Library

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

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

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.

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.

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).

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.

Informs: nothing in the registry — deliberately. These living traditions are held at Tier-2 by the default-deny governance (registry/skyculture.ts): no name, line or story data is fetched, baked or redistributed pending documented community consent (CARE/FPIC discipline). Each culture is credited and linked to its upstream source (a link is not a redistribution); this list is pinned against the governance manifest by test so it cannot drift: Anuta (Polynesia) · Nahua / Aztec (Mesoamerica) · Belarusian folk · Blackfoot Confederacy (N. America) · Boorong / Wergaia (Australia) · Bugis (Sulawesi) · Native Hawaiian · Inuit · Lokono (Arawak, Guianas) · Macedonian folk · Mandar (Sulawesi) · Māori (Aotearoa) · Mongolian · Diné (Navajo Nation) · Northern Andes peoples · Romanian folk · Ruelle (folk) · Sámi (Fennoscandia) · Sardinian folk · Siberian peoples · Tongan (Polynesia) · Tukano (Amazonia) · Tupi-Guarani (Brazil).

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

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

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).

Informs: 2,540 PHAs (elements + measured radii where known) and their closest-approach events. ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb

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

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

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

Informs: the 451 official proper names attached to catalogue stars. iau.org/naming_stars

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).

Charette & Smith 2010, Oceanography (10.5670/oceanog.2010.51); Vaughan et al. 2013, IPCC AR5 Ch.4 (10.1017/CBO9781107415324.012). Informs: Earth's ocean volume (1.335×10⁹ km³ — the % baseline) and cryosphere.

Lawrence et al. 2013, Science (Mercury); Colaprete 2010 (LCROSS), Li et al. 2018 (M³ polar ice), Li & Milliken 2017 (surface OH/H₂O), Honniball 2020 (SOFIA), Feldman 1998 (Lunar Prospector). Informs: cold-trap ice and adsorbed water on the two airless inner worlds.

Plaut 2007 (S-polar), Putzig 2009 (N-polar), Morgan 2021 (SWIM ground ice), Bibring 2006 (OMEGA clays), Mustard 2008 (CRISM), Scheller 2021 (crustal water), Orosei 2018 (MARSIS brine, contested). Informs: the full Mars reservoir set across phases and depth.

Kivelson 2000 (Europa), Khurana 1998 (induction), Zimmer 2000 (Callisto), Villanueva 2023 (Europa JWST CO₂), Saur 2015 (Ganymede aurora). Informs: the Galilean subsurface oceans.

Thomas 2016 (libration), Porco 2006 (plumes), Waite 2017 (H₂/hydrothermal), Postberg 2023 (phosphates). Informs: the Enceladus ocean and its measured chemistry.

Iess 2012 (Titan tides), Mastrogiuseppe 2014 (Ligeia methane sea), Smith 1989 (Triton), Nimmo 2016 (Pluto), Stern 2015 (Pluto system), Desch & Neveu 2017 (Charon). Informs: the outer-system oceans, ices and Titan's non-water seas.

Li 2020 (Jupiter Juno MWR), Visscher & Fegley 2005 (Saturn), Helled 2020 (ice-giant interiors), Millot 2019 (superionic ice), Militzer 2024 (U/N field). Informs: the deep-tropospheric and superionic-mantle water of the four giants.

Raymond 2020 (Ceres brine), De Sanctis 2020 (hydrohalite), Prettyman 2017 (Ceres ice), Küppers 2014 (vapour), De Sanctis 2012 (Vesta OH), Hamilton 2019 (Bennu), McCoy 2025 (Bennu brine), Kitazato 2019 (Ryugu). Informs: hydrated minerals, brines and exospheric vapour on the small bodies.

Takai 2008 (122 °C upper limit), Mykytczuk 2013 (−15 °C growth), Stevenson 2015/2017 (a_w 0.585), Daly 2009 (radiation), Rummel 2014 (SR-SAG2), NRC 2012 (icy-bodies gate). Informs: the temperature / water-activity / radiation thresholds every verdict is read against.

Hand 2007 (Europa energy), Tarnas 2018 (Mars radiolytic H₂), Wadsworth & Cockell 2017 (Mars perchlorate UV), Hallsworth 2021 (Venus clouds), Stofan 2007 (Titan lakes). Informs: the habitable / marginal / control classifications per body.

Enceladus habitability: Waite 2017 (H₂ / hydrothermal), Postberg 2018 (macromolecular organics), Postberg 2023 (phosphates); Europa: Hand 2007 (energy). Mars deep subsurface: Tarnas 2018 (radiolytic H₂); contested methane: Webster 2018 (seasonal background) vs Korablev 2019 (TGO upper limit); preserved organics: Eigenbrode 2018 (Gale mudstone). Venus phosphine: Greaves 2021 (detection) vs Villanueva 2021 (no-detection rebuttal). Titan organics: Hörst 2017 (atmosphere & climate), subsurface ocean Iess 2012 (tides). Ceres: Raymond 2020 (brine), De Sanctis 2017 (aliphatic organics); Ganymede: Saur 2015 (ocean aurora). Returned samples: Glavin 2025 (Bennu amino acids & nucleobases), Oba 2023 (Ryugu uracil); Moon control: Colaprete 2010 (polar ice). Informs: the per-body exobiology-status ladder (registry/exobiology.ts → exobiology.json) surfaced in the Life & Water panel — a claim about EVIDENCE ranked by defensibility, never a claim of life; contested signals shown with their rebuttal.

