Star map v4: data, methods and visual assumptions

Built 2026-10-20 by Grok Bot. The file is starmap_v4.html (self-contained, three.js r147). It uses the same 1,267 systems, v3 ranking and findings log as v3. No values were written from memory. Everything below comes from fetched files in raw/ and raw/v4/.

Real data (sourced)

Positions and distances: SIMBAD/Gaia astrometry, the same as v3.
Star colours: blackbody sRGB colour of each component's measured Teff, from Mitchell Charity's "What colour is a blackbody?" 2° table (raw/v4/bbr_color_2deg_subset.txt; 1000–40000 K).
Teff is present for 1,110 of the 1,413 components.
Teff source priority: VizieR (Schweitzer+2019 J/A+A/625/A68, Mann+2015 J/ApJ/804/64, Boyajian+2012 J/ApJ/746/101) > NASA Exoplanet Archive stellarhosts > SIMBAD mesFe_h median > Gaia DR3 astrophysical parameters.
Counts by source: SIMBAD 679, Schweitzer 220, Gaia 80, NASA 59, Mann 46, Boyajian 26.
Components with no Teff are drawn grey.
Planets: 229 confirmed planets from the NASA Exoplanet Archive pscomppars (raw/v4/nasa_pscomp_orbits.csv).
Orbital elements a, e, i and ω, plus period, mass and radius.
Inclination is known for 77 planets. A measured radius exists for 42.
Habitable zone: conservative and optimistic limits from the Kopparapu et al. 2014 Seff fits (the same as v2/v3). Ring radii are √(L/Seff), with L = insolation·a² from the archive.
Disputed/candidate status: from the v3 curated status list and the NASA pl_controv_flag (22 planets, drawn as dashed orange orbits).
Debris disks: 16 disks have a catalogue blackbody dust radius (DUNES "Rdust" text) and are drawn as pink rings. The other disks in the findings log have no radius and are not drawn.
Background sky: Hipparcos (ESA 1997, VizieR I/239) stars with V<6.5 that lie beyond 50 ly or have no parallax.
8,650 stars, coloured from B–V → Teff using the Ballesteros 2012 formula.
Constellation lines: Stellarium "modern" sky culture (index.json; IAU figures as drawn by Stellarium), 219 segments.

Visual assumptions (flagged in the viewer)

Star sizes in the map: point size ∝ L_G^0.25, with M_G,sun = 4.67 assumed. This is an illustrative size, not a real angular size. Brown dwarfs and white dwarfs get fixed small sizes.
Glow: a sprite halo, not physical bloom. There is no post-processing bloom pass.
Milky Way band: a schematic band along galactic b=0 (off by default). It is not a survey image.
System view:
Star and planet radii are exaggerated. The factor is shown in the system bar.
Planet colour is neutral grey: "artist's colour — unknown".
Planet size uses the measured radius where it exists. Otherwise it uses the archive's mass–radius estimate, which is flagged.
Orbit orientation:
Ω (longitude of node) is unknown for these planets and is set to 0.
A missing inclination is drawn face-on (i=0).
A missing ω is set to 0.
A missing e is set to 0.
Companions: placed at their projected sky-plane separation, computed from SIMBAD coordinates and distance. This is not the true 3D or WDS orbital separation, so true separations are ≥ the projected value.
Orbital phase: the animation starts at an arbitrary epoch (t=0 at periastron). It is not the planets' real current positions.

Limits

Teff is missing for 303 components.
152 planets lack inclination.
Only 16 disk radii are available, and they are blackbody estimates; real disks are often larger.
The Mitchell Charity table was transcribed from a fetched page (the box download timed out).
Headless screenshots use a test copy of the viewer with instant camera flights. The shipped file has smooth flights.
Deep link: starmap_v4.html#sys=<name> opens a system view directly.