Heliosphere - Solar System1.14.0 - App Store

Explore the solar system at your fingertips.

Heliosphere is a real-time 3D solar system simulation powered by NASA JPL Horizons data. It accurately recreates the orbits of planets, moons, comets, and
dwarf planets while tracking the real positions of active spacecraft.
* Real-time 3D Solar System Simulation
- 8 planets, 5 dwarf planets, 10+ moons, and 4 comets
- Precise Keplerian orbit calculations based on real astronomical data
- Time travel from 1900 to 2100
- Pan, zoom, and rotate for a free-roaming perspective
- Switch to planet-centric viewing mode

* Live Spacecraft Tracking
- Voyager 1, 2 | Pioneer 10, 11
- Cassini | Juno | New Horizons | Parker Solar Probe
- Real position data from NASA JPL Horizons API

* Deep Sky Exploration
- Over 150 bright stars
- 530 Milky Way stars
- 124 deep-sky objects (Messier, NGC/IC catalogs)

* Comprehensive Astronomy Education
- 6 difficulty levels from middle school to graduate
- Core concepts: Kepler's Laws, gravity, escape velocity, and more
- Mission timelines for Voyager, Cassini, New Horizons, and others
- 60+ quiz questions to test your knowledge
- Historical space event date-guessing challenges

* Free for Everyone
- All content available at no cost
- No ads
- 11 languages supported
Experience the beauty of the cosmos and the wonder of science through scientifically accurate data and intuitive interaction.

Version History What's New in 1.14.0

Positional Accuracy
- The Moon is now where the real Moon is. It used to be drawn far from its true position even on eclipse days
- The Moon's ecliptic latitude and orbital inclination are modelled. Every moon used to sit exactly in the ecliptic, which would mean an eclipse every single month
- Planets travel real elliptical orbits instead of circles, speeding up near perihelion and slowing near aphelion as they should
- Earth's rotation is anchored to real sidereal time, so the day/night terminator falls where it really does — and with a fixed axis, the seasons appear
- All ten moons (the Moon, Phobos, Io, Titan and the rest) use measured orbital data
- Verified against JPL Horizons positions across the full 1900-2100 range

Eclipse Shadows
- During a solar eclipse the Moon's shadow now falls on Earth in its true place
- Umbra and penumbra are computed at real size. The umbra is about 2% of Earth's diameter, so it reads as a small dot — which is exactly how it looks from space
- Annular eclipses draw a lighter shadow, because the Sun is never fully covered

Three Scale Axes
- Body size, orbit spacing and moon distance are three independent controls
- Set all three to the right and the famous check holds: the other seven planets, laid end to end, just fit inside the Moon's orbit
- At realistic size the Sun reaches its true 109 Earth radii
- Your choices are remembered

Navigation
- Selecting a body follows it as time advances
- You can tap orbiting planets directly in the 3D view
- Two-finger drag slides the view
- Step the date by exact units: 10 years, 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, 1 day
- Step playback speed the same way: 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year per second
- The speed range now reaches a year per second, so the slow outer planets — Neptune above all — finally get somewhere
- The bottom bar can be hidden on iPhone

Astronomical Events
- Jump straight to an event's date from the calendar
- Meteor showers jump to their peak, not the start of the viewing window

Learning
- New topic, "Scale and Distance", on why true scale cannot be drawn on a screen and what this app exaggerates as a result

Other Improvements
- Fixed moons such as Io appearing inside their parent planet at realistic size
- Fixed the Moon's orbit overlapping Venus's
- Fixed Triton not moving at all
- Fixed the outer planets being clipped away when orbits were widened
- Selecting a body now shows a shortcut into the Learning Center

Your favorites, achievements and streak are all preserved. 1.14.0 Aug 18 - improve UI 1.13.1 May 25 Asteroid 4 Vesta is added 1.13.0 May 20 - Reduce Energy Impact
- Fix iPhone UI 1.12.0 Apr 12 Explore Artemis II — NASA's historic return to the Moon!

