is an interactive visualization of the stellar neighborhood of our region of the universe, which was created within the Google Chrome web browser environment.
"It shows the location of 119,617 nearby stars derived from multiple sources, including the 1989 Hipparcos mission. Zooming in reveals 87 individually identified stars and our solar system. The galaxy view is an artist's rendition based on NGC 1232, a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way."
One can choose to navigate automatically by clicking on the Tour button at the top of the page. Alternatively one can choose to manually pan the map with one's mouse. With a mouse button held down and arcing the mouse around one swing the whole complex and or moving the mouse in or out enables zooming. The tall vertical bar on the right of the screen allows one to push towards the focus of the map our sun and solar system or sliding the bar towards the bottom of the length reveals an edge of the Milky way galaxy.
The creators of this interactive map warn that accuracy is not guaranteed and does not comply with reality standards of interstellar navigation. this stimulating web toy was programmed by some space enthusiasts at Google. The delightful music is by Sam Hulick, whose work you may be familiar with from the video game, Mass Effect. The track is entitled “In a Strange Land” and is used with his permission.
A complete list of references used in conjunction with making this interesting star chart our found by clicking the question mark in the bottom right hand corner.
