up vote 1 down vote favorite

I have seen animations of the universe / galaxies such as this where the galaxies / clusters are like specks in a 3D / volumetric cloud, which you can zoom into and they get bigger and then zooming into the galaxy you get the individual stars, etc.

Part of that is probably application development, but I'm wondering if there are any standard and/or open data sets (perhaps from NASA or something like that) that has the 3D positions of all of the stars and galaxies and stellar structures we've observed in the universe, or what the closest thing is to this.

share|improve this question
  • cool question. I noticed the Star Wars galaxy, maybe that helps you find working search terms. – philshem♦ Nov 19 at 7:27
  • 2
    The GAIA data releases list close to 2 billion stars in our galaxy, though not all of them have 3D positions (the text header in the page is misleading). I'm actually working on a 3D model (harder than it looks, because parallax data is often inaccurate), so feel free to contact me directly (see my profile for details). – Barry Carter Nov 19 at 20:59

Your Answer

By clicking "Post Your Answer", you acknowledge that you have read our updated terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy, and that your continued use of the website is subject to these policies.

Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.