What's new in Space Time

23 August 2026

Fixed Alert emails now say exactly what happens: next-morning ISS passes are labeled before dawn instead of evening, meteor peak dates match the in-app calendar in every timezone, and lunar-eclipse visibility wording claims only what was actually checked for your location.
Improved Shared tours now hand back your camera and clock when they end or stop, exactly like every other staged experience, and the eclipse countdown banner shows the date in your own calendar rather than the UTC day.
Improved Shared tours are no longer code. Sharing converts a script into a fixed list of app steps, and visitors’ devices only interpret that list: a tour can fly the camera, set the clock, and show captions, and nothing else. Older shares need re-sharing.

22 August 2026

New Every selection card now has a feedback button: tag a data problem, an idea, or something you loved, add a note, send. After a relativistic journey, a one-question prompt asks if it was worth taking.
Improved Pick your location and the app now answers right away: a small one-time card offers tonight's sky for that spot. The engaged-visitor invite also changed. It now pitches eclipse reminders and location-checked sky alerts through a free account instead of collecting an email.
New Open the app during an eclipse, a major meteor peak, an opposition, or a close approach and a small card tells you it is happening, with your local-time window and a Watch in 3D button. Dismiss it once and it stays gone for that event.
Improved The countdown banner at the top now covers lunar eclipses too: within a week of one, it shows the countdown with one-tap access to times, a reminder, and the 3D view. Solar eclipses keep their 90-day window.
Fixed The Star Browser stopped listing the same star twice. Hosts like Proxima Centauri and Epsilon Indi appeared once with their name and once with their planets; those records now merge into one honest row, and nameless catalog stars say "Unnamed star" instead of just "Star".
Improved Sky Chart labels stay readable in a busy sky: names now step aside or make way instead of printing over each other, text near the horizon rim no longer gets cut off, and the green rank rings explain themselves.
Fixed A full browser QA pass fixed twelve bugs: Enter now selects the top search result, shortcuts survive the time ruler, ISS transit corridors follow your location without a reload, the tonight pages stopped listing unobservable planets, and surface exits land where they should.

21 August 2026

Improved The Events menu got a cleanup. Next Big Sky Moments now lives inside Sky Events as its Highlights tab, the eclipse countdown sits right on the Eclipses row, and Solar Storms moved to Explore under Experiences.
New August 28 has its own page: space.pointdynamics.com/eclipses/2026-08-28 shows the lunar eclipse hour by hour with honest visibility for 34 cities, a calendar file, and a button that plays the blood moon in 3D.
Improved Sky cultures got deeper: tours can now switch the sky themselves with a new scripting verb, your own choice comes back when the tour ends, and active-culture figure names (dark figures included) show up in search.
Improved Live sessions grew up: links now unfurl with a LIVE card, followers stand on the same exoplanet as the presenter, and a session whose presenter disappears ends honestly within a few minutes instead of hanging.
Improved Catalog loads now retry on shaky networks. A single dropped fetch used to silently cost you a data layer for the whole session; star, moon, comet, quasar, and deep-sky catalogs retry twice with backoff before giving up.
Improved The top bar now adapts to your window width in steps. Chips go icon-only first, then whole menus move into a More dropdown one at a time. The phone hamburger appears only when nothing else fits.
New Sky alert emails now actually send. If you turned on eclipse, meteor shower, ISS pass, or planet alerts on your account page, you get a short email before each event, timed and checked for your own location and timezone.
Improved Event reminders now ride your account: sign in once and any Big Sky Moment is one click, sent to your account email. Existing reminders keep working. Sky alerts are now searchable from the command palette, and the moments list points to them.

