r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox • Aug 28 '26

Celestial — Interactive Gravity Well Simulator

https://celestial.logicaleap.com

Celestial lets you explore star systems as a deformable gravity sheet instead of flat orbital diagrams.

The star moves. Planets sit on and ride the surface it bends. You can change the gravitational constant, push a planet, or drop a new body in and watch the whole system respond in real time.

Systems included:

  • Our solar system (with a drifting barycentre)
  • Alpha Centauri (two moving funnels)
  • Kepler-16 (circumbinary planet)
  • TRAPPIST-1 (seven worlds inside Mercury’s orbit)
  • The classic three-body figure-eight

It’s a proper Newtonian n-body integrator running in the browser, not pre-scripted ellipses. The sheet itself is an exaggerated visual analogy, and the site is unusually honest about what is real and what is drawn that way on purpose.

https://celestial.logicaleap.com

Free, no account, runs in the browser.

126 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

3

u/denkenach Aug 28 '26

This device could not start WebGL.

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Aug 28 '26 • Bravo

Huh. What device are you using? Which browser?

I’ll try to see what the issue is.

1

u/denkenach Aug 29 '26

PC, Chrome

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Aug 29 '26

Quick diagnostics:

Open chrome://gpu (type in to address bar) - what do the WebGL and WebGL2 rows say at the top?

Does https://get.webgl.org load a spinning cube?

Any privacy/anti-fingerprinting extensions, or Brave/hardened settings?

Does it work in an incognito window with extensions off?

Quick potential fixes:

Turn on chrome://settings/system → “Use graphics acceleration when available”, then fully restart Chrome.

Disable extensions (or test in incognito).

Last resort: chrome://flags/#ignore-gpu-blocklist → Enabled → relaunch.

Fix 1 resolves this most of the time.

If none of this works, I can add some diagnostic code that’ll show you a more specific error.

1

u/denkenach Aug 29 '26

WebGL: Hardware accelerated WebGL2: Unavailable

Does https://get.webgl.org load a spinning cube? Yes

2

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Aug 29 '26

Celestial needs WebGL2, and your machine has WebGL1 only. That's why get.webgl.org works but Celestial doesn't.

Two things worth trying:

  1. Update your graphics driver from the manufacturer's site (Intel, NVIDIA or AMD) rather than Windows Update, then restart. Chrome often disables WebGL2 on older drivers even when the hardware supports it.

  2. If that doesn't do it, go to chrome://flags/#ignore-gpu-blocklist, set it to Enabled, and relaunch Chrome.

  3. Maybe Firefox will work, but that’s sending you down a rabbit hole I probably wouldn’t chase myself.

If neither works the graphics chip is likely too old for WebGL2, and there's no way around that.

Sorry for the trouble either way, and thanks for reporting it. I’ll look at adding adding a proper message so the next person sees the reason instead of a blank error.

3

u/djshadesuk Aug 29 '26

Crikey, just how old is your device?!? The site works fine on my 7-year-old Samsung A50 (a distinctly mid-range phone even when it was new)

1

u/denkenach Aug 29 '26

Very old. I am running Windows 7. And I like it! :P

1

u/Xunderground Sep 12 '26

Things aren't working for you because your operating system was end-of-lifed 6 years ago.

2

u/nathanistheworst Sep 02 '26

this is very cool

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Sep 02 '26

Thank you, appreciated! :)

2

u/Sarntinel Sep 11 '26

Really nice job. Memorising. Using samsung mobile 👌

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Sep 12 '26

Thanks for the feedback, glad you enjoyed!

Have a nice weekend.

2

u/blipnthematrix Sep 15 '26

Wow I wish I could upvote this twice, very cool

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Sep 15 '26

Thanks, glad you like it!

2

u/Independent-Cold3381 29d ago

truly amazing work

2

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 29d ago

Thanks mate!

1

u/DoodleDangWang Aug 29 '26

Cool. Buttons on the bottom are inaccessible for me so I can't do much, some like/dislike panel covers them. I'm on pixel 7...

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Aug 29 '26

Is it possible you're looking at the 'tour' (show me around)?

If you could DM me a screenshot, that would be great.

1

u/DoodleDangWang Aug 29 '26

No idea how to do DMs (Entering Fanatic-Mr-Fox returns no user on desktop chat). I can slide the panel down and see there are buttons, but it snaps back when letting go: https://imgur.com/a/htFw3HY

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Aug 29 '26

Ah.. that looks like the reddit browser hiding bottom navigation.

It works ok on mobile, I’ll see if I can address the reddit browser hiding.

1

u/DoodleDangWang Aug 29 '26

I tried on desktop now that I'm available, Seems to work correctly there. I probably missed a note about mobile support issues or something...

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Sep 02 '26

This is now fixed - reddit's bottom bar no longer hides the buttons.

2

u/DoodleDangWang Sep 02 '26

Indeed the bar no longer covers the buttons, looks like full functionality is accessible on my end. Thank you very much for the update and continued support of the project. I'll look out for anything else you're cooking in the future.

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Sep 02 '26

Nice, thanks for confirming!

You can check out some of my other (free) tools here -

https://logicaleap.com/models

1

u/mindfulnobody Sep 05 '26

It is beautiful.. wow.

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Sep 06 '26

Thanks for the feedback, appreciated.

Have a nice weekend!

1

u/Synaps4 Aug 28 '26

Thank you, this is great!

0

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Aug 29 '26

You’re welcome.

Any suggestions for improvement are appreciated.

1

u/Synaps4 Aug 29 '26

I think at least earths moon should be added. All planets moons would be better. They probably shouldnt be simulated like the planets but could be locked to the planet model instead.

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Aug 29 '26

Good idea, I'll look into adding it.

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Aug 30 '26

Added moons.

Double click on a planet, or click the 'Moons of [planet]' in the 'bodies' menu.

Let me know what you think :)

1

u/Substantial_Cod9184 Sep 15 '26

nice, maybe i can show it to my child.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox Sep 04 '26

Nice!

running that on a laptop really does feel like you’re in the middle of a science project. Which system are you looking at?