The universe is real.
The stories are ours.
Million Worlds connects imaginative artwork to the astronomical systems that inspired it. A world can have several views and several stories. An illustration is never presented as a detection of life.
How images are assigned
Recent series name their intended planet in their generation manifests. Earlier scenes retain their existing filename or catalog association. Images without a verified exoplanet identity stay in the imagined / unidentified collection. Solar System scenes remain in their own category. A planet name is an artistic setting, not proof that the depicted scene could exist.
Reading the map
Each point represents a catalogued host system. Planets around that host appear in its panel. Galactic Cartesian coordinates are Sun-centered: X points toward Galactic longitude 0°, Y toward longitude 90°, and Z toward the north Galactic pole. Positions and spectral classes are preserved from the original R.A.V.E.N. NASA catalog snapshot. In the rendered view, Galactic north is up. Distances are not logarithmically compressed. Star colours indicate spectral class; thin rings identify hosts with available images. Marker sizes are enlarged display symbols, not physical stellar sizes.
One coordinate-bearing record is selected per hostname. Systems without usable distances or coordinates are omitted from the 3D volume but remain searchable. There is no proper-motion propagation. Nearby systems may overlap at the full map scale; use search or the Nearby view. Choose a host to enter the original planetary orbit viewer. The system view preserves the R.A.V.E.N. orbital solver, published ephemerides, transit states, uncertainty arcs and selectable planets. Binary component orbits remain unresolved; the original model uses one central stellar marker.
The planetary orbit viewer
The preserved R.A.V.E.N. system viewer uses its NASA ps / pscomppars snapshot, queried 25 September 2026 at 05:48 UTC. Positions are propagated with Kepler’s equation. The view opens at an accelerated one day per second; use Pause or Now to control time. Orbital dimensions use AU, with planets enlarged for visibility. Unknown orbital nodes are set to zero; faint markers identify unconstrained phases. Open Layers & evidence for the original measurements, uncertainty treatment, transit predictions and paper links. These are orbital illustrations from published solutions, not an N-body integration. Binary companions are not spatially resolved by the original model.
What “catalogued” means
The local snapshot contains 6,366 rows from NASA’s Planetary Systems Composite Parameters table, retrieved 25 September 2026. This is a snapshot of the archive’s confirmed-planet catalog, including entries flagged controversial. It is not a list of every planet that exists, and it does not include all candidates or rogue worlds.
NASA Exoplanet Archive · Composite catalog citation. Measurements retain their individual source papers and uncertainties. A calculated radius is not a directly measured radius; a minimum mass is not a true mass. Multiple-star systems require more information than one catalog stellar row.
Moons, rings and life
Imagined moons and orbital or atmospheric habitats allow surface-like scenes around gas-rich planets. They are explicitly fictional unless the accompanying description says otherwise and supplies evidence. No image establishes an exomoon, habitable climate, alien civilization or biosignature. Visible celestial sizes, phases, atmospheres and lighting are illustrative and may contain rendering inconsistencies.
A growing collection
The site is built from the local science catalog and image manifests. New images inherit their planet assignment and appear in that world’s gallery on the next build. The 25-image Alien Artificial Intelligence collection has a saved visual canon; astronomy, physical materials and a mixture of beauty and unease guide future scenes.
Credits
Map adapted from the supplied R.A.V.E.N. Research Labs exoplanet host map. Images generated with OpenAI image tools; archived provenance varies. Three.js r128 is bundled locally under its MIT license. Smaller web images are derived from the preserved full-resolution originals.