20 August 2026

New Space Time now narrates itself to screen readers: selections, arrivals after a flight (with the new distance), view changes, presentation mode, play and pause, and time jumps are announced through one polite live region.
New New keys: [ and ] select the previous or next object visible on screen, nearest the center of view first. I moves focus into the selected object's card, where Tab reaches every action. Escape returns focus to the 3D view.
Improved The 3D canvas is labeled for assistive technology, floating scene labels are hidden from screen readers, and reduced-motion users get snap flights with the same narration.
New The release notes are now a public page: space.pointdynamics.com/whats-new lists every update in plain language with an RSS feed, so you can follow what ships without opening the app.
New Go live and share your sky. Presentation mode now has a Go live chip: anyone opening your link follows your camera, clock, selection, and captions in real time. Joining needs no account; you can end the session anytime.
New A tour gallery now collects the best shared tours. Open it from Explore, or browse space.pointdynamics.com/tours, press Play on any entry, and watch a hand-picked flight through the universe.

19 August 2026

New Recorded journeys are now shareable. In the scripting console, Share as tour turns any saved script into a link: the visitor sees who made it, presses Play, and watches in presentation mode. Watching needs no account, and links can be revoked.
New Pick from eleven sky cultures under Display, including Boorong, Kamilaroi, Inca, Māori, Hawaiian, Tongan, and Tukano. Figures, names, and stories swap in both skies with sources shown, and dark-cloud figures like the Emu draw as dashed outlines in the Milky Way dust.
New Next Big Sky Moments (under Observe) counts down to the August 28 lunar eclipse, the 2027 annular and total solar eclipses, the Apophis 2029 flyby, and the next meteor peak and opposition, each with a watch-in-3D button and optional email reminders before the event.
New Signed-in accounts got three upgrades: sky display settings now follow you across devices, the account page lets you choose which sky alerts you want, and the observation log keeps quiet milestones such as Messier counts, planets seen this year, and your first galaxy.

10 August 2026

New Six more star clusters now resolve into their real Gaia DR3 members as you approach: Praesepe, the Coma Star Cluster, both halves of the Double Cluster, the Southern Pleiades, and the Ptolemy Cluster. Each point is a measured, selectable source with its own Galactic orbit.
New The Cat's Eye Nebula is now an evidence-backed destination. Its shell, equatorial ring, point-symmetric rings, ansae, and jets follow the published precessing-jet kinematic model, with every size set by measured expansion speed and age rather than artistic choice.
New Black-hole shadows now use the exact Kerr critical curve wherever a spin measurement has been published. Cygnus X-1 renders its near-extremal measured spin, while the cards for M87* and Sagittarius A* now state exactly what is and is not known about theirs.
New The observing list now imports VOTable files from SIMBAD, VizieR, Aladin, and TOPCAT alongside CSV. The importer checks the declared coordinate frame, reads columns through their UCDs and units, and reports every skipped row instead of failing silently.
New The wavelength sky ladder is complete: Haslam 408 MHz radio, IRAS far-infrared, and the Finkbeiner hydrogen-alpha composite join the survey layer, so the same sky can be read from radio continuum to gamma ray in both space and surface views.
New A travel journal now records everywhere you go automatically. Open it from the Observe menu or the command palette to see running totals by category, revisit any destination with one click, or erase the whole record.
New The new Scripting Console under Create turns the app into a programmable planetarium: script navigation, time, captions, titles, and annotations; record scripts by simply using the app; save, export, and import them by name. H gives a chrome-free presentation view, search included.
Improved The frame-rate counter is now a compact chip that other panels can never cover, visible by default in the lower left. Toggle it under Display, where the detailed performance panel also moved out from beneath the side cards.

6 August 2026

New Galactic Time now reconstructs the measured motion of the Sun, Pleiades, and Hyades from 250 million years ago to 250 million years ahead through a documented smooth Milky Way potential. Cluster-member drift uses Gaia motion within a stricter five-million-year evidence window.
New HH 30, HH 211, HH 46/47, and DG Tauri now resolve into physically oriented protostellar jets in ordinary Space View. Published axes, extents, and proper motions constrain each sparse 3D outflow while the original observatory image remains clearly identified evidence.
New Delta Cephei, RR Lyrae, and Mira now physically breathe on the shared simulation clock. Their close photospheres change through published radius and temperature limits while the normal star card reports the same current physical state and its evidence limits.
New Cygnus X-1 and SS 433 are now measured compact-binary destinations. Their published orbits run on the shared clock; focused wind accretion explains Cygnus X-1, while SS 433 adds its dated precessing disk and opposed 0.26c jets.
New Approach Mira, Zeta Ophiuchi, or Betelgeuse to resolve their observed stellar-wind environments automatically. Published ultraviolet or infrared scale and sky orientation anchor each reconstruction, while cards identify the unmeasured display depth.
New Transiting exoplanets with published timing data now carry a real transit clock in their ordinary information card. See the next Solar-System-observed midpoint, propagated uncertainty, duration and depth, then move the shared simulation time directly to that event.