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.

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).

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.

Čadek 2016 (Enceladus shell), Hemingway & Mittal 2019 (Enceladus), Lainey 2024 (Mimas ocean), Steinbrügge 2024 (Europa shell), Hemingway 2013 (Titan), Vance 2018 (Ganymede/Callisto layering), Park 2016 (Ceres), Ermakov 2017 (Ceres gravity), Nimmo & Pappalardo 2016 (ocean-worlds review). Informs: the radius / ice-shell / ocean / rock-core layers of the planned subsurface cutaway visualisation.

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.

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).

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).

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.

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).

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 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 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.

Informs: the largescale layer — 14 cited landmarks above the cluster scale, one citation per structure: Virgo (Local) Supercluster — de Vaucouleurs 1953 (10.1086/106805); Laniakea — Tully et al. 2014 (10.1038/nature13674); Perseus-Pisces — Haynes & Giovanelli 1986 (10.1086/184705); Shapley — Raychaudhury 1989 (10.1038/342251a0); CfA2 Great Wall — Geller & Huchra 1989 (10.1126/science.246.4932.897); Sloan Great Wall — Gott et al. 2005 (10.1086/428890); South Pole Wall — Pomarède et al. 2020 (10.3847/1538-4357/ab9952); Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall — Horváth et al. 2014 (10.1051/0004-6361/201323020); Boötes Void — Kirshner et al. 1981 (10.1086/183623); Local Void — Tully et al. 2019 (10.3847/1538-4357/ab2597); KBC Void — Keenan, Barger & Cowie 2013 (10.1088/0004-637X/775/1/62); Great Attractor region — Lynden-Bell et al. 1988 (10.1086/166066); Pisces-Cetus Supercluster Complex — Tully 1986 (10.1086/164049); Huge-LQG — Clowes et al. 2013 (10.1093/mnras/sts497). Each structure is placed at a catalogued centroid/anchor; published redshifts/velocities convert through the cited ΛCDM door and are labelled MODELLED, directly cited distances are used verbatim; region-scale localizations are labelled indicative, and the contested structure is shown with its published rebuttal (A5).

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).

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.

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 analysed coronal mass ejections (1,224 events, calendar 2024 — the full Solar-Cycle-25 maximum year, including the May 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.

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

Informs: the orbital-phase join — 15,935 currently-tracked element sets, matched onto GCAT Earth-orbit objects by SATCAT/NORAD number, upgrade 15,419 objects' orbital-plane orientation (Ω) and phase angle (M₀) 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 2026-07-01. celestrak.org/NORAD/elements

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

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

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)

Informs: the registration facet (declared / undeclared / unknown) joined onto catalogue objects by COSPAR. © United Nations. unoosa.org/oosa/osoindex

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

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

Informs: the persistent ISS complex + 33 time-located events (assembly · dockings · EVAs). NASA ISS assembly elements · NASA spacewalking history

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.

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).

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.

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.

Informs: the 25 surface-fixed impact sites (Moon · Mars · Mercury · Dimorphos · Ryugu). Wagner et al. 2017, Icarus 283 (10.1016/j.icarus.2016.05.011); DART (Nature 2023); Hayabusa2 SCI (Science 2020); NASA NSSDCA · LROC · HiRISE.

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

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

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). Public domain (NASA/JPL-Caltech). mars.nasa.gov/mmgis-maps (M20 + MSL waypoint JSON)

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).

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).

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).

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).

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.

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.)

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.

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).

Informs: the gated, projected concept-mission overlay (Sol → Sirius A → Procyon A). Heller et al. 2017 (10.3847/1538-4357/834/1/22); Heller & Hippke 2017 (10.3847/2041-8213/aa813f). Rendered MODELLED/PROJECTED, never baked into truth.

COSPAR PPP (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-launch COSPAR category + modelled bioburden facet (registry/pp.ts) and the per-body governance metric. method article

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.

Informs: 91 transmissions, 110 artifacts (83 matched onto their GCAT carrier), 14 bio-footprints — the directed-message and EM-emission layer. beyondtheearth.org

Informs: the natural EM controls (the quiet Sun, pulsars) the emission ontology renders alongside the human carriers — the "humankind colour vs the cosmos" legend.

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" (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.

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).

© Adrien Normier — Tsiolkovsky + JPL Horizons navigation arcs. Informs: the 106 propellant puffs located from Δv discontinuities. method article

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.