Near Star Map version 1.3 is now available on Google Play and the Amazon Android App Store. Aside from some routine data updates, this version introduces a new exoplanet system diagrams feature.
When selecting a star system believed to have exoplanets, the user now has the option to view a diagram comparing the exoplanet system with a scale diagram of our own solar system. The data backing these diagrams will be updated in the same semi-annual (March and September) updates used to keep the stellar database current.
Below is an example of the Epsilon Eridani system based on current data.
We currently think Epsilon Eridani has a gas giant near an asteroid belt about as far from the star as our own asteroid belt, another asteroid belt about as far out as Uranus, and another gas giant way out at Kuiper Belt distance.
Presently some sixty solar systems with up to several planets each are suspected or confirmed among the 1200 or so stars within 50 light-years of Sol and hence in our database. Given discoveries by the Kepler mission since 2009 in a distant region of the sky, it can be assumed for practical purposes that nearly every star system in the database has planets that will eventually be detected as our technology and methods improve.
