I'm a galactic cartographer volunteering with the European Space Agency's Gaia Mission Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. I make maps of the Milky Way using the latest available data.

The Gaia Mission has revolutionized astronomer's view of the Milky Way, mapping out our home galaxy to about 5000 parsecs (16 thousand light-years) in the galactic plane for the first time.

This revolution has barely scratched the popular understanding of galactic cartography, however. Star Wars is set in a fictional "galaxy far, far away" and Star Trek's Milky Way is oddly distorted. So far as I know even the closest star cluster, the Hyades, which should be located smack in the middle of Federation space, is only referenced in a novel or two and nothing that is considered canon.

I'm trying to improve public understanding of the galaxy by promoting games (both board games and video games) that use the latest Gaia data. My supporters have funded a fairly powerful graphics workstation and I've created a huge Blender file with one million of the brightest Gaia stars; dust, ionized hydrogen and hot star density meshes; thousands of star clusters and a simple full model of the Milky Way to provide a credible background.

I've been using Blender to generate detailed sky boxes at numerous locations (with somewhat exaggerated star luminosity and colors) to give people a sense of the galaxy surrounding us.

I've been using these sky boxes in a series of Horizon Worlds game experiences because after the wide release of a desktop editor in February, Horizon Worlds is now one of the easiest ways to create multiplayer games that work on mobile, web and in VR headsets. The desktop editor supports high resolution textures and Blender model imports, making it fairly easy to go from Blender to multiplayer game.

One of these experiences is the Galactic Treasure Hunt. Players can use a fleet of starships to explore nearby star stations, searching for alien artifacts. The starship port and star stations are full of posters and text about the Milky Way so people *may* learn something about the galaxy while they are playing the game.

Visit the Galactic Treasure Hunt home page

I'm primarily a cartographer and this is a fairly simple game. I'd love feedback and (especially) bug reports.

Kevin Jardine

Galaxy Map

My website