Space Time
Fly through the real cosmic web
Explore 43,530 galaxies from the 2MASS Redshift Survey in 3D. Their measured positions and redshifts reveal the clusters, filaments, walls, and empty regions of the local universe.
🚀 Fly through the cosmic web Free · 43,530 survey galaxies · Runs in your browser
Follow a story. Keep a discovery.
Explore new destination stories and build your own collection of views, evidence and notes.
More ways to explore and understand
New tools connect the view, its evidence and your next discovery.
Built from the 2MASS survey
The map uses the 2MASS Redshift Survey published by Huchra and collaborators in 2012. Sky position and redshift are converted into 3D coordinates, and each point is weighted by infrared luminosity. The dark band is the Zone of Avoidance, where dust in the Milky Way hides distant galaxies from the survey.
Every dot answers when you click it
Any galaxy in the field is selectable. The card gives its distance and lookback time, and where the survey recorded a morphology it names the kind: elliptical, spiral or irregular. Color the field four ways from the Display menu: by distance for the redshift ramp, by galaxy type with old ellipticals warm and star-forming spirals blue, by local density, or plain. Brightness and dot-size dials are there too.
Choose a scientific or cinematic view
Scientific mode draws more than 20,000 links between dense regions of the survey. Cinematic mode adds glow and depth fog, with an optional volumetric density view on desktop. The controls let you switch each layer separately, and the distance readout identifies whether you are in a cluster, filament, wall, or void.
Connected to everything else
You can reach this view by zooming out from Earth through the solar system, nearby stars, and the Milky Way. Continue past Laniakea and the Great Attractor to the cosmic microwave background. Press G at any point to return home.
Meet the galaxies inside the map
Enter the interacting galaxies of Stephan’s Quintet, the Antennae’s central collision and the Bullet Cluster. Compare the observed light with the reconstruction and read its limitations.
Destination atlas expansion
Eight more extraordinary galaxies
Follow tidal tails, explore barred spirals, and inspect unusual galactic rings. Each destination includes its credited telescope observation.
Explore all 8 destinations
Explore the Universe
Find a place worth the journey.
Browse worlds, galaxies, comets and spacecraft in one atlas, with 97 actual scene previews. Search by name, filter by kind and distance, find telescope comparisons, or choose somewhere you haven’t visited. Save places alongside your discoveries, add notes, and turn a collection into a journey.
Live telescope comparisons
One place. Different light.
Switch between real telescope observations inside the same 3D scene. Sweep across 19 destinations to compare stars, dust and glowing gas without moving your camera. Each view explains its instrument, colors, source and field coverage. Sky positions are registered; depth remains illustrative.
Compare all 19 destinations
Destination atlas expansion
Galaxies and the nurseries within them
Explore six distinctive galaxies and two stellar nurseries within our neighboring galaxies, with the observations that reveal their structure.
Explore all 8 destinations
Visit the Cartwheel Galaxy
A ring galaxy, nested dust shells and two remarkable nebulae. Explore telescope-derived light fields, then inspect the source observations. The added depth is illustrative.
FAQ
Are the galaxies real or procedural?
Real. Every dot is one of 43,530 galaxies from the 2MASS Redshift Survey, placed by RA, Dec and a Hubble-law distance from its measured redshift.
How far does the map reach?
Past 500 megaparsecs of survey galaxies, more than a billion light-years of lookback time, with landmarks like the Shapley Supercluster and the Boötes Void beyond, and the CMB as the outer wall.
Can I click on individual galaxies?
Yes. Distance, lookback time and, where the survey knows it, the galaxy's type. Dot brightness follows real infrared luminosity.
What is the dark band across the field?
The Zone of Avoidance: our own Milky Way's dust hides the galaxies behind it. It is in the real data, so it is in the map.
Is it free?
Yes. In your browser, no account, no download.