Features of AlienSun 2.1
Note: AlienSun 3.0 is now available! Click here for more information.
Important notice for AlienSun users regarding satellite TLEs updated 2005 September 30
AlienSun is a sophisticated astronomy program capable of displaying objects in 3 dimensional space, and portraying the sky as it would look from the vicinity or surface of any object.
Time Functions
Stars appear to move against the backdrop of space as time progresses. Our familiar constellations will change as time progresses. Variable stars will even cycle in brightness.
Big Dipper as it looks now.
Big Dipper as it looked in 100,000 BC.
Big Dipper as it will look in 100,000 AD.
Planets and Moons
AlienSun can display the positions of planets and moons in space, and topocentric positions of objects from anywhere on the surface of a planet or moon. As these images illustrate, AlienSun's planet and moon functionality is quite sophisticated. These are not photographs. All of these pictures were made with AlienSun 2.1.
Saturn with Titan in foreground. Other moons are also visible. View from the surface of Hyperion.
Jupiter with Io in foreground. View from the vicinity of Io.
The Moon over North America. This looks like a satellite photo but it's not.
View of the Earth with the far side of the Moon in the foreground.
Asteroids and Satellites
AlienSun 2.0 also supports the inclusion of asteroids and artificial satellites. Orbital elements for thousands of asteroids are included. Includes the odd asteroid Chiron; the highly eccentric Icarus and Apollo; many near-Earth asteroids, and several of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.
View from above the plane of the Solar System, showing the inner planets and several of the largest asteroids. The green line is the plane of the Milky Way galaxy.
AlienSun 2.0 also includes NORAD satellite data for over 900 artificial satellites. The International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, the GPS system, several scientific satellites, several weather satellite systems, and a wealth of communications satellites are included. Even has a built-in feature that accesses the latest NORAD data from the Internet, keeping as accurate as possible information for artificial satellites.
View from a geosynchronous satellite, showing the Cluster (red), GPS (green), and Iridium (blue) satellites. The Earth is rendered here as a hollow blue disc.
View from a weather satellite, showing the terminator line over the Pacific Ocean.
View from a scientific spacecraft, showing the Earth buzzing with hundreds of satellites. The majority orbit close to the Earth although geostationary satellites form a ring. GPS and scientific instruments have intermediate or odd orbits. Satellites shown in gray are in the Earth's umbra.
AlienSun 2.1 allows you to simulate the effect of placing a satellite into orbit around the Sun, any planet, or any moon. This is how some of the pictures near the top of this page were generated: by placing a simulated satellite into orbit around a planet or moon. The user may enter all 6 orbital elements, a mean altitude, and an epoch of osculation.
With all these features, AlienSun 2.1 is quite a versatile astronomy program. All the graphics on this page were made with AlienSun, including the background. You can't afford to miss out on this exciting new program!
Download the evaluation version of AlienSun 2.1
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AlienSun 2.1 is copyright (C) 2002-2004 by Erik Gagnon. All rights reserved.