
Stuff in Space - andygambles
http://stuffin.space/
======
jerf
So, if you've ever seen anything that looks like this, but is also slowly
spinning, the spinning isn't just to look cool. The spinning, even very slow
and gentle, can help give a sense of the 3D depth of the space. Even just
fractions of a degree/sec can be very helpful. I recommend trying to toss in
some slow constant rotational motion and see if it helps get a sense of the
space. At least based on my browser, you've got the performance for it to look
pretty decent.

Edit: Klunky hack you can pop in the URL bar to make it go zoom:

    
    
        javascript:void(camYawIncr=.001,f=window.requestAnimationFrame,window.requestAnimationFrame=function(a, b){f(a, b); camYaw+=camYawIncr})
    

Once you run that, screw with camYawIncr directly, rather than re-running
that. Clicking a particular element causes jiggling as the klunky hack fights
with the code tracking the element.

You may need something other than .001, depending on what frame rate you're
getting.

(Edit edit: There's something to be said for this whole "web" thing sometimes.
It's neat that we can hack on code like this....)

~~~
jeyoder
Site creator here, thanks for the suggestion! I added a bit of rotation before
the user clicks on anything.

~~~
lloyd-christmas
Oddly, I built something very similar a while ago. I haven't pushed an updated
version anytime recently, so there isn't any UI, but here is an example of it:

[http://spacejunk.herokuapp.com/](http://spacejunk.herokuapp.com/)

I used the subset of the decaying data from spacetrack.

------
jaza
Now I finally understand why, in Star Trek TOS, they only visited planets with
"lifeforms less advanced than humans" (or with no human-like lifeforms).
Bugger the Prime Directive, and the mission to "explore strange new worlds".
Doing otherwise was just too dangerous!

Can you imagine the perils of trying to keep a 300m-long starship in orbit,
without hitting all the bits of rubbish? Sulu would have been doing slaloms
for half of every episode. (Although they could probably spring-clean a planet
of orbital debris within a few hours, too, just vacuum it all up with a
tractor beam).

As Spock so eloquently put it in ST4: "Judging by the pollution content of the
atmosphere, I believe we have arrived at the latter half of the 20th Century."

~~~
andrewflnr
Their shields would probably handle it.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
I believe that was addressed in canon, the Vulcan scene in ST2009
notwithstanding. However, in Into Darkness, I recall an aside that the
Enterprise would incinerate on reentry unless shields were restored,
indicating utility beyond weaponry (that they did not, even though the pivotal
moment was long after they were in blue sky, was a bit confusing).

~~~
andrewflnr
You and jerf both have me hopelessly outnerded. I bow to your superior
knowledge.

------
mcescalante
This is so awesome, and render beautifully in Firefox, but I can't seem to get
the "orbs" (the actual objects) to render themselves in Chrome. Is anyone else
having this difficulty? Disabled all blockers and everything.

~~~
bpicolo
Same. Chrome didn't actually render the balls.

~~~
rspeer
I see tiny little pulsating pixels in Chrome, which briefly show an orbit if
you manage to mouse over their exact pixel. I was going to comment on the
usability problem.

EDIT: But now Chromium at least is doing fine.

------
musha68k
We did something similar at the Space Apps NYC hackathon this April where we
tried to simulate the effects of cascading space debris collisions known as
the "Kessler syndrome".

We ran out of time so it doesn't actually cascade but it shows the rather high
likelihood of collisions if you fast-forward with the slider on the bottom
left of the screen. Pull requests would be very welcome, the data from space-
track.org generally is great fun to play around with (as is three.js and
satellite.js).

[http://spaceappsnyc.com/KesslerSyndrome](http://spaceappsnyc.com/KesslerSyndrome)

[https://github.com/spaceappsnyc/KesslerSyndrome](https://github.com/spaceappsnyc/KesslerSyndrome)

~~~
efuquen
Wow, your project and this hackathon looks super cool, wish I had known about
it earlier to attend. Will definitely follow the Meetup for future events,
thanks for sharing!

~~~
musha68k
It was the most fun I've had in a long time, I would definitely encourage you
to participate as it is a global hackathon [1] and anyone can join from
anywhere actually :)

That said I'd still prefer to be on-location as there was such a wide range of
people with different backgrounds who were all super inspiring and a joy to
work with! There actually weren't enough programmers so I got to hook up a
lidar to an Intel Edison for another team which ended up winning the Intel
price - the team leader even gave me one of those Edisons and invited me to
visit Google NYC.

Yupp, I'm a lucky bastard :) and I didn't even mention that Lord British gave
a talk too [2] (he bowed when I thanked his honour for being an inspiration
since my childhood).

If you are only slightly interested do participate in the next Space Apps
Challenge!