5 August 2026

New Algol, Beta Lyrae, and W Ursae Majoris now share one dated eclipse clock across their resolved geometry, brightness, and selection cards. Choose the next primary or secondary minimum to move the existing simulation time to that predicted eclipse.
Improved Sky Companion now distinguishes calculations, catalogs, published sources, and model estimates. Open Sources & methods beneath an answer to inspect its evidence and limits, or use a compact action that is verified against the currently selected object before it runs.

4 August 2026

Improved Celestial objects now share physical appearance and brightness contracts across Space View and Surface View. True scale, measured phase and extinction remain intact while stars, unresolved locators, labels, close-detail transitions, and automatic exposure respond consistently from the Solar System to distant destinations.

3 August 2026

New Discover now shows noteworthy additions from the latest astronomy-data refresh. Each source-labelled entry says whether it was added from NASA or JPL and links directly to the new exoplanet, asteroid, or current comet position.

2 August 2026

New Approach Sagittarius, GD-1, Orphan–Chenab, or Palomar 5 and their overview ribbons now resolve into published member-star samples. Select a measured candidate to inspect available motion, velocity, metallicity, probability, and distance evidence, or follow Pal 5 and Sagittarius to surviving progenitors.
Improved The Milky Way overview now follows measured stellar structure: overlapping thinner and thicker populations, the correctly oriented long bar, and its box/peanut core. Select the disk, bar, or core to inspect its evidence, while real catalog stars still take over near the Sun.
New The Magellanic Clouds now resolve deeper: registered Hubble views of 30 Doradus and R136 plus Webb views of NGC 346 and SN 1987A become navigable volumes as you approach. Search, Cosmic Landmarks, selection, Go to, Back, and labels share these resident destinations.
New The Magellanic Clouds now form one explorable nearby-galaxy system. Registered VISTA observations resolve into the LMC’s measured inclined disk and the SMC’s tidally extended structure, while real HI4PI 21-cm samples trace the gaseous Stream, Leading Arm, and Bridge with measured column density and radial velocity.

1 August 2026

Improved Cosmic Landmarks is now a visual scientific atlas for all 71 destinations. Each card clearly identifies an observation, reconstruction, simulator view, or scientific map, includes its credit and image disclosure, and retains the same tested Go to route as search.
Improved Whirlpool and Sombrero are now galaxies you can enter. Their registered Hubble views resolve into observation-derived volumes as you approach or orbit, using measured disk orientations while clearly identifying reconstructed stellar depth and dust.

31 July 2026

New Catalog galaxies, groups, and clusters with trustworthy radial measurements are now physical destinations. Their redshift sets a Planck-cosmology distance, catalog axes set the scale, and cards distinguish measured values from generic morphology reconstruction and real survey imagery.
New Mars and the giant planets now change with the shared clock in ordinary Space View. Mars follows calculated solar longitude, broad outer-planet seasons follow orbital phase and axial tilt, and dated Hubble atmosphere maps fade outside their observing epoch instead of posing as forecasts.
New The spatial star field now moves through time using measured Gaia and HYG proper motions, plus radial velocities where available. Use the new 100-year and 1,000-year time windows to watch the stellar neighborhood change without leaving Space View.

