Space Ethics Visualisation — System & Credits

Thank You

Our deepest gratitude to:

• Jonathan McDowell (Harvard & Smithsonian CfA) — the GCAT catalog (General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects), which underpins our satellite cloud, heliocentric trajectory arcs, launch-site registry, lunar landing catalog, and much more. A singular effort of meticulous, decades-long record-keeping.
  → Browse Solar System Registry table
• ESA Gaia collaboration — Gaia DR3 astrometry and photometry, providing the positions, proper motions, and temperatures of the ~200 000 nearest stars rendered in the visualisation.
• NASA NExScI / IPAC Exoplanet Archive — the confirmed exoplanet catalog that powers the exoplanetary systems layer.
• NASA Deep Space Network — live telemetry XML feed enabling real-time spacecraft tracking in the DSN Live view.
• ESO / Serge Brunier — the all-sky Milky Way panorama used as the galactic background texture.
• NASA / JPL — planetary texture maps, top-down Milky Way imagery, and decades of open ephemeris and mission data.
• Igor D. Karachentsev et al. — the Local Volume catalog (AJ 145 101, 2013), a census of 869 nearby galaxies within 11 Mpc, used as the extragalactic context layer visible at full zoom-out. Data accessed via VizieR (CC-BY 4.0).
• Paolo Guardabasso — Lunar Resources Registry, enriching the Moon landing catalog.
• The ISSI Forum on Cosmic Footprint participants (2023–2024) — for the scientific and ethical framework that motivates this entire project.

Each dataset is a contribution to a shared, open picture of where we have gone, what we have sent, and what trace we have left. Thank you.

What This Is

The proposed tool is an attempt by Adrien Normier, for a prototype visualisation arm of a larger project initiated at the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) Forum on Cosmic Footprint (2023–2024). The broader ambition is an International Registry of Anthropogenic Footprint Beyond Earth — a common ground for ethics and governance discussions, merging existing databases, filling data gaps, and making the result publicly accessible.

The visualisation is built on spacekit.js (Ian Webster / typpo), itself wrapping Three.js, running in the browser with no server-side rendering. All coordinate maths is executed client-side using J2000.0 ecliptic heliocentric frames as the native scene coordinate system.

Two Distinct Layers

The visualisation is structured around two conceptually separate layers that should not be confused:

Layer 1 — Natural Environment Model

A scientifically accurate model of the pre-existing cosmos: the solar system, nearby stars (GAIA DR3), confirmed exoplanetary systems (NASA Archive), and the Milky Way (ESO panorama). This layer provides the context — the vast, indifferent backdrop against which human activity is measured. It is not the subject of the project; it is the scale reference. Objects in this layer are rendered as the existing, unaffected natural environment.

Layer 2 — Human Impact Layer

The actual subject of the project: everything humanity has placed, fired, crashed, or transmitted into space since 1957. This includes:

• Physical: Earth-orbit satellites and debris (~24 000 catalogued objects), live orbital clouds (CelesTrak GP elements), planetary landers and impactors, heliocentric spacecraft and debris (~427 objects from GCAT hcocat), launch sites, planet orbiters, cataclysmic events (collisions, ASAT tests, explosions)
• Interstellar: Probes escaping the solar system (Voyagers, Pioneers, New Horizons) now in interstellar space
• Informational: All known intentional radio transmissions toward other stars (METI), time capsules, and the expanding sphere of unintentional radio leakage

The human impact layer can be hidden entirely (fingerprint icon in the toolbar) to reveal the natural environment model alone — making the contrast vivid and intentional.

Active vs. Inactive Objects

All artificial objects carry an operational status derived from cross-referencing multiple GCAT registries:

• Active (pulsating red, 1-second period) — spacecraft, orbiters, and probes still operational at the simulated date. Satellites in the CelesTrak live cloud and planet orbiters are all considered active; heliocentric objects are active if they have no registered landing or impact event in the lifecycle registry.
• Inactive (steady dim red) — spacecraft that have ceased operation, crashed, or landed. Their physical position remains — silence does not mean absence.

The distinction relies on a lifecycle cross-registry system that links an object's heliocentric flight phase (GCAT hcocat) to its surface phase (GCAT landercat) by normalised name matching. An object whose name resolves to both a heliocentric entry and a landing entry is marked inactive in heliocentric space once its landing date has passed, and its infobox selection ring follows it across registries from flight to surface.

