---
title: "Universe"
url: "https://ridwaanhall.com/projects/universe"
markdown: "https://ridwaanhall.com/projects/universe.md"
summary: "The Solar System computed rather than animated: real positions, real lighting and real eclipses, worked out in the browser."
---

# Universe

> The Solar System computed rather than animated: real positions, real lighting and real eclipses, worked out in the browser.

- Category: Web App
- Status: Maintenance Support
- Started: October 28, 2026
- Built with: Next.js, React, TypeScript, Vitest, Vercel
- Live: https://universe.rone.dev
- Source: https://github.com/ridwaanhall/universe

## About

### The problem

Most Solar System viewers are animations. The planets move on loops someone drew, the Moon is lit from a fixed direction, and nothing on screen tells you where anything actually is right now.

### The approach

Universe calculates the sky from published astronomy instead. VSOP87 and the JPL orbital elements place the planets, ELP2000-82 places the Moon, and IAU rotation models turn each body to face the right way. Each body is lit from the real direction of the Sun, so phases and eclipses fall out of the geometry rather than being scripted. It all runs on the reader's device, with no outside astronomy service.

- A live dashboard: where every planet is right now, the next eclipses with countdowns, tonight's sky and the Moon's phase.
- A true-scale 3D explorer in three.js, using a floating origin so the Earth and Voyager 1 render in the same scene without losing precision.
- Missions from Voyager to Artemis II, on JPL Horizons trajectories, with their distance and signal delay from Earth.
- Prayer times, the Qibla and the coming crescent for any place, computed from the Sun's and Moon's positions.

### The result

A static Next.js 16 export with no server, checked by tests against Meeus and NASA's eclipse canon. It is a RoneAI project, open source under Apache 2.0.

## Features

- **Computed Sky**: Planet, Moon and rotation models from published astronomy, run in the browser.
- **Eclipses as They Happen**: Solar and lunar eclipses with paths, magnitudes and countdowns.
- **True-Scale Explorer**: 1:1 sizes and distances in three.js, with a floating origin.
- **Missions**: Spacecraft on JPL Horizons trajectories, with live signal delay.
- **Tonight and Prayer Times**: What is up tonight, Sun and Moon times, Qibla and crescent.

## Tags

Astronomy, Solar System, Space, simulation, three.js, nextjs, TypeScript

## Elsewhere

- This page for people: https://ridwaanhall.com/projects/universe
- Index of every page as Markdown: [llms.txt](https://ridwaanhall.com/llms.txt)