30 July 2026

Improved Cassiopeia A now resolves automatically into its NASA Doppler reconstruction, measured forward and reverse shocks, ejecta rings and outflows, displaced neutron star, and selectable real Hubble knots. The simulation clock also advances its published expansion.
New Go to the Orion Nebula to enter its resolved stellar nursery automatically. Trapezium A–D and cataloged Hubble proplyds retain measured sky positions and normal selection, while the surrounding blister clearly separates observed structure from reconstructed gas.
New M87, Centaurus A, 3C 273, Cygnus A, and M77 now resolve into physically scaled active galaxies as you approach. Published jets, radio lobes, hotspots, or nuclear dust retain their measured projection and clearly identify any reconstructed depth.
New Ring, Helix, and the Homunculus Nebula now reveal measured close structure during an ordinary Go to journey. Published dimensions and orientations drive each destination, while Eta Carinae uses NASA’s velocity-mapped 3D shell.
New Andromeda now resolves into 2,753 measured Hubble PHAT cluster positions during an ordinary close approach. Their sky coordinates are catalog values; the inclined-disk placement and restrained surrounding light profile clearly identify their reconstructed depth.
Improved Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune now carry dated 2025 Hubble OPAL atmosphere observations into their normal close views. Cards identify the epoch and filters, while unobserved latitude coverage retains the complete reference atlas underneath.
Improved Comets now change as solar heating changes. Their comae expand and brighten near the Sun, dust curves behind the calculated orbit, ion tails remain anti-solar, and dark irregular nuclei emerge as activity fades.
New The Crab Nebula and SN 1987A now resolve into NASA three-dimensional resources at their physical destinations. Measured meshes remain distinct from enlarged pulsar, morphology, triple-ring, and dated shock guides described in each information card.

29 July 2026

New Live Sun now gains three-dimensional magnetic structure automatically as you approach. The field is reconstructed from the current SDO/HMI radial-field map, oriented in Carrington coordinates, and hidden outside its observation window; modeled lines and presentation highlights are clearly identified.
New Go to any of the six Hubble Frontier Fields to resolve a real cluster-scale gravitational lens in ordinary space. Registered Hubble imagery, published CATS mass contours, and catalogued repeated images reveal how foreground dark matter magnifies galaxies behind it.
New The observed cosmic web now continues beyond nearby 2MRS through 631,000 real DESI DR1 galaxies and quasars. Every point retains a measured direction, spectroscopic redshift, tracer class, and survey footprint; distance and cosmic age use the disclosed Planck cosmology.
Improved The farthest continuous universe now uses the real Planck 2018 microwave sky instead of generated mottling. Early galaxies and quasars sit at cosmology-derived comoving distances, while the last-scattering surface is correctly identified as ancient observed light—not the universe’s edge.
New Moon systems now light themselves continuously in ordinary space. Natural satellites enter their parent’s finite umbra or penumbra, receive physically scaled planetshine, and cast correctly tapered shadows across planets while the shared simulation clock advances.
Improved Titan, Pluto, and Triton now carry their observed atmospheres into ordinary Space View. Approach Titan through its dense orange haze, resolve Pluto’s extended blue layers, and catch Triton’s delicate nitrogen limb without opening a mode or enabling a layer.

28 July 2026

New The ordinary universe is more alive without adding a mode: Algol and RR Lyrae now change brightness with the simulation clock using published AAVSO ephemerides, while Eros and Itokawa load mission-derived NASA shapes in place of generic asteroid silhouettes.
Improved Deep-sky objects now distinguish travel from observation. Go to reaches the physical Orion, Pleiades, Local Group, nearby-galaxy, or NASA remnant destination when supported; Observe from here retains the real DSS2 sky, and unknown-distance targets no longer imply a fake journey.
New Go to Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Algol, or Castor to enter a measured stellar family in ordinary space. Real masses drive nested barycentric orbits; zoom resolves individual stars, while unsolved wide paths remain explicitly unknown instead of being procedurally invented.
Improved Approach event horizon now works at Gaia BH1, BH2, BH3, and Sagittarius A*. Watch a measured companion split into two images, form an Einstein ring, then separate before the universe contracts into the calculated escape cone—all without inventing accretion light.
New Travel into a three-dimensional reconstruction of nearby interstellar dust from the Galaxy controls. The warm false-color clouds come from Gaia stellar-extinction evidence, affect the same catalog starlight, preserve unmapped space as unknown, and remain an ordinary switchable layer of the continuous universe.
New Walk across measured terrain after landing on Earth, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, or Venus. Use WASD and Shift—or the phone direction pad—while coordinates and distance update; the same sky, time, selection, search, provenance, Cosmic Address, and Back to Space remain available.

