🌎
🔭 REAL SPACE • REAL SCIENCE
Explore the Universe
Travel through our Solar System, explore planets and moons, discover stars and galaxies, learn about real spacecraft, investigate black holes, and follow humanity's exploration of space.
8
Planets
1
Solar System
∞
Things to Discover
EXPLORE
Choose Your Destination
Every section of CosmoVerse is based around real astronomy and space exploration.
Solar System
Explore the Sun and the eight planets.
Planet Observatory
Compare worlds and discover how different planets work.
Moons
Explore natural satellites throughout our Solar System.
Stars
Discover how stars form, change and eventually evolve.
Galaxies
Journey beyond the Solar System into enormous collections of stars.
Black Hole Lab
Learn about event horizons, accretion disks and gravity.
Space Missions
Explore important missions and spacecraft from spaceflight history.
ISS Center
Learn about the International Space Station and research in orbit.
Space Videos
Watch footage and learn about historic missions and landings.
Space Quiz
Test what you've learned and earn Explorer XP.
REAL ASTRONOMY
Solar System Observatory
Select a world to investigate it.
🌎
REAL ASTRONOMY
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and our home world.
Type
Rocky Planet
Position
3rd
Diameter
12,742 km
Day
About 24 hours
Year
About 365.25 days
Moons
1
🔬 REAL FACT
Earth is the only world currently known to support life.
🌎 REAL ASTRONOMY
Planet Observatory
Select a planet to study its environment, orbit, atmosphere and important features.
🌎
OBSERVATION TARGET
REAL ASTRONOMY
Earth
Earth is a rocky planet with a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, liquid surface oceans and a diverse biosphere.
🌎 Overview
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only world currently known to contain life.
🔬 COMPARISON LAB
Compare Two Worlds
VS
🔴
Mars
🌕 NATURAL SATELLITES
Moon Center
Planets throughout the Solar System are accompanied by fascinating natural satellites.
🌕
🛰️
REAL ASTRONOMY
Earth's Moon
Earth's Moon is our planet's only natural satellite. It has influenced Earth's tides and has been a major destination for robotic and human exploration.
Diameter
3,474.8 km
Average Distance
About 384,400 km
Gravity
About 1/6 of Earth
The Moon
Earth's only natural satellite and the only world beyond Earth where humans have walked.
Io
Io is the most volcanically active world known in our Solar System.
Europa
Europa has an icy surface and strong evidence indicates a salty ocean exists beneath its crust.
Titan
Titan has a thick atmosphere and lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons on its surface.
Enceladus
Enceladus ejects water-rich material from beneath its icy surface into space.
Phobos
Phobos is the larger and innermost of Mars' two small moons.
🧊 SMALL WORLDS
Dwarf Planet Explorer
Explore the five dwarf planets officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union.
⚪
Ceres
Located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
🧊
Pluto
A complex icy world located in the Kuiper Belt.
🥚
Haumea
A rapidly rotating dwarf planet with an elongated shape.
🔴
Makemake
A distant dwarf planet located in the Kuiper Belt.
⚪
Eris
A distant dwarf planet in the outer Solar System.
☄️ SMALL BODIES
Asteroids & Comets
Not everything orbiting the Sun is a planet or dwarf planet.
Asteroids
Asteroids are rocky or metallic remnants left from the early formation of the Solar System.
Comets
Comets contain ice, dust and rocky material. Near the Sun they can form glowing comas and tails.
Meteors
Meteors are streaks of light created when meteoroids enter an atmosphere at high speed.
⭐ STELLAR SCIENCE
Star Observatory
Stars are enormous spheres of hot plasma powered by nuclear fusion.
☀️
OUR STAR
The Sun
The Sun is a roughly 4.6-billion-year-old star at the center of our Solar System. Its gravity holds the Solar System together.
Type
G-type star
Diameter
About 1.4 million km
Age
About 4.6 billion years
⭐ A Simplified Stellar Life Cycle
☁️
Nebula
→
✨
Protostar
→
☀️
Main Sequence
→
🔴
Later Stages
A star's later evolution depends strongly on its mass. Not every star follows exactly the same path.
🌌 DEEP SPACE
Galaxy Explorer
Galaxies contain stars, gas, dust, planets and dark matter bound together by gravity.
OUR GALAXY
The Milky Way
The Solar System lies inside the Milky Way, a large barred spiral galaxy containing vast numbers of stars.
📍 OUR LOCATION
The Solar System is located in a smaller spiral feature commonly called the Orion Spur or Orion Arm.
Spiral
Galaxies with disks and spiral structures.
Elliptical
Galaxies ranging from nearly round to strongly elongated shapes.
Irregular
Galaxies without a simple regular spiral or elliptical shape.
