Explore space in 3D with Celestia. It’s open-source, so you can download it for free (click here for Windows).
Have you ever dreamed of becoming an astronaut? Or maybe you just want to learn more about different planets and galaxies? Celestia, which is free and open source, lets you explore the universe in three dimensions. While it’s available for multiple platforms, including Mac and Windows, we personally tested the app on a MacBook Pro running OS X Mavericks.
The interface is packed with buttons and settings for almost everything, so there’s definitely a learning curve to consider. New users can run the demo that showcases the Moon, Earth, and more. One small issue we ran into is full-screen mode, which on Mac is triggered with Command+F. It didn’t work very well, which is a shame because space simply looks better when it fills the entire screen.
We’re not astronauts or astronomy experts, but Celestia feels like a fantastic program if you want to study galaxies or planets. Since it’s free, it’s absolutely worth a try. Amazing what computers can do, right?