27 July 2026

New Open the existing Time & Sky bar on Earth to watch familiar constellations change across millennia using measured stellar motion. A faint present-day outline makes the difference visible, while long-range extrapolation and unavailable planetary ephemerides remain explicitly disclosed.
Improved Surface View is now one coherent local sky. Twilight, Moon glare, atmospheric extinction, and light pollution jointly control stars, deep-sky contrast, the Milky Way, horizon glow, and zodiacal light. Your view also adapts naturally as you face a bright Moon or turn back into darkness.
Fixed Surface View time scrubbing now keeps the thumb responsive, updates the sky when movement pauses, and commits the exact release time without overwhelming React’s ephemeris panels.

26 July 2026

New Measured landings on Earth, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, and Venus now combine real curvature, independently streamed imagery and elevation, source-aware terrain rings, DEM lighting, and distinct atmospheres. Close zoom stops at a sharp orbital view and offers Land explicitly instead of unexpectedly starting descent.

24 July 2026

New Go to and direct navigation now offer a physical journey wherever a destination has a real three-dimensional position. Choose continuous 1g acceleration and deceleration or cruise presets through 99.9999% of light speed; double-click, search, shortcuts, and related links use the remembered choice.
New Relativistic journeys compare departure-frame time with your own elapsed time. Arrival uses a brief confirmation instead of covering the universe; a durable Arrived row in the destination card holds Look back, visible-light delay, Earth-sky comparison, and Return.
New Every measured catalog star now reveals how old its light is. Open the Light readout in the selection card to see approximately when those photons began their journey, based on the star’s real camera-relative distance.
New Ride this light follows the selected star’s measured three-dimensional path to your viewpoint. The journey compresses centuries into seconds while keeping elapsed light-time physical, clearly identifying its traveling pulse as a presentation aid and leaving unknown historical appearance unknown.
New Select Earth, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, or Venus and choose Land at… to begin Orbit to Footstep. The physical approach, measured-terrain destination, truthful precision handoff, shared atmosphere model, and display-relative light adaptation now form one continuous, evidence-labelled arrival.
New A live Cosmic Address follows every camera position beneath the top menu. Open any part to see its relationship, evidence source, and truth status, then Go to concrete destinations, View meaningful frames, or Explore fuzzy regions without inventing centers.
New After the light arrives, Reveal time depth opens a camera-relative ladder from seconds to millions of years. Focus a real landmark to inspect its ring, published measurement, uncertainty, and source; zoom freely or fit the complete logarithmic map on screen.
New The Invisible Universe Atlas reveals five landmarks across seven aligned real surveys. Compare any band with visible light, then choose Enter this field at Orion to watch measured star depth emerge before arriving at a clearly disclosed three-dimensional nebula reconstruction.

23 July 2026

New Select Andromeda and choose Enter from the real sky to begin with centered DSS2 evidence, travel into its physically scaled Local Group reconstruction, and see exactly which parts are measured, reconstructed, or still unknown.

22 July 2026

Fixed Automatic journey movies now stay visually clean across extreme changes of scale. Distant cosmic boundaries and analytical void volumes no longer cover unrelated galaxy or return-flight shots.
Improved Journey Studio now gives creation one clear home. Start with an automatically directed movie or open the advanced editor for individual moments, camera paths, timing, narration, exports, and sharing.
New Automatic journeys can capture the current Surface View or add a dated astronomical event at its computed peak. The same project can export a captioned landscape or portrait poster and move into advanced editing without rebuilding the route.
Improved Navigation now starts with Discover and uses clearer desktop and phone controls for Home, Back, selection, and time. Destination arrivals share consistent framing and orientation from the Solar System through deep-sky and cosmic landmarks.
New Orbital tools now include real-data orbit and deep-space trajectory inspection, direction vectors, frame-safe relative motion, mission replay instruments, and Cinematic Coast for smooth inertial camera shots.
Improved Rendering is smoother across large scale changes. Progressive startup, consolidated multi-scale updates, denser mission paths, improved optical arrivals, physically consistent solar lighting, and faster Local Universe and Milky Way views reduce stalls and visual discontinuities.
Fixed The August 12 eclipse experience now keeps the ground view stable through totality, including the darkened sky, visible stars and planets, labels, and observing overlays. It also opens at the intended eclipse viewpoint instead of unexpectedly substituting the visitor’s location.
Fixed Sharing now sends the exact current view through Copy, social buttons, the phone share sheet, and embeds. Distant-star links preserve close-up framing and catalog identity, surface links retain their world and sky settings, and social previews identify the selected target.

