Credits

Who made the pictures

Scale of Space is built on photographs from space missions, observatories and photographers, and on star and galaxy catalogs compiled by astronomers.

Most images are cropped or recoloured to sit on the scale. If you reuse one, credit its author and keep its license. Spotted a wrong credit? Write to hello@scaleofspace.org.

Objects

Images of objects

Crab Nebula · NASA's Great Observatories 2006 / X-ray: NASA/CXC/J. Hester (ASU); Optical: NASA/ESA/J. Hester & A. Loll (ASU); Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Gehrz (Univ. Minn.)

Source
Wikimedia Commons
License
Public domain

Abell 1689 · Hubble 2013 / NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Blakeslee (NRC Herzberg Astrophysics Program, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory), and H. Ford (JHU)

Source
Wikimedia Commons
License
CC BY 4.0

Universe

The data behind the universe map

The journey through the universe is drawn from real satellite images, sky surveys and simulations, not painted scenery.

Sentinel-2 Global Mosaics, Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem

The descent from 1,600 km down to 25 km: a cloud-free mosaic of the Sentinel-2 images of April to September 2025 (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2025).

Shown in
Earth
Source
Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem
License
Copernicus open licence

Blue Marble Next Generation, NASA Earth Observatory

The globe, its land and seas, and the colours the descent’s satellite images are matched to: a month’s composite of MODIS images (July 2004).

Shown in
Earth
Source
NASA Visible Earth
License
Public domain

Terrain Tiles (Mapzen/Tilezen) on AWS Open Data

The relief of the land along the descent, from Europe down to the Alps: elevation merged from SRTM, EU-DEM (produced using Copernicus data and information funded by the European Union) and other sources.

Shown in
Earth
Source
Tilezen attribution
License
Open data, attribution

Blue Marble: Clouds, NASA Earth Observatory

A day’s clouds over the whole planet, seen by NASA’s MODIS instrument.

Shown in
Earth
Source
NASA Visible Earth
License
Public domain

Black Marble 2012, NASA Earth Observatory

City lights on the night side, photographed by the Suomi NPP satellite.

Shown in
Earth
Source
NASA Visible Earth
License
Public domain

Chanudet & Filella (2008), Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 72, 1466–1479

Under the surface everything is modelled, not photographed. The rock flour follows this study of the lake’s particles: about 50 million grains under 2 µm in a millilitre of summer surface water, ever more of them the smaller they are, mostly clays, feldspar, chlorite and quartz. The grains are placed at random to that count and size spread.

Shown in
Rock flour
Source
University of Geneva archive

Chlamydomonas and Cyclotella, Wikipedia

The green alga and the round diatoms are 3D models built from published descriptions: the alga’s size, cup-shaped chloroplast, pyrenoid, eyespot and two flagella, and the diatoms’ glass walls and golden-brown plastids. They stand for single cells common in clear lakes, not for individuals seen in this one.

Shown in
A flake of mica
Source
Wikipedia
License
CC BY-SA 4.0

Catti, Ferraris, Hull & Pavese (1994), European Journal of Mineralogy 6, 171–178

The flake is muscovite, KAl₂(AlSi₃O₁₀)(OH)₂. Its face is an idealised tetrahedral sheet after this neutron-diffraction structure: six-sided rings of corner-sharing tetrahedra repeating every 0.52 nm with their ditrigonal twist, one tetrahedral site in four aluminium, half the potassium sites filled on the cleaved face, and layers 1 nm thick. Which sites hold aluminium and potassium is random; each atom trembles by about 0.01 nm, the size of the measured thermal motion.

Shown in
The crystal
Source
European Journal of Mineralogy

Muscovite, Wikipedia

The flake’s sheets, its terraces one layer (1 nm) high and their wandering edges are modelled after mica’s perfect basal cleavage, not scanned from one flake; the 40 nm sheets and the steps’ spacing are chosen for the picture.

Shown in
Terraces
Source
Wikipedia
License
CC BY-SA 4.0

Clementi & Raimondi (1963), J Chem Phys 38, 2686

The electron clouds of oxygen, silicon, aluminium and potassium are computed from Slater-type orbitals with the screening constants fitted in this paper, for free atoms and ions; bonds would distort them slightly.

Shown in
An oxygen atom
Source
J Chem Phys

Angeli & Marinova (2013), Atomic Data and Nuclear Data Tables 99, 69

The oxygen-16 nucleus is drawn with its measured rms charge radius, 2.6991 fm.

Shown in
The nucleus
Source
ADNDT

Bijker & Iachello (2014), Physical Review Letters 112, 152501

The eight protons and eight neutrons are drawn as four alpha clusters at the corners of a tetrahedron, the symmetry this analysis finds in oxygen-16’s low-lying states; the clusters’ placement is illustrative.

Shown in
The nucleus
Source
arXiv

CODATA 2022 recommended values, NIST

Each nucleon is a ball of charge with the proton’s rms charge radius, 0.84075 fm.

Shown in
A proton
Source
NIST

Bissey et al. (2007), Phys Rev D 76, 114512

The gluon flux tube inside the proton, gathered into a Y between the three quarks, is drawn after this lattice QCD calculation; its lumpy, restless field is drawn, not computed.

