About Universe Finder

An interactive 3D map of the known universe.

Universe Finder is a browser-based, interactive 3D map of space. You fly through a field of real stars placed at their true positions, and click any object — a star, planet, nebula, galaxy or star cluster — to learn about it. It's built to make the scale and structure of the cosmos explorable and beautiful, for the curious and the classroom alike.

What you're looking at

The map renders over a hundred thousand real stars from the HYG stellar database, positioned using their measured distances, along with the full Messier, NGC and IC catalogue of deep-sky objects and the classic constellation figures. Where available, clicking an object pulls its canonical data and real telescope imagery from public astronomy archives (NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and SIMBAD).

How it's built

Universe Finder runs entirely in your browser using WebGL (three.js) for the 3D rendering, served as a static site with a small serverless API that fetches object details and imagery on demand. Object positions and distances are best-known estimates drawn from published catalogues; they are approximations, not exact measurements — see our Disclaimer.

Data & credits

Universe Finder is made possible by decades of publicly funded astronomy. Full attributions for every data source and library are on the References page.

Contact

Questions, corrections or feedback are welcome at contact@universefinder.com.