which the UN register almost
never names — 23 NASA missions with the model and unit counts as NASA states them (MMRTG, GPHS-RTG,
MHW-RTG, SNAP-19, SNAP-19B3, SNAP-27; 29 generators and 298 heater units over the rows that give a
count). Hand-transcribed with each source sentence, not scraped: the pages are prose, and a ledger test
fails the build if one stops saying it. THREE REFUSALS, stated: the pages' mission DATES are not taken
(three demonstrable errors in the snapshot); Apollo 11 is recorded as a DISAGREEMENT — NASA states
SNAP-27 flew aboard it, the UN register lists a nuclear power source for Apollo 12 through 17 only —
and neither side is preferred; Dragonfly is absent because a planned power system is not an on-board
one. Scope, stated: NASA missions only — US Navy/DoD and all non-US systems are outside this authority.
NASA Images and Media Usage Guidelines (factual use, NASA acknowledged; insignia and logotype excluded).
On-board autonomy (“does it decide anything itself?”)
Not a “contains an AI” flag. The word has meant three or four different things
across the span this registry covers, so the facet names the REGIME of decision instead, against a
written frontier: does the vehicle decide, on board, without a human in the loop, something that could
have gone otherwise, using data it acquired itself? A Kalman filter is outside it and a terrain-matching
landing system inside — not because one is “intelligent”, but because the second chooses from
what nobody on the ground had seen. 14 records over 10 objects; a further 6 believed systems are declined
for want of a verifiable citation and counted, because absence here means unknown, never “no
autonomy”. Coverage is biased toward missions whose autonomy is published in English.
Autonomous deep-space navigation (AutoNav) — Deep Space 1, Stardust, Deep Impact
Bhaskaran et al. 2000,
The Deep Space 1 autonomous navigation system — a post-flight
analysis (
10.2514/6.2000-3935); Bhaskaran 2012,
Autonomous Navigation for Deep Space Missions
(
10.2514/6.2012-1267135); Rayman et al. 2000,
Results from the Deep Space 1 technology validation mission, Acta Astronautica 47
(
10.1016/S0094-5765(00)00087-4).
Informs: the autonomous-navigation and on-board event-detection records for those three
spacecraft — trajectory correction and encounter pointing decided from the craft's own images.
On-board planning — Remote Agent and the Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment
Muscettola et al. 1998,
Remote Agent: to boldly go where no AI system has gone
before, Artificial Intelligence 103
(
10.1016/S0004-3702(98)00068-X);
Chien et al. 2005,
Using Autonomy Flight Software to Improve Science Return on Earth Observing
One (
10.2514/1.12923).
Informs: the autonomous-planning and event-detection records for Deep Space 1 (1999) and
Earth Observing 1, where the craft re-planned its own activities from what it had just observed.
On-board science targeting (AEGIS) — MER Opportunity and Curiosity
Estlin et al. 2012,
AEGIS Automated Science Targeting for the MER Opportunity
Rover, ACM TIST 3 (
10.1145/2168752.2168764);
Francis et al. 2017,
AEGIS autonomous targeting for ChemCam on Mars Science Laboratory,
Science Robotics 2 (
10.1126/scirobotics.aan4582).
Informs: the on-board target-selection records — a rover choosing its own observation targets
in the gap before the next ground contact.
Deciding where to land, and flying without a ground loop
Nelessen et al. 2019,
Mars 2020 Entry, Descent, and Landing System Overview
(
10.1109/AERO.2019.8742167);
Balaram et al. 2018,
Mars Helicopter Technology Demonstrator
(
10.2514/6.2018-0023);
Lorenz et al. 2017,
Lessons learned from OSIRIS-REx autonomous navigation using natural feature
tracking (
10.1109/AERO.2017.7943684);
Terui et al. 2020,
Guidance, navigation, and control of Hayabusa2 touchdown operations,
Astrodynamics 4 (
10.1007/s42064-020-0086-5).
Informs: the terrain-relative-navigation, hazard-avoidance and autonomous-flight records —
Perseverance choosing a safe target from its own descent images, Ingenuity flying itself because Mars
light-time forbids piloting from Earth (recorded under the register's provisional designator, since the
first aircraft to fly on another world has none assigned), and the two small-body descents.
Debris, deposition & exhaust
Landing plume deposition (factory LIGHT)
Shipley, Metzger & Lane 2014, Lunar Cold Trap Contamination by Landing Vehicles,
NASA 20140017853. Informs: the ballistic plume footprint drawn at landed craft on airless
bodies (an upper envelope, not the visible scar).
Deep-space maneuver exhaust dataset
© Adrien Normier — Tsiolkovsky + JPL Horizons navigation arcs.
Informs: the 106
propellant puffs located from Δv discontinuities.
method article
Trajectories & 3-D models
JPL Horizons (heliocentric arcs); NASA 3D Resources (GLBs, streamed never hosted); NASA PDS
radar shape models. Informs: refined mission trajectories and the observed spacecraft /
small-body shapes.