[1] [https://2015.spaceappschallenge.org](https://2015.spaceappschallenge.org)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/musha68k/status/587000418095464448](https://twitter.com/musha68k/status/587000418095464448)

------
techpeace
GitHub repo:
[https://github.com/jeyoder/ThingsInSpace](https://github.com/jeyoder/ThingsInSpace)

~~~
magicmu
This is awesome, thanks for the github link! I wonder what service is
providing the data -- the lack of back-end in the repo and need for Web
Workers makes me think it's something external. A brief tour of the source
makes me think that the clue would be somewhere in satellites.js, but that is
a doozy of a file.

~~~
jeyoder
The site downloads orbit data from the static file
[http://stuffin.space/TLE.json](http://stuffin.space/TLE.json), which in turn
is updated daily using the [http://space-track.org](http://space-track.org)
API.

------
sjwright
It's incredible how much of the tracked debris is from just a couple of
unfortunate incidents:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-
satellite_mi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-
satellite_missile_test)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision)

------
degenerate
It took me a little bit of staring to realize all the dots are animated, and
actually orbiting. That's rad. It would be neat if clicking on a satellite
pulled up its picture from wikipedia and linked to the wiki page.

------
peeters
So, question on the geostationary satellites. A lot of them have relatively
high inclinations, like ~14 degrees. At first I thought this was because the
countries that use them are at corresponding latitudes, but then I realized
they'd be opposite the equator half the time.

Are these orbits to optimize directness during the day, at the expense of the
night? If so I guess that would explain why they tend to favor the southern
hemisphere over the dark side of the Earth and the northern hemisphere over
the light side (because that's where population is concentrated).

~~~
MPSimmons
There are a couple of ways to do "geosynchronous".

The most obvious way is an circular equatorial orbit at 35,786km. As I'm sure
you know, but others may not, the orbital period at that distance means that
the satellite completes one full orbit in 24 hours, thus it completes a circle
in the same time that the earth does, so it's always over the same spot.

There is also the concept of a Molniya orbit
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit)),
where you have a small cloud of satellites (at least 3) with extremely
elliptical orbits that together can provide coverage for non-equatorial areas.

If you come up with the satellite's name or designation you found, it's
probably relatively easy to determine why it is at the inclination it has. Do
you remember what it was you found?

~~~
peeters
I wasn't concentrating on any specific satellite, just noticing a very
noticeable trend of 24 h period orbits with inclinations between 0 and 15
degrees. They are not eccentric, so I think it rules out Molniya orbits. The
trend is readily apparent if you zoom out and view the Earth in profile (see
[http://imgur.com/FQpTkLR](http://imgur.com/FQpTkLR)). There is the obvious
trend at 0 degrees and then a noticeable high density from 0-15 degrees before
then trailing off.

For arbitrary examples, see Palapa 1, Insat 1A, Raduga 6.

~~~
restalis
The 0 inclination orbit must be the most sought one, hence the highest density
there. Then in cases where a small compromise from 0-inclination orbit was
tolerable, and considering that the second most important thing is fuel
consumption, I presume that the rest of orbits may have something to do with
the launching point (a lot of satellites were launched from Baikonur
Cosmodrome).

------
mintplant
Great visualization! I never truly grasped before just how much _stuff_ we
have orbiting the Earth.

Two features that I wish this had:

1\. A way to focus on a specific point on the Earth's surface.

2\. Being able to switch perspectives and look up into space from said point.

------
platz
IBEX looked like the one with the highest orbit,
[http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/masterCatalog.do?sc=2008-051A](http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/masterCatalog.do?sc=2008-051A)

------
Falcon9
I was lazily mousing over satellites when I discovered that we had the
audacity to launch these...

[http://www.n2yo.com/database/?q=skynet](http://www.n2yo.com/database/?q=skynet)

~~~
vonmoltke
Considering four of those were up before the first movie, perhaps they were
the inspiration for the naming.

~~~
Falcon9
Yeah, I noticed this after the fact. That one of them is listed as "unable to
track" is still irrationally unnerving, if just a tad.

~~~
jonathanoliver
As long as they're not running the Linux Kernel v4.1.15 we're safe.

------
jxm262
This is quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen on HN

Thanks for sharing

------
rglover
Something I've always wondered about: how do space agencies (NASA, SpaceX,
etc) coordinate launches so that they don't hit this stuff? Are the
coordinates aligned with launch pads blocked?

Essentially, how do they avoid this:
[https://youtu.be/O-d8BJ2iljc?t=33s](https://youtu.be/O-d8BJ2iljc?t=33s).

~~~
DanBC
They map objects larger than about 10 cm (so, like, a softball?) and take
manouvers if there's a debris cloud. Most stuff is shielded, some has more
shielding.

[http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/](http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/)

------
fugyk
What is the benefit of having time period larger than geosynchronous
satellite? I see quite some satellite like that, e.g. OPS 6638 which has a
time period of 6,701.8 minutes. I can think of no benefit of it, and on the
downside it will require stronger rocket and provide low visibility.