Shown in
A proton
Source
Phys Rev D

Yang et al. (2018), Phys Rev Lett 121, 212001; Particle Data Group

The quarks’ masses (PDG) make up about one percent of the proton’s; this lattice calculation splits the rest between the quarks’ and gluons’ energy.

Shown in
A proton
Source
Phys Rev Lett

Representative satellite shells; ESA orbital environment context

Satellite points sample selected orbital altitudes and inclinations, with a dense low-orbit population around 500–700 km and a shell at 1200 km. This is not the full LEO range or a current satellite census: nodes, phases and sample counts are illustrative, and points are thinned as Earth shrinks. Altitudes are to scale; marker sizes and brightness are exaggerated. Sunlit satellites can appear over the night side, while those in Earth’s shadow fade out. Space debris is not included.

Shown in
Near-Earth space
Source
ESA Space Environment Report 2026

ISS trajectory, NASA Johnson Space Center / TOPO

The ISS guide and marker use an osculating ellipse from the NASA EME2000 state of 5 October 2026, 16:20 UTC, advanced as a time-lapse. Its altitude, eccentricity and inclination come from that snapshot; the ascending node is chosen for a clear view of Europe and the descent. This is a representative illustration, not live tracking or a live ground track.

Shown in
Earth
Source
NASA ISS Trajectory Data
License
Public domain

Lunar orbital geometry, NASA / IERS

Mean inclination 5.145° to the ecliptic and eccentricity 0.0549 from NASA; the regressing lunar node follows the IERS fundamental argument. Position uses a low-order lunar ephemeris, not a precision trajectory.

Shown in
Earth & Moon
Source
NASA Moon Fact Sheet

Hot luminous stars, Zari et al. (2021), A&A 650, A112

343,628 hot, bright young stars measured by Gaia and 2MASS.

Shown in
Orion Arm
Source
CDS · J/A+A/650/A112

Classical Cepheids, Skowron et al. (2025), ApJS 278, 57

3,391 pulsating Cepheid stars, with distances across the Galaxy out to 30 kpc.

Shown in
Milky Way
Source
CDS · J/ApJS/278/57

Face-on Milky Way image, ESA Gaia (2025)

The Galaxy seen from above, based on Gaia data. An artist's reconstruction, not a photograph. No one has seen the Milky Way from outside.

Shown in
Milky Way
Source
ESA · Gaia
License
CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Credit
ESA/Gaia/DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar

3D dust maps, Vergely, Lallement & Cox (2022), A&A 664, A174

Dust density measured in 3D from the reddening of millions of Gaia and 2MASS stars, 10 pc resolution out to 1.5 kpc and 25 pc out to 3 kpc, summed through the disc into the brown clouds and dust lanes beyond the Local Bubble.

Shown in
Local Bubble
Source
CDS · J/A+A/664/A174

Full-sky H-alpha map, Finkbeiner (2003), ApJS 146, 407

The pink glows beyond the Local Bubble are 25 of the brightest HII regions within about 10,000 light-years, such as the Rosette, the North America Nebula and Cygnus X, at their catalogued distances and sizes, each shaped by its patch of this map of the sky in hydrogen-alpha light.

Shown in
Local Bubble
Source
NASA LAMBDA · H-alpha

Updated Nearby Galaxy Catalog, Karachentsev, Makarov & Kaisina (2013)

869 nearby galaxies with measured distances, out to 11 Mpc. Andromeda, the Magellanic Clouds and the Sagittarius Dwarf are drawn at their real position and size; their shape on screen is illustrative.

Shown in
Local Group
Source
NASA HEASARC · neargalcat

2MASS Redshift Survey, Huchra et al. (2012), ApJS 199, 26

42,821 galaxies with measured distances within 300 Mpc. Empty patches, especially behind the Milky Way’s own disk, are gaps in the survey, not real voids.

Shown in
Local Supercluster
Source
CDS · J/ApJS/199/26

Manticore-Local constrained simulation, McAlpine et al. (2025), MNRAS 540, 716

A simulation of dark matter fitted to real galaxy surveys, so its largest structures sit where the observed ones do. Within about 200 Mpc it follows the real sky; finer detail and everything farther out is one plausible version, not an observation.

Shown in
Laniakea
Source
Manticore Project · data access
Credit
The Manticore Project (Aquila Consortium), Stockholm University. Reference: McAlpine et al. 2025, MNRAS 540, 716.

Virgo Consortium Hubble Volume simulation

Simulated clumps of dark matter showing what the cosmic web looks like in general. It is not a map of our actual sky.

Shown in
Cosmic web
Source
Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics · Virgo archive
Credit
The simulations were carried out by the Virgo Supercomputing Consortium using computers based at the Computing Centre of the Max Planck Society in Garching and at the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre. Reference: Colberg et al. 2000, MNRAS 319, 209.

Cosmic microwave background, Planck 2015 SMICA map

The oldest light in the universe as Planck measured it, with its faint ripples boosted about 100,000 times so they show.

Shown in
Observable universe
Source
IRSA · Planck all-sky maps
Credit
Based on observations obtained with Planck (http://www.esa.int/Planck), an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States, NASA, and Canada.

Now see them to scale.

About

Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.

Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.

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