13 July 2026

New Epic Journey: choose real destinations, capture a Surface View, or add a dated astronomical event, then click Make my video. The automatic director creates destination-specific shots and can export a selected space or surface scene as a landscape or portrait poster.
New Professional creation tools: Event Studio now supports spline and Bézier camera paths, object tracking, animated camera and visual settings, and deterministic poster, image-sequence, and video exports. Epic Journey adds smooth H.264 movie export in compatible browsers.
New 3D Orbital Flight Lab: plan and play spacecraft maneuvers with visible craft, predicted and flown trajectories, editable maneuver nodes, rendezvous targets, and time warp. Compare a plan against generated numerical references or imported SPICE and Horizons samples.
Improved One continuous universe: Galaxy and Cosmic are now places you reach by traveling through the same 3D space. The upgraded cosmic web uses 43,530 measured galaxies, scientific filaments, density glow, environmental readouts, and customizable visual modes.
New Close-approach encounters: select a near-Earth asteroid or comet to see its closest approach, speed, and distance in lunar units, then watch the encounter unfold with a live distance readout and the Moon’s orbit shown for scale.
Improved More believable worlds and objects: thousands of exoplanets now derive their appearance from measured properties, named asteroids are irregular cratered bodies, comets show structured comae and tails, and pulsars render with lighthouse beams at their true spin rates.
New A more personal observing toolkit: Sky Chart, My Gear, real-horizon support, location-specific eclipse circumstances, live transient alerts, daily sky emails, and improved exoplanet and spacecraft browsers help connect the simulated universe to what you can observe.
New Deeper sky exploration: Sky Companion answers questions using the app’s computed sky context, while a tile-streamed all-sky survey reveals real imagery as you zoom. You can also stand on supported exoplanets and explore their host systems from the surface.

18 June 2026

New Tonight: a location-aware observing dashboard combines cloud, darkness, Moon conditions, seeing, transparency, light pollution, and your horizon into a simple forecast, then highlights the planets, deep-sky objects, satellites, comets, and events worth seeing.
New A much larger real-sky catalog: explore millions of stars, tens of thousands of deep-sky objects, thousands of satellites, asteroids, comets and quasars, plus the moons in JPL’s published mean-element catalog. Unified search finds them by common name or catalog designation from any view.
New Historical and future astronomy: replay Voyager and New Horizons missions, explore skies from 13,000 BCE to 15,000 CE with Deep Time, revisit famous observations, and watch eclipses, occultations, transits, meteor showers, and planetary encounters in 3D.
New Planetary atlases: explore hundreds of named features on the Moon and thousands across Mars, Mercury, Venus, and the Galilean moons. Click features for details, find them near the terminator, or stand on supported worlds to inspect their skies.
Improved Spacecraft and stars now reward a closer look: dozens of missions resolve into detailed 3D models along historical trajectories, nearby stars gain animated surfaces based on spectral type, and supernova remnants appear as three-dimensional structures.
New Create and share: enhanced Postcards add clean captures, labels, long exposure, and 4K output; short video recording captures flythroughs and time changes; share links preserve more simulation state and can be published as embeddable views.
New Tools for observers include an ephemeris generator, Moon calendar, observing programs, equipment framing, comet forecasts, moonrise alignment planning, Planet Watch, sky trails, and searchable double-star and variable-star data with diagrams and light curves.
Improved Navigation and access were redesigned around Explore, Observe, and Display, with a unified command palette, clearer mobile launch points, first-run guidance, smoother travel between the ground and space, and WebXR entry on supported headsets.