~~~
InclinedPlane
There are some reasons for science spacecraft to be in high orbits but most of
what you see is decommissioned comsats in graveyard orbits, which are
supersynchronous. This is because such orbits have the least chance of
decaying or of colliding with other satellites and creating a debris problem.

------
snori74
Great to see this. One of the very first examples of client-site Java put up
years ago by JPL (or NASA?) was essentially this, but it went down a few years
ago.

So simple, yet very powerful tool to grok intuitively quite a few things:
geostationary orbits - and to see at a glance why latency is going to be a
problem; the issue of coverage for satellite phones etc.

Edit: Looks like the NASA one still exists
([http://science.nasa.gov/realtime/jtrack/3d/JTrack3D.html/](http://science.nasa.gov/realtime/jtrack/3d/JTrack3D.html/))
but it's a pain to get it to run because of Java security, and seems to be
broken. Won't run in Chrome, broken display in IE and Firefox.

~~~
arthulia
Yes! I always had this open on my Dad's computer quite some time ago. I always
wanted to catch a glimpse of a satellite, or especially the ISS, as it
traveled over-head.

~~~
moioci
The indispensable heavens-above.com is your friend here.

------
Gravityloss
Whoa, that's awesome! Look at all the stuff high above the north pole. Almost
all Russian.

~~~
jameshart
Thing about orbits - anything that's currently high above the north pole will
very soon be less high, and above the south pole...

~~~
chinathrow
Zoom out and you'll see the geostationary stuff too. E.g. eutelsat.

~~~
jameshart
Not over the north pole you won't :)

------
kartikkumar
Very cool! Really neat that it pops out info about the individual objects too.
Great to see that the code has been published too.

Might try and integrate this visualization with a new tool I'm developing
called D2D [1], based on a new solver called Atom [2], to model high-thrust
debris-to-debris transfers for multi-target active debris removal mission
design.

[1] [https://github.com/kartikkumar/d2d](https://github.com/kartikkumar/d2d)

[2] [https://github.com/kartikkumar/atom](https://github.com/kartikkumar/atom)

------
saganus
This looks just like my KSP game... That can't be good, can it?

~~~
peeters
Assuming you were talking about debris, you can choose to stop tracking
objects in the tracking station. This also destroys the object, unlike the
pesky real world.

But if you've got that many stations/satellites that you want to keep, you're
on your own :).

~~~
saganus
Yes...I am not showing debris... that's the bad part. I'm just too lazy to
clean things up.

------
panic
If you zoom out a bit, there are noticeable "holes" above the North and South
Poles where the density of objects is lower. Does anyone know what is causing
these holes?

~~~
pachydermic
I noticed the same thing.

A few ideas:

* Those spots are the furthest possible distance from the equator (in angular terms), so they should be the most expensive places to put something in orbit (either you launch from a northerly/southerly latitude or spend a lot of fuel on maneuvering into that orbit either way that's expensive)

* Maybe Earth's magnetic field interferes with electronics (less protection from the sun's radiation)

* No one really lives there so there's fewer reasons to spend a lot of money putting something in orbit

* Some kind of international agreement/rules

Maybe someone more knowledgeable could weigh in!

~~~
tehbeard
Most satellite footprints (imagine a cone from the satellite to the earth) are
quite big I'd guess, so the need to launch into a truly polar orbit to capture
all of the poles isn't needed.

That said my knowledge comes from playing KSP with the scansat mod.

------
compostor42
Does anybody know what the data source for this is?

~~~
darrelld
A little bit of digging around with the Chrome inspector shows that it loads
data from a JSON file that sits on the server:

[http://stuffin.space/TLE.json](http://stuffin.space/TLE.json)

No network traffic is generated after the initial load so my guess is that
this JSON file is generated on the server from some other data source and is
read on load and then continues to calculate positions from that initial load.
The data on the server changes every 10 - 15 minutes it seems...must be a
script updating it.

~~~
kedm
Probably space-track.org; it's a government-run website that provides TLEs
collected by a bunch of organizations.

Some of the API names from space-track match what's in TLE.json, so it's
probably just fetched and post-processed every couple minutes.

------
antimora
I have just discovered selecting a group will highlight orbits. The most
awesome looking is GPS "stuff".

------
arankine
Iridium 33. Damn, that's some debris.

~~~
MichaelGG
Though since the dots aren't to scale -- they're are dozens of km wide instead
of centimeters -- it probably looks worse on this map.

~~~
robertfw
At orbital velocities, even a loose nut could cause significant damage.

