I tried Celestia, not bad. http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
There are some bugs, like disappearing textures on objects when looking a certain way, or the refresh rate stuck at 60 Hz in full screen mode, but maybe it's because of my drivers/video card/OpenGL version, I dunno.
The various moons of the planets of the Solar System are surprisingly detailed.
The 3D view of the Milky Way is quite a sight. And one can zoom to our Sun at record speeds. :)
I was surprised that the segment of the arm of our galaxy where the Sun is located is so full of stars. I thought we were in the boondocks.
There are missing galaxies but I see now they have add-ons at http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/
That 2001 Space Odyssey add-on looks tempting... :)
I also tried Celestia on Mac OSX. This is a good simulator. To use this software, I feel what bit of space travel is. Celestia brings me pleasure as well.
Similar software is the openuniverce - http://www.openuniverse.org . I have never used its simulator. It simulator for Windows version can be downloading a binary set but other version (i.e. linux) has only a source code.
Although I have never attemped compiling its source code on Mac os X, liblaries of its requirements have run on Mac. If you use it, I hope you write your report about the open-universe. :p
OpenUniverse : I dled the lo-res version.
Not very intuitive... mouse doesn't work. Arrows dont work.
Must use keypad arrows, and only left-right. Ah, now only up-down works? What?
No full screen. No right-click context menu.
No top menu. Some buttons are grayed out.
No brightness correction for the stars.
How do I orbit around a planet??
The damn help screen keeps popping up in my face... Argh!
Colors look washed.
No key to zoom out rapidly?
The Help menu again... can't get it to vanish... Argh 2x!
I quit.
Yeah, it's beta all right.
how close can you get to planets? google earth close?
>>4 I didn't see any Rover on Mars! :)
Tho, maybe there is an add-on for it, I haven't checked...
The planets are just 3D objects with a texture.
I don't think one can go under Venus's clouds, for example.
>how close can you get to planets?
As close as you want. :)
The default textures, however, are of rather low resolution. (read: you dont want to go much closer than ~50000 km for the terrestrials/ ~500000km for the jovians)
High-res textures are availible at the motherlode, but you won't get anywhere near Google Earth / World Wind resolution. That would require several terabyte of space.
>I don't think one can go under Venus's clouds
The I-key toggles cloud textures
>The I-key toggles cloud textures
Ah, true.
Without clouds, is this an artistic view? I suppose not, as (+)/"toggle artistic view" doesn't change anything. Some kind of radar view?
>Some kind of radar view?
Correct. The Magellan mission created a nearly complete radar map of the Venus surface.
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/magellan/
>>8 I see, thanks.
But why is the surface all brown? Can a radar detect colors?
>But why is the surface all brown?
The colour of the surface is known through the pictures taken by Venera 13 and 14:
http://www.mentallandscape.com/Venus_Venera.htm
The "brown" is due to the atmosphere. The soil consists mostly of basalt which is grey by itself.
>Can a radar detect colors?
No.
>The "brown" is due to the atmosphere.
But I pressed "I", the atmosphere shouldn't be visible! ;-)
>The soil consists mostly of basalt which is grey by itself.
'Thought so. Venus' ground without atmosphere is most likely to look black and dark/pale grey, not brown/yellow.