Planets VR

About this app

This app belongs to our series of educational apps that are focused on the Universe and its wonders. Imagine you are traveling in a fast spaceship that can orbit the planets of our Solar System, while you are directly observing their strange surfaces. The Great Red Spot on Jupiter, the beautiful rings of Saturn, the mysterious structures of the Pluto's surface and the white poles of Mars, all of these can be viewed in great detail. This app works on the modern phones (Android 5 or newer, landscape orientation) and requires a Cardboard or similar device for the VR mode. If your mobile phone has orientation sensors, a gyroscopic effect will be present all the time and the image will rotate according to the user's movements.

The planetary textures are based on NASA elevation and imagery data and on other free resources, the Milky Way galaxy picture came from ESO repository; some colors and shades were tuned in order to make the images clearer. All the information regarding the planets came from public sources like wikipedia.org and the background music was composed by Eric Matyas. Short presentation video

How it works

Once the introductory quote is displayed and the text is converted to spoken words, you may tap anywhere on the screen and main menu of the application will become visible; the Earth and the Moon will start rotating in the middle. Now you may now select the Sun or one of the planets, or start/stop the auto-rotation, the speech and the background music from the appropriate buttons. Also, you can zoom in or zoom out the cosmic scenes, as you like. If there are orientation sensors on your mobile device, a gyroscopic effect will be present all the time, rotating the image according to your moves. Moreover, a tap on the VR mode can offer you a Virtual Reality experience. The current planet (no time limit) or all the planets (30s each) can be selected by pressing the respective radio buttons during the 15-second interval before the VR mode is automatically entered. To exit the VR mode make a long tap anywhere on the screen. A double tap on the screen will toggle the Menu on and off, while Info displays basic information about the currently selected planet.

Here is the introductive words that are spoken when a planet is selected:
0. The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System.
1. Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in the Solar System.
2. Venus is the second planet from the Sun; it is the second-brightest natural object in the night sky after the Moon.
3. Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life.
4. Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System after Mercury.
5. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System.
6. Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter.
7. Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System.
8. Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun in the Solar System.
9. Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond Neptune.

Global features

- special software optimization to lower the power consumption
- simple commands - this app is very easy to use and configure
- zoom in, zoom out, auto-rotate function
- high definition pictures, background music, text to speech
- no ads, no limitations
- VR mode and gyroscopic effect