Celestia is, as known to many of us, a virtual 3D space exploration program that has been developed since 2001. As a long standing open source astronomy project, celestia has received a lot of appreciation from its global userbase, which occasionally included the likes of NASA and ISRO, and other notable space organizations allover the world. But the best part about this software is that, it is accessible to the end-user as freely and openly, as it is to the space research organizations.
I write this review because of one simple reason. "Many people already know about celestia, so why bother?", you might argue, but that means "Not all people know about it, so there are many who haven't used this beautiful and free software".
What is Celestia?
Celestia describes itself as a virtual planetarium that doesn't confine you to the surface of earth, which, I believe, is too basic and humble an appreciation of the wonders that it can perform. What it does is simple, it generates a virtual 3D model of the observable universe, packing together the data gathered on 1,00,000+ stars, nebulas, exoplanets, star systems and more.
The vast collection of community-supported add-ons, in total amount to around 10 GB of freely downloadable content from the Celestia motherlode, enables you to handpick extra details, ranging from latest asteroid data and recently discovered exoplanets, to detailed trajectory analysis and cutting-edge textures of local astronomical objects.
Unique features of celestia
1. Free, as in speech: Unlike most sophisticated astronomy-oriented software, celestia is free and open-source. It's free to download, modify, repackage, distribute and study, and covers all the degrees of freedom as prescribed by Richard M. Stallman. Most of its content is also covered by the GNU Public License, that allows the end-user to study the development process for sophisticated forms of modelling trajectories of astronomical bodies (which is my favourite).
2. Hugely expandable: The vast repository of add-ons, with new ones being uploaded and updated almost every month, guarantees that the virtual simulation of the universe in celestia can be made as accurate as possible, at least to the limit of our current knowledge.
For example, I grew interested in studying the trajectory of 2004 MN4 (commonly called Apophis), which is a near-earth asteroid that has a very slight chance of colliding against the earth. And when I didn't find it on the software, a simple google search took me to the download page for the 2004 MN4 script, complete with textures, visual data and trajectories.
3. Free exploration mode: Celestia, unlike stellarium, allows the user to leave the earth in real time. The 3D model of the universe is accurate, and quite navigable once we master the basic keyboard shortcuts (changeable in the preferencesmenu). Far from being a static model of the universe, celestia makes all things - satellites, planets stars, star systems and even galaxies - move accordingly along their calculated paths. This enables us to set the time and date, as well as the place, to travel back and forth in spacetime (to use the term loosely).
4. Low-res & high-res versions: The default installation of the software aims to be lightweight. Naturally, it packs together the low-resolution versions of everything. However, the additional data available on the motherlode enables us to handpick contents that we wish to explore in detail.
5. Multitude of usage: The brilliance of celestia is partly in its variety of usage. It can be used as an educational tool, for teaching children about the universe, to whatever degree of detail we may need. For us senior students, or the scientists themselves, there are more sophisticated uses of the software, such as the frontend for trajectory analyses programs.
Celestia can also be used to take the audience on journeys exploring other planets, star systems, and even the universe itself, as well as on space missions. Both lightweight and massive exploration scripts can be found online for free.
Who uses celestia?
1. Astronomy enthusiasts, students, interested end-users.
2. Space research organizations such as NASA (USA) and ISRO (India). The current MAVEN and Mangalyaan missions have been virtually simulated using celestia by enthusiasts.
3. Theoretical astronomers, as front-ends for low-level and mid-level scripts.
4. Documentary producers, for free and easy visual resources on building good documentaries on space.
How to get Celestia?
It's free, it's open source, it's freely available for most common platforms. You can go to http://www.shatters.net/celestia/download.html and get your copy of the stable release (3 years old) today, or build your custom distribution with the sources available on the same page.
Resources
Although a simple google search will return most of these URLs, I'm posting them here nonetheless.
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/download.html (The official download page, with platform-specific downloads. Linux users can use a PPA instead, or compile it from scratch)
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/creators/fsgregs/CelestiaUsersGuide1-5-1.pdf(Celestia international, English PDF guide)
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia (The open WikiBook on celestia)
Celestia The Greatest Space Simulator of All Times (A visual review of celestia, on Youtube. Save than the music, it's doable).
References
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/software/2217/celestia-review/ (PC Advisor's official review)
http://gcmd.nasa.gov/records/CELESTIA.html (Celestia and NASA)
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/creators/fsgregs/CelestiaUsersGuide1-5-1.pdf- Celestia official documentation
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