Temporal Visibility

The simulation is time-aware: scrubbing the year slider changes what is visible. Each category of object follows a principled rule about when it appears and disappears:

Launch site activity windows are derived directly from the GCAT Launch Sites table (McDowell, CC-BY 4.0), which records first and last launch dates for each facility. Sites with no known first use (TStart = –) or no known last use (TStop = * or –) are treated conservatively: no start constraint or no end constraint, respectively.

Controls & Tools

Credits

ISSI Forum Day III participants who contributed to the registry architecture: DB, AB, NM, ER, YE, VD, AN, DV.

Code Structure

The codebase was fully refactored in March 2025 into a clean module hierarchy:

src/js/
  constants.js          — physical constants (LY_TO_AU, PC_TO_AU, KM_TO_AU,
                            obliquity, proper-motion conversion)
  coords.js             — 8-section coordinate toolkit:
                            equatorial ↔ ecliptic ↔ galactic ↔ supergalactic,
                            horizontal (az/el) → equatorial, body-surface → ecliptic,
                            LST calculation (Smart 1977; Seidelmann 2007; Liu 2011)
  utils.js              — isMobile, isDesktop, toggleFullscreen, UI helpers

  main.js               — entry point (~200 lines); owns onTick loop
  modules/
    sim.js              — creates and exports: viz, THREE, scene, renderer, camera
    objects.js          — Keplerian object init, update, unload (satellites, voyagers,
                            messages, stars)
    milkyway.js         — Milky Way composite: top-down image plane (Layer 2) +
                            ESO panoramic sphere (Layer 3); point cloud removed
    planets.js          — initPlanets(); exports earthV, marsV, moonV, etc.
                            IAU-correct pole orientations, prime meridian, 30% dark-side fill
    spacecraft.js       — loadSpacecrafts() / unloadSpacecrafts() (DSN live data)
                            robot voice (Web Speech API), sonar pings (Web Audio API)
    exoplanets.js       — point cloud, proper-motion update, system fly-to,
                            orbit ring rendering, star glow; camera tracks stellar motion
    hcocat.js           — ~427 heliocentric GCAT objects; active/inactive via lifecycle
                            registry; pulsating red / steady dim red
    landings.js         — GCAT landercat: planetary landing & impact sites on
                            Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Titan, Jupiter (IAU surface coords)
    launchsites.js      — GCAT launch sites with temporal activity windows
    satCloud.js         — CelesTrak live GP elements (stations/active/Starlink)
    planetOrbiters.js   — Active orbiters around Mars, Jupiter, Moon, Venus, Mercury
                            (Keplerian elements, visual-grade accuracy)
    cataclysmicEvents.js — Historical collisions, ASAT tests, explosions (flash + dot)
    lifecycleRegistry.js — Cross-registry name normalisation; links heliocentric flight
                            → landing phases so selection rings follow objects across registries
    scaleMarkers.js     — Auto-fading distance reference rings (to 26 kLY / Sgr A*)
    galaxies.js         — Local Volume galaxy cloud (Karachentsev+2013; 869 galaxies)
                            coloured by morphology; DSS thumbnail + NED link on click
    orientation.js      — Phone gyroscope AR mode
    logscale.js         — Optional logarithmic position remap
  motionDisplay.js      — Global MOTION state (trail/vector/frame/trailDays)
                            with subscriber pattern; read by objects.js + exoplanets.js
  ui/
    nav.js              — 7 nav buttons + DSN Live toggle + Exoplanets toggle
    controls.js         — speed/year sliders, play/pause, syncSpeedDisplay
    infobox.js          — up to 4 simultaneous panels; lifecycle section; slot tracking
    raycaster.js        — click-to-select; handles both individual objects and
                            multi-point clouds; selection ring sprite; hover tooltips
    ruler.js            — multi-measurement ruler (up to 5); object-tracking endpoints;
                            live distance update each frame
    search.js           — Cmd/Ctrl+F search; scene-indexed at open; yellow highlight rings
    screenshot.js       — viewport / custom-size screenshot
    datasetsOverlay.js  — dataset toggle overlay (all GCAT layers)
  data/
    voyagers.js         — interstellar probes (JPL Horizons J2000.0 equatorial)
    messages.js         — METI / intentional transmissions
    famousStars.js      — named stars
    stars100LY*.js      — GAIA DR3 stars within 100 LY (split by spectral temp)
    spatial-objects.js  — ∼1000 Earth-orbit satellites (Keplerian elements)
    planetOrbiters.js   — hard-coded orbital elements for active planet orbiters
  service/
    fetchExoplanets.js  — NASA Exoplanet Archive TAP via /api/exoplanets proxy
    fetchCelesTrak.js   — CelesTrak GP elements proxy
    fetchGCAT.js        — GCAT hcocat / landercat / launchsites fetch
    scrapDSN-2.js       — NASA DSN XML feed; az/el → equatorial → ecliptic
    simCalc.js          — distToCam()