~~~
hereonbusiness
This so reminds me of the anime Planetes :)

[https://youtu.be/heESAW2addo?t=29s](https://youtu.be/heESAW2addo?t=29s)

~~~
classicsnoot
Watching now. Thanks for turning me on to this.

------
Debugreality
My first thought is there is a lot of material up there that is going to just
burn up in the atmosphere at some point. Would be nice to collect it all
together for some later use?

Maybe some kind of solar sail salvage drone could do it.

Steam punk, space stations cobbled together from bits of old rockets and
satellites.

~~~
32faction
One of my first startup ideas I pitched to YC was to deorbit the inactive LEO
satellites/debris as as service utilizing kilowatt-class lasers utilize
radiation pressure to degrade the orbit enough to let atmospheric drag take
care of the rest.

Well due to (IIRC) the Outer Space Treaty, spacecraft launched is still owned
by their original company and I dont think the original company, or anyone
else for that matter wants to pay to cleanup their trash, therefore no market.

Didn't get interviewed for most likely that reason.

~~~
jerf
Do you have the math worked out on that? Were you going to use surface-based
lasers or were you going to launch them somehow?

At the very least you could salvage a blog post out of this. :)

~~~
32faction
We decided against launching them because the laser would have a limited power
supply and could only deorbit X amount of debris before completely depleting
its power supply; something solar panels can't effectively recharge (well
you'd need A LOT of them). Combine that with cost for launch, it gets pretty
expensive to deorbit only a few satellites.

Because of this we went with surface based lasers; they could be recharged
using the local grid and clean a specific section of the sky. We looked at
placing lasers at locations with high altitude and cross referenced them with
the local $ per kilowatt hour. Never really got to the stage of deciding where
to place one since we were still stuck with figuring out the market for it. I
guess someones active satellite needs to get Sandra Bullocked by some old
debris before we start going "hey. there's a market for cleanup!".

The ISS is currently looking into a laser system to clean up debris if i
remember correctly. I guess if they ever figure out the person who uses it
would get to call him/herself "ISS Door Gunner"

------
highCs
Amazing. May I have some info when I click onto something please? Are the
lights in night zone accurate?

~~~
rikkus
I just tried switching the lights in my house on and off and it changed in the
right place on the globe, so yes.

------
personjerry
I feel like this sort of visualization really makes us realize how much
_space_ there is out there. There is SO MUCH debris just flying out there and
yet we manage to avoid any of it with nearly every launch we've made.

------
edem
For further information on the satellites you can try:
[http://www.satflare.com/](http://www.satflare.com/)

------
jtchang
Wow we have a lot of crap floating around up there.

------
escapecharacter
Would be nice to see The Moon/Luna for scale

~~~
Florin_Andrei
It's too far away to be nicely represented to scale.

Fake the scale (at least for the orbit size) and it's doable.

------
alpha1471
Looks a lot like Space Fence...

[https://youtu.be/7SJdN90vT04](https://youtu.be/7SJdN90vT04)

------
dufferzafar
Does anyone know how that big earth is created? I saw something similar on the
Google I/O '15 event page too.

~~~
mooogs
It's created with WebGL. There is a library called Three.js which makes it
super easy to work with WebGL and create 3D objects if you're interested.

------
davidgrenier
Wondering if outside civilization can infer the economic system based on the
crap in orbit around such a planet.

------
davidbrent
This is just beautiful. Definitely put all of those things in a new
perspective for me. Well done.

------
torrance
Zoom out far enough, and it looks suspiciously like the Death Star in the
making.

------
spiritplumber
This so wants a KSP plugin....

------
ARolek
Is there a group/organization responsible for space debris cleanup?

~~~
bagels
There's no money in that, so probably not.

~~~
ablation
I'm sure there's money in recycling/reusing the rare and expensive metals and
components of now-defunct satellites, but I think it would probably encounter
a) resistance from the owners of those satellites if it's not just an
altruistic cleanup job sanctioned by governments, and b) related to what you
say, the cost of actually performing the task would undoubtedly outweigh any
money recouped.

------
Kiro
Why are so many satellites concentrated to that thin line on the edge?

~~~
ablation
Do you mean the ones in geostationary orbit above the equator? If so: "A
geostationary orbit can only be achieved at an altitude very close to 35,786
km (22,236 mi), and directly above the Equator. This equates to an orbital
velocity of 3.07 km/s (1.91 mi/s) or an orbital period of 1,436 minutes, which
equates to almost exactly one sidereal day or 23.934461223 hours. This ensures
that the satellite will match the Earth's rotational period and has a
stationary footprint on the ground. All geostationary satellites have to be
located on this ring." [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit#Orbital_st...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit#Orbital_stability)

------
snorrah
Hanging at 'crunching numbers' on iOS Safari currently FYI

------
iamcreasy
One for Mars would be pretty neat.

------
buf
All I can see is how little ice there is.

------
stevewilhelm
No Moon?

------
ocdtrekkie
This is the coolest thing I saw today.

