What To Expect

Astronomical Mapping, or Celestial Cartography, is the science of charting Stars, Galaxies, and Celestial Objects on the Celestial Sphere using Coordinate Systems like right Ascension and Declination. These maps, ranging from 2D Star Charts to 3D Models, help locate objects, track time, and identify the 88 official Constellations.

Key Tools and Resources:

  • Stellarium Web: An online Planetarium showing a realistic, real-time map of the night sky.
  • The Sky Live: Offers interactive Planetarium, Solar System Maps, and Object Tracking.
  • Sky-Map.org: Provides interactive deep space maps, including imaging of Nebulae and Galaxies.
  • NASA Science Visualization Studio: Offers high-resolution star maps, such as the Deep Star Maps 2020, as described on the NASA SVS website.

Astronomical Maps are crucial for observing, conducting surveys, and studying Celestial events.

Key Aspects of Astronomical Mapping:

Coordinate Systems: Modern maps use a system of Right Ascension (equivalent to longitude) and Declination (equivalent to latitude) to fix the position of celestial objects.

Types of Maps:

Star Charts:

2D representations used by astronomers to identify constellations and stars, often showing brightness via dot size, as discussed on The Night Sky and in this YouTube video.

3D Models

Tools, such as NASA's Celestial Mapping System, provide 3D visual imagery of solar system bodies.

Planispheres:

Adjustable maps for finding stars at specific dates and times.

Mapping Techniques:

Mapping relies on data from Earth-based telescopes and space observatories to plot positions and intensities across various wavelengths.

Reference Frames:

Maps are aligned to specific coordinate systems, such as ICRF/J2000, for precise tracking.

Core Features

Celestial Mapping System (CMS) Current Capabilities

  • Visual Imagery & 3D Models
    • Accurate displays and geometric figures of Lunar imagery, terrain, and place names of known location
    • Ability to accurately measure and profile terrain elevation
    • Georeferenced imagery of Apollo landing sites
    • High Quality Graticules
  • Layer Management
    • Server access to implement new datasets and high resolution map layers
    • View precise locations of CLPS and international landing sites
    • Access to WMS layer manager
  • Navigation
    • Automated “Fly To” points of interest and pre-loaded layers
    • 2D minimap with click to navigate functionality
    • "Go To" decimal degree coordinates feature
    • Navigation capabilities including view controls, scalebar, and graticules
  • Measurement & Analysis
    • Ability to calculate and display lunar terrain intersections from a central viewpoint
    • Import/Export for KML, CSV, ESRI shape and GeoTIFF files
    • Run sophisticated viewshed analysis showing line of sight obstructions due to terrain
    • Viewshed analysis
  • Equipment & Feature Placement
    • Searchable table of over 7000 named features that can be sorted and clicked to display placemarks and their annotations
    • Interactive 3D models of Apollo astronauts and vehicles remaining at the Apollo landing sites
    • Ability to add customizable named placemarks at a set of coordinates
    • Place 3D models of equipment with line of sight analysis
    • Save and load equipment placement icons
    • Stereographic "3D" view of the lunar surface
  • Enhanced Visualization
    • Ability to simulate a “first person view” with situational and domain awareness of a vehicle traversing the lunar landscape​
    • Ability to visualize map projections from other celestial bodies
    • Subsurface visualization & analysis
    • Virtual reality support
  • AI Tools
    • Artificial intelligence-assisted data enhancement
    • Advanced 3D visualization with intelligent search-by-example
    • Ingestion of planetary datasets (PDS) with AI-assisted tools
  • Additional Mission Planning Tools
    • Mission planning capabilities for equipment placements and traverse path optimization
    • Plug-in architecture for specific use cases
    • Lunar resource assessment
    • Real time satellite tracker
    • Simulation of cislunar satellites
  • Additional Information

    Multiple planetary data layers can be added to the virtual globe to provide visualization of high-resolution imagery and elevation data, which enables precise measurements, tools for analytical capabilities, and a broad range of other functionalities to assist planetary scientists and mission planners. Third-party planetary data can be ingested into CMS with minimal effort.

Celestial Mapping System (CMS) Project Description

Celestial Mapping System (CMS) Technology

Celestial Mapping System (CMS) is a desktop application that provides a toolkit of features for visualization and analysis of celestial bodies, beginning with a 3D lunar globe. Although there are lunar mapping products publicly available, they use old data from lunar missions, have no native desktop version, and they are mostly 2D. CMS addresses this by providing high-resolution datasets from recent lunar missions, accurate elevation data to display and read 3D terrain, and is built on top of WorldWind Java library which provides a rich set of functionality and the ability to easily expand to other celestial bodies. CMS is also looking at implementing features to support situational awareness, path optimization and resource assessment, which will be of use in upcoming missions to the lunar surface. CMS utilizes geospatial tools such as QGIS and GDAL to test and modify planetary data. Other features include the ability to enable specific place names, a measurement toolbox, terrain profiler, anaglyph view of the Moon, navigation capabilities, and an interactive visit to the Apollo landing sites which showcase 3D objects of the astronauts and lunar landers. In the world of planetary mapping, CMS aims to significantly improve upon existing functionalities, and bring new tools, that will be useful to the planetary science community and mission planners.

Six Cluster Collisions, with Dark-Matter Maps

This collage shows images of six different galaxy clusters taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory. The clusters were observed in a study of how dark matter in clusters of galaxies behaves when the clusters collide. Seventy-two large cluster collisions were studied in total. Using visible-light images from Hubble, the team was able to map the post-collision distribution of stars and also of the dark matter (colored in blue), which was traced through its gravitational lensing effects on background light. Chandra was used to see the X-ray emission from impacted gas (pink). The team determined that dark matter interacts with itself and everything else even less than previously thought. The clusters shown here are, from left to right and top to bottom: MACS J0416.1-2403, MACS J0152.5-2852, MACS J0717.5+3745, Abell 370, Abell 2744, and ZwCl 1358+62.

Six Cluster Collisions, with Dark-Matter Maps

Six Cluster Collisions, with Dark-Matter Maps