api/                    — Vercel serverless functions
  exoplanets.js         — CORS proxy for NASA Exoplanet Archive TAP (1h cache)
  celestrak.js          — CORS proxy for CelesTrak GP elements
  gcat.js               — CORS proxy / cache for GCAT registry files

Coordinate Framework

Scene Frame

The native scene coordinate system is J2000.0 ecliptic heliocentric (Sun at origin, XY = Earth's orbital plane, X toward the J2000.0 vernal equinox, Z toward the ecliptic north pole). This is the native frame of spacekit.js.

Obliquity Correction

All equatorial (RA/Dec) datasets are rotated to the ecliptic frame via the J2000.0 obliquity ε = 23.43929111° (IAU value stored in constants.js):

x_ecl =  x_eq
y_ecl =  y_eq · cos ε + z_eq · sin ε
z_ecl = −y_eq · sin ε + z_eq · cos ε

Galactic Coordinates

The Milky Way orientation uses the IAU 1985 galactic coordinate system, realised using the most precise modern values (Liu, Zhu & Zhang 2011, A&A 526, A16):

• Galactic North Pole: α_GNP = 192.85948°, δ_GNP = +27.12825°
• Galactic Centre (Sgr A*): α_GC = 266.40499°, δ_GC = −28.93616° (Reid et al. 2004)
• Distance to Sgr A*: 8.178 kpc (Gravity Collaboration 2019, A&A 625, L10)

DSN Pipeline

Real-time Deep Space Network signals are placed via: az/el (topocentric horizontal) → RA/Dec (equatorial) → λ/β (ecliptic) → XYZ. LST is computed from UTC using the standard GMST formula (Seidelmann 2007). Station WGS-84 geodetic coordinates: Goldstone (35.425°N, 116.889°W), Madrid (40.427°N, 4.249°W), Canberra (35.402°S, 148.981°E).

Datasets

Scientific References

Coordinate Systems & Stellar Geometry

• Liu, Zhu & Zhang 2011 — “Reconsidering the galactic coordinate system”, A&A 526, A16. Most precise realisation of IAU 1985 galactic coordinates; used for GNP direction.
• Reid et al. 2004 — “The position of Sagittarius A*”, ApJ 616, 872. J2000.0 equatorial coordinates of Sgr A*.
• Gravity Collaboration 2019 — “A geometric distance measurement to the Galactic Center black hole”, A&A 625, L10. d_GC = 8.178 kpc; used to place Sgr A* in the scene.
• Bennett & Bovy 2019 — “Vertical waves in the solar neighbourhood”, ApJ 872, 1. Sun's vertical offset above galactic mid-plane: z⊙ ≈ +20.8 pc.
• Smart 1977 — Textbook on Spherical Astronomy, Cambridge. LST / GMST derivation used in coords.js.
• Seidelmann (ed.) 2007 — Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac, USNO/Mill Valley. Reference for GMST formula and coordinate transformation conventions.

Galactic Structure

• Bovy 2017 — “Galpy: A Python library for galactic dynamics”, MNRAS 470, 1360. Radial scale length H_R = 3.5 kpc for the Milky Way disc.
• Robin et al. 2003 — “A synthetic view on structure and evolution of the Milky Way”, A&A 409, 523. Disc density profile parameters.
• Hou & Han 2014 — “The observed spirals of the Milky Way”, ApJS 215, 1. Spiral arm geometry: logarithmic spirals, pitch angle ψ = 12°.
• Launhardt et al. 2002 — “The nuclear bulge of the Galaxy”, A&A 384, 112. Galactic bulge Gaussian σ_b = 1.5 kpc.
• Xu et al. 2015 — “Rings and radial waves in the disk of the Milky Way”. Milky Way disk diameter ≈ 87 400 LY used for disc geometry.