• NEW: Artemis II (2026) added to the spacecraft catalog
NASA's first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 (1972). Launched
April 1, 2026 from Kennedy Space Center, four astronauts flew a
10-day free-return trajectory around the far side of the Moon
aboard the Orion spacecraft. A partnership between NASA and the
Canadian Space Agency.

• NEW: Tap any spacecraft to travel to its launch date instantly
Want to relive Voyager's Jupiter flyby or watch Artemis II lift
off? Just tap the spacecraft — the simulation jumps straight to
mission start.

• NEW: Smart time speed for every mission
Short missions like Artemis II (10 days) automatically play at
a slower time scale so you can actually watch them unfold, while
decades-long journeys like Voyager speed up to keep things moving. 1.11.0 Apr 11 - Fix ui error in iphone 1.8.1 Feb 19 - iCloud Sync: Your achievements, favorites, and stats now sync across all your devices
- Widgets: Home screen and Lock Screen widgets for upcoming astronomy events
- Live Activity: Real-time countdown on Lock Screen and Dynamic Island for imminent events
- Live Event Data: Automatic updates with the latest astronomy events, including near-Earth asteroids and geomagnetic storms via NASA
- Bug fixes and performance improvements 1.8.0 Feb 15 - fix iphone ui 1.7.2 Feb 8 - iPad 7 size support 1.7.1 Feb 7 - add more education problems 1.7.0 Feb 5 - fix ui error 1.6.1 Feb 4 - Improved cache performance for spacecraft position data
- Optimized memory usage and app responsiveness
- Bug fixes and stability improvements
- add locales 1.6.0 Feb 2 [Learning Center Added]
- Astronomy concepts - 10 topics including Kepler's laws, gravity, planetary composition
- Mission stories - History and timeline of 8 spacecraft: Voyager, Cassini, New Horizons, and more
- Quiz feature - Test your knowledge with quizzes at 3 difficulty levels
- Available in 3 languages (English, Korean, Japanese)

[Improved Zoom]
- Extended maximum zoom range for observing farther distances

[Bug Fixes]
- Improved app stability
- Fixed API connection issues 1.5.0 Jan 31 • Improved planet colors - More accurate representation of actual planet colors
• Fixed comet orbital motion
• Improved camera controls and zoom behavior 1.4.0 Jan 20 New Features
• Planet-centered view - Observe the solar system from the perspective of a selected planet

Bug Fixes
• Fixed comet orbital motion accuracy
• Improved zoom/pan behavior after selecting celestial objects
• Fixed camera transition issues when switching views 1.3.0 Jan 18 [New Content]
- 5 Dwarf Planets: Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Makemake, Haumea
- 4 Comets: Halley, Encke, Hale-Bopp, NEOWISE
- 10 Major Moons: Moon, Phobos, Deimos, Galilean moons, Titan, Enceladus, Triton
- Deep Sky Objects expanded: 57 to 124 (Complete Messier catalog)

[iPhone Support]
- Explore the solar system on your iPhone
- Optimized UI for iPhone

[Improved Controls]
- Responsive layout improvements for iPad
- Smoother camera controls with optimized sensitivity 1.2.0 Jan 16 [New Features]
• Realistic star background based on actual astronomical data
- ~150 bright stars (Sirius, Vega, Betelgeuse, etc.)
- ~530 stars in the Milky Way region
• 36 Deep Sky Objects added
- Galaxies (M31 Andromeda, M51 Whirlpool, etc.)
- Nebulae (M42 Orion, M1 Crab, etc.)
- Star Clusters (M45 Pleiades, Omega Centauri, etc.)
• Deep Sky Object Search
- Search stars, galaxies, nebulae, and clusters
- Camera automatically navigates to selected object
- Catalog number search support (M31, NGC, etc.)
• Data Sources information page (NASA, IAU, etc.)

[Improvements]
• Collapsible planet selector bar
• Improved top control bar layout
• Enhanced skybox camera tracking 1.1.0 Jan 12 1.0.0 Jan 8