AstroGrid - Universe Engine

AstroGrid — A Real Universe You Can Fly Through, In Your Browser

May 2026 Featured on Product Hunt: 110 upvotes, peaked at #13 on the daily ranking, selected as Online Learning Product of the Week.

The pitch in one breath

AstroGrid is the actual universe, scientifically modeled, opened in a browser tab. No install, no signup. You start next to the Sun, with every planet where it really is right now. Slide outward and the Solar System becomes a speck inside the Milky Way. Keep going and the Milky Way joins thousands of galaxies arranged along the cosmic web. It is one continuous flight from a moon next door to filaments at the edge of the observable universe.

Why people stay

🌌 It is the real sky, drawn from real data. Planets, asteroids, stars, galaxies, quasars, black holes, pulsars, supernova remnants. NASA JPL orbital data drives the Solar System; over 100,000 galaxies and quasars populate deep space. You can toggle Gaia 100pc precision stars when your hardware is ready for them.

• Time is a slider. Pause it, speed it up to a year per second, watch eclipses align and orbits dance.
• One uninterrupted scale jump. Most space apps stop at the Solar System or stop at the stars. AstroGrid stitches Solar System, Milky Way, and superclusters into a single continuous camera walk. Seeing the jump in your own browser is the moment most people get hooked.
• The exotic things look exotic. Gravitational lensing around black holes is rendered with a real shader. Pulsars sweep beams. Supernovae and supernova remnants are part of the catalogue, not a footnote.
• Missions and a Night Sky mode. Trace the actual path of historic spacecraft. Switch to Night Sky mode and look up from any point in space.
• Bookmarkable as a URL. Any view, any moment, any selection becomes a deep link you can paste into a chat. PWA support means you can install it like a native app and use it offline.
• Runs anywhere. A "Selective Dataset Architecture" lets the engine stay light on integrated graphics while still pushing 60 fps with full deep-sky catalogues loaded.

What others are saying

"Someone built a physics-accurate flyable universe and put it in a browser tab with no server required. It's not a product for a market; it's closer to a demo that shouldn't exist yet. Open it and see how far you get before you notice you've been flying for twenty minutes." - Product Hunt

"Unlike static star charts or heavy desktop applications like SpaceEngine, AstroGrid bridges the gap by providing 'Universe-as-a-Service' performance. It combines the scientific rigor of NASA JPL data with the instant-access nature of a web URL, requiring no signup or local installation while maintaining high-fidelity visuals like gravitational lensing." - Product Cool

"This is sick, the jump from solar system scale all the way out to filaments is wild to actually see in a browser." - Reddit, r/SideProject

You don't read AstroGrid. You travel it. Open the tab and the universe is there, where it actually is, waiting to be flown through.