Mitaka
Japanese

4D2U Project
NAOJ

Space Mode

In space mode you can explore various structures in the universe ranging from the topography of Earth to the large scale structure of the universe. Mitaka seamlessly integrates up-to-date observational data and theoretical models.

Earth

You can see Earth's atmosphere and the reflection of sunlight off the oceans.
You can also see city lights on the night side of Earth.
Earth's day side Earth's night side lit up by city lights.

Planets and Moons

All known planets and major satellites are in Mitaka's database.

Earth and Moon Jupiter and its satellites Pluto and its satellite, Charon

Note: Textures for Pluto, Charon, Sedna and 2003UB313(Xena) are hypothetical.

Eclipses

You can see the shadow of the Moon on Earth and vice versa and the shadows of the Galilean satellites (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) on Jupiter.

The shadow of the Moon on Earth during a solar eclipse. One of the Galilean satellites cast a shadow onto Jupiter.

Topography of Planets

On Earth and Mars, you can see the topography with some features labeled.
The height of topographic features can be exaggerated from the menu bar.

Earth
Zooming in on Mt. Everest. The topography is amplified by a factor of 5.
The vicinity of Japan Hawaii Island and Subaru telescope
Mars
Zooming in on Olympus Mons. The topography is amplified by a factor of 5.
Valles Marineris Topography around the Mars Pathfinder Famous features of Mars

Spacecraft

Several spacecraft and their trajectories are in the Mitaka database.
Pioneer 10 Voyager II Cassini

Nearby Stars

Stars within 3000 light years with distance measurements from the Hipparcos satellite are in the database.

Nearby stars The Pleiades star cluster

Our Galaxy and Globular Clusters

Mitaka's visualizations of the distribution of stars in our galaxy and in globular clusters are based on theoretical models.

Our galaxy model Edge on view of our galaxy model Globular cluster model generated using the `King model'

The Distribution of Galaxies / Large Scale Structure of the Universe

The distribution of galaxies within 100 million light years is from the Nearby Galaxies Catalogue by Brent Tully. The distribution of distant galaxies is from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

The distribution of nearby galaxies The large scale structure of the universe