EM Footprint / Radio Leakage

• Saide, Garrett & Heeralall-Issur 2022 — “Simulation of the Earth's radio-leakage from mobile towers as seen from selected nearby stellar systems”. Foundation for future EM footprint layer; integration planned.

Exoplanets

• NASA Exoplanet Archive — exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu. 4,555 confirmed systems; TAP/SQL API; fetched via server-side CORS proxy; rendered as a point cloud with per-system fly-to viewer.
• Missing semi-major axes estimated via Kepler’s third law: a = ³√(P_yr² · M_star) AU.

The Cosmic Footprint Registry

The ISSI Forum on Cosmic Footprint (2023) concluded that establishing a shared registry of anthropogenic footprint in space is critical and urgent. No informed governance discussion can happen without a common ground truth accessible to non-experts.

Five-Step Process

1. Review — Inventory of impact types (physical, biological, informational)
2. Databases — Fetch existing datasets (GCAT, CelesTrak, DSN, GAIA…) and assemble missing ones (EM leakage, METI, COSPAR biological classification…)
3. Homogenise & merge — Common coordinate system, schema normalisation, deduplication
4. Research — Model past/present/future impacts; compare with natural occurrence; quantify uncertainties
5. Fill data holes — Publish enhanced registry; expose public API; yearly physical backup

Impact Categories

• Physical — Spacecraft, debris, RTGs, explosive devices, gravity assists, exhaust deposits, impact craters, EM footprint
• Biological — Bioburden (COSPAR classification), potentially surviving microbes, higher organisms, human DNA
• Informational — METI, time capsules, unintentional radio leakage, cultural artifacts, human ashes aboard spacecraft

Preprocessing Strategy

Static datasets are pre-baked to ecliptic XYZ coordinates at build time to eliminate per-frame coordinate transforms in the browser. Live feeds (DSN, Exoplanet Archive) are proxied through Vercel edge functions with response caching. Yearly snapshots of the full dataset are distributed to sub-database curators as physical archives.

Software Dependencies

Links

• spaceethics.org — project home
• spaceethics.vercel.app — live visualisation
• GCAT — Jonathan McDowell
• ISSI Bern
• Lunar Resources Registry — P. Guardabasso
• NASA Exoplanet Archive
• ESA Gaia Archive
• ESA ESOC Reentry Database
• NASA Deep Space Network Now

Individual sub-datasets retain the licences listed in the table above.
This document was assembled by A. Normier from ISSI Forum Day III working documents (DB, AB, NM, ER, YE, VD, AN, DV).

SolarSystemRegistry Public License (SSR-GPL) — Version 2.0

1. Purpose

SolarSystemRegistry.org (the “System”) is a public-interest visualisation and synthesis tool. It integrates author-developed components; contributions developed within the Cosmic Footprint Society (CFS); and external datasets and research sources. This license governs use of the System as made publicly available. Ownership of the core System remains with Adrien Normier. This license does not transfer intellectual property rights.

Tier 1 — Public-Interest Use (Automatic)

You may use the System freely, without prior request, for:

• Education
• Academic research
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• Citation and reference

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• Provide clear attribution
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• Not distort or misrepresent the content
• Not extract or replicate underlying databases

Tier 1 applies only to use of the System as publicly presented.

Tier 2 — All Other Uses (Written Authorization Required)

Any use outside Tier 1 requires prior written authorization. This includes, for example:

• Commercial or monetized use
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Authorization is valid only if granted in writing. Silence does not constitute approval.

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The System may include components owned by the author, CFS, or third-party data providers. Tier 2 use may require separate clearance of these layers. No rights over third-party data are granted unless explicitly stated. Users are responsible for ensuring compliance with applicable intellectual property rights.

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The product is provided “as is” and “as available”, without any express or implied warranty, including but not limited to warranties of accuracy, completeness, reliability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. The author makes no representation that the materials are error-free, complete, or suitable for any specific use. Users remain solely responsible for any interpretation, decision, action, or reliance based on the materials.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the author shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, reputational, economic, or other damages arising from use of, reliance on, or inability to use the materials, or from errors, omissions, or inaccuracies. Nothing in this section excludes liability where exclusion is prohibited under applicable law.

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This license is governed by French law.

© Adrien Normier / SolarSystemRegistry.org — SSR-GPL v2.0. Attribution required: SolarSystemRegistry.org — Adrien Normier.