One of my favorite pieces of software is http://spaceengine.org
It's a seamless space exploration experience. And I love it.
Aim the camera (left-click drag), press W to move forward, use scroll wheel to change speed.
Due to assorted circumstances I couldn't run it for the past few years.
Feels good to fly at a million times light speed again.
I've spent hours and hours flying around the nearby stars.
Eventually I got familiar with the shape of local stellar space, the 3D placement of stars as they hang upon the cosmos...
And now when I look up at the night sky I *feel* the distance between me and the stars... and know the shape of the constellations between us...
At times like those I am overcome with an emotion of connection to my local space. I feel giant, as if become a Titan straddling continents.
And it seems as if these incomprehensibly distant bodies of burning hydrogen are no longer strangers, but friends. Citizens of a familiar neighborhood.
It's something special when nebula are more than mere flat tie-dye spashes of color on black, when you can go visit them, fly around them like a space fairy, and get to know their shapes—their volume and sheer size from every angle.
And these special moments don't end... There was a time when I could pick a random spot in the Milky Way amd eventually find my way back to Earth. Stars like Betelgeuse, and objects like the Orion Nebula acting as lighthouses calling me home.
Then I'd recognize more places like the pleiades or Sirius. Each step more familiar than the last.
And finally that small dot, Sol. Home.
Hah, *exposed* I uhh, I like space?
* clears throat *
😁
😳
@lopsigon Space is cool!