🔬 WORLDS BEYOND OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
Exoplanet Explorer
Exoplanets are planets orbiting stars beyond our Solar System.
⭐
🔵
REAL ASTRONOMY
Thousands of Other Worlds
Astronomers have confirmed thousands of planets around other stars. These worlds range from rocky planets to giant planets unlike anything in our own Solar System.
Select Discover to investigate
a real example.
⚫ EXTREME GRAVITY
Black Hole Laboratory
Explore one of the most extreme phenomena predicted by modern physics.
EDUCATIONAL SIMULATION
1.0×
Stellar-mass black hole
These black holes can form when certain massive stars collapse at the ends of their lives.
Visualization is educational and not to scale.
REAL ASTRONOMY
⚫ Event Horizon
🔥 Accretion Disk
🌀 Gravity
What Is a Black Hole?
A black hole is an astronomical object whose gravity is so strong that beyond its event horizon, light cannot escape.
The boundary beyond which events cannot affect a distant outside observer.
Hot material can orbit some black holes and emit intense radiation before crossing the event horizon.
Black holes strongly curve spacetime in their surroundings.
OBSERVED BLACK HOLE
M87*
The supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87 became famous when the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration released the first image of a black hole's shadow in 2019.
🔭 OBSERVATION CENTER
Deep Space Observatory
Explore real astronomical objects and learn what scientists observe across the universe.
OBJECT TRACKING
READY
🌕
REAL ASTRONOMY
The Moon
Earth's Moon is our planet's only natural satellite.
Select a target to begin an observation.
🚀 SPACE EXPLORATION
NASA Mission Center
Explore important spacecraft and missions that expanded humanity's knowledge of space.
NASA SOURCE
Mission information in this section is based on official NASA material.
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 carried the first humans to land on the Moon in July 1969.
Voyager 1
Voyager 1 launched in 1977 and continues its journey far beyond the major planets.
Hubble
The Hubble Space Telescope has transformed our view of planets, stars and distant galaxies.
James Webb Space Telescope
Webb studies the universe mainly at infrared wavelengths.
Perseverance
NASA's Perseverance rover explores Jezero Crater on Mars and collects samples for potential future return.
Artemis
Artemis is NASA's program for returning humans to lunar exploration and developing capabilities for future deep-space missions.
🚀 COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT
SpaceX Center
Learn about spacecraft and launch systems developed by SpaceX.
LIVE INFORMATION NOTE
Launch schedules and mission status can change. Current information should be checked against official sources.
🚀
Falcon 9
Falcon 9 is a two-stage orbital launch vehicle with a reusable first stage.
🚀
Falcon Heavy
Falcon Heavy combines three Falcon-derived first-stage cores for heavy-lift launches.
🛰️
Dragon
Dragon spacecraft are used to transport cargo and, with Crew Dragon, astronauts to and from orbit.
🚀
Starship
Starship is a large reusable transportation system under development by SpaceX.
🛰️ LOW EARTH ORBIT
International Space Station Center
Explore one of humanity's largest international science projects in space.
🌎
🛰️
REAL SPACE STATION
🛰️ NASA ISS Information
International Space Station
The ISS is a permanently crewed research laboratory in low Earth orbit built and operated through international cooperation.
Location
Low Earth Orbit
Typical Altitude
About 400 km
Orbit Time
About 90 minutes
Purpose
Research & Exploration
🎥 SPACEFLIGHT ARCHIVE
Space Video Center
Discover historic spaceflight footage, mission videos and educational material.
🌕
▶
HISTORIC MISSION
Apollo 11
Explore official material from the mission that first landed humans on the Moon.
🎥 Explore Apollo 11🌕
NASA ARCHIVE
Moon Exploration
Historic and modern lunar exploration.
🔴
MARS EXPLORATION
Mars Landings
Learn how robotic spacecraft have reached the Martian surface.
🚀
LAUNCHES
Rocket Launches
Explore footage from real space missions.
🛰️
LOW EARTH ORBIT
Life on the ISS
Learn about science and daily operations aboard the ISS.
🧠 TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
CosmoVerse Space Academy
Complete astronomy quizzes to earn Explorer XP and achievements.
EXPLORER RANK
Space Cadet
0
XP
0 / 100 XP
SOLAR SYSTEM
Question 1 / 5
Which planet is closest to the Sun?
🏆 EXPLORER PROGRESS
Achievements
First Discovery
Complete your first quiz.
Planet Expert
Master the planet quiz.
Star Student
Master the stars quiz.
Cosmic Scholar
Reach 500 Explorer XP.
🤖 SPACE ASSISTANT
Meet Cosmo AI
Ask questions about astronomy and space exploration.
Cosmo AI can make mistakes. Important facts should be checked against reliable scientific sources.