Map of the Universe

Places on the Map of the Universe

348 places, 21 scales and 3 guided tours

Open the map →

The map holds 2,336,347 objects, 36,152 of them with their own card. These pages cover the best-known ones; every page links straight to the object on the map.

Scales, from Earth outwards

  1. Earth and Moon 0.008 AU
  2. Inner planets 4 AU
  3. Jupiter's orbit 14 AU
  4. Neptune and the Kuiper belt 110 AU
  5. Heliopause and Voyagers 400 AU
  6. Oort cloud 4 light-years
  7. Nearest stars 24 light-years
  8. 100 light-years 220 light-years
  9. 1,000 light-years 2,400 light-years
  10. Local Arm 12,000 light-years
  11. Galactic centre 13,000 light-years
  12. Milky Way 160,000 light-years
  13. Magellanic Clouds 520,000 light-years
  14. Satellite galaxies 2 million light-years
  15. Local Group 10 million light-years
  16. Council of Giants 36 million light-years
  17. Virgo Supercluster 230 million light-years
  18. Laniakea 850 million light-years
  19. Nearby superclusters 2.3 billion light-years
  20. Cosmic web 11 billion light-years
  21. Observable universe 100 billion light-years

Guided tours

Solar System

Sun, planets and moons

Asteroids, comets and interstellar visitors

Spacecraft

Regions, structures and cosmic epochs

Stellar neighbourhood

Stars

Star clusters

Nebulae and star birth

Pulsars, neutron stars and black holes

Regions, structures and cosmic epochs

Milky Way

Star clusters

Galaxies

Galaxy groups, clusters and superclusters

Regions, structures and cosmic epochs

Universe

Stars

Galaxies

Galaxy groups, clusters and superclusters

Walls, voids and the cosmic web

Quasars and cosmic explosions

Regions, structures and cosmic epochs

Data and credits

The map is built from these public catalogues and archives:

  • Gaia DR3 and the Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars: ~800,000 sampled stars across the Galaxy and ~310,000 stars within 100 pc. ESA/Gaia/DPAC; Gaia Collaboration, Vallenari et al. 2023 (DR3) and Smart et al. 2021 (GCNS). Licence: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.
  • Hunt & Reffert 2024 open cluster census: ~4,300 open clusters with distances, ages and masses. Hunt, E. L. & Reffert, S. 2024, A&A 686, A42. Licence: Free for research use (VizieR J/A+A/686/A42).
  • Local Volume Database v1.1.1: milky Way globular clusters, satellite galaxies and the Magellanic Clouds. Pace, A. B. 2025 (doi:10.5281/zenodo.14076714). Licence: CC0.
  • ATNF Pulsar Catalogue v2.9.0: ~4,100 pulsars with distances. Manchester, R. N. et al. 2005, AJ 129, 1993. Licence: Free with citation.
  • Reid et al. 2019 maser parallaxes: spiral arm model and ~200 star-forming regions. Reid, M. J. et al. 2019, ApJ 885, 131. Licence: Free with citation.
  • WISE catalog of Galactic H II regions: ~800 H II regions with resolved distances. Anderson, L. D. et al. 2014, ApJS 212, 1. Licence: Free with citation.
  • NASA Exoplanet Archive: planets of ~4,800 host stars. This research has made use of the NASA Exoplanet Archive, operated by Caltech under contract with NASA. Licence: Public (NASA); acknowledgement requested.
  • Cosmicflows-4: redshift-independent distances for ~55,000 galaxies. Tully, R. B. et al. 2023, ApJ 944, 94. Licence: Free with citation (VizieR J/ApJ/944/94).
  • Updated Nearby Galaxy Catalog: galaxies of the Local Volume (within ~11 Mpc). Karachentsev, I. D., Makarov, D. I. & Kaisina, E. I. 2013, AJ 145, 101. Licence: Free with citation (VizieR J/AJ/145/101).
  • 2MASS Redshift Survey and 6dF Galaxy Survey: all-sky and southern galaxy redshifts for the local universe. Huchra, J. P. et al. 2012, ApJS 199, 26; Jones, D. H. et al. 2009, MNRAS 399, 683. Licence: Free with citation.
  • Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR17: A sample of ~320,000 galaxy and ~180,000 quasar redshifts (the cosmic web out to billions of light-years). Funding for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, and the Participating Institutions. SDSS-IV acknowledges support and resources from the Center for High Performance Computing at the University of Utah. The SDSS website is www.sdss4.org. SDSS-IV is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS Collaboration including the Brazilian Participation Group, the Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, the Chilean Participation Group, the French Participation Group, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, The Johns Hopkins University, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) / University of Tokyo, the Korean Participation Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Leibniz Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA Heidelberg), Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik (MPA Garching), Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE), National Astronomical Observatories of China, New Mexico State University, New York University, University of Notre Dame, Observatário Nacional / MCTI, The Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, United Kingdom Participation Group, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, University of Arizona, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Oxford, University of Portsmouth, University of Utah, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Vanderbilt University, and Yale University.. Licence: Public; acknowledgement requested.
  • DESI Data Release 1: A sample of ~380,000 galaxy and quasar redshifts from the large-scale-structure catalogues. This research used data obtained with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). DESI construction and operations is managed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High-Energy Physics, under Contract No. DE–AC02–05CH11231, and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility under the same contract. Additional support for DESI was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Astronomical Sciences under Contract No. AST-0950945 to the NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory; the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the National Council of Humanities, Science and Technology of Mexico (CONAHCYT); the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (MICINN), and by the DESI Member Institutions: www.desi.lbl.gov/collaborating-institutions. The DESI collaboration is honored to be permitted to conduct scientific research on I’oligam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O’odham Nation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, or any of the listed funding agencies.. Licence: CC BY 4.0.
  • DESIVAST DR1 void catalogue: ~3,800 cosmic voids (VoidFinder) from the DESI DR1 Bright Galaxy Survey, to z = 0.24. Rincon, H. et al. 2025, DESIVAST: Catalogs of Low-redshift Voids Using Data from the DESI Data Release 1 Bright Galaxy Survey. This research used data obtained with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). DESI construction and operations is managed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High-Energy Physics, under Contract No. DE–AC02–05CH11231, and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility under the same contract. Additional support for DESI was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Astronomical Sciences under Contract No. AST-0950945 to the NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory; the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the National Council of Humanities, Science and Technology of Mexico (CONAHCYT); the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (MICINN), and by the DESI Member Institutions: www.desi.lbl.gov/collaborating-institutions. The DESI collaboration is honored to be permitted to conduct scientific research on I’oligam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O’odham Nation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, or any of the listed funding agencies.. Licence: CC BY 4.0.
  • VAST void catalogues for SDSS DR7: cosmic voids (VoidFinder) from the SDSS DR7 main galaxy sample, where DESI has none. Douglass, K. A., Veyrat, D. & BenZvi, S. 2023, ApJS 265, 7 (Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.11043278). Licence: CC BY 4.0.
  • MCXC galaxy cluster catalogue: ~1,700 X-ray galaxy clusters with masses. Piffaretti, R. et al. 2011, A&A 534, A109. Licence: Free with citation (VizieR J/A+A/534/A109).
  • WMAP 9-year ILC map: temperature ripples on the cosmic microwave background ring. NASA/WMAP Science Team. Licence: Public domain (NASA).
  • Planck 2018 cosmological parameters: converting redshift to distance and lookback time (via astropy Planck18). Planck Collaboration 2020, A&A 641, A6; Astropy Collaboration. Licence: Free with citation.
  • Milky Way artist's concept (PIA10748): face-on backdrop of the Galaxy. NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech). Licence: Public domain (NASA).
  • JPL Horizons: positions and orbits of planets, moons, dwarf planets, notable small bodies and spacecraft at the epoch. Solar System Dynamics Group, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Licence: Public domain (NASA/JPL).
  • JPL Small-Body Database: orbital elements and sizes of ~16,000 asteroids and trans-Neptunian objects and ~1,800 comets. NASA/JPL SBDB; orbits include data and/or services provided by the IAU Minor Planet Center. Licence: Public domain (NASA/JPL).
  • HYG Database v4.4: ~109,000 stars within 5,000 pc: positions, magnitudes, spectral types, names. David Nash, astronexus (HYG incorporates Hipparcos, Yale Bright Star, Gliese and Gaia-derived data). Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
  • NASA Planetary Fact Sheets: planet masses, day lengths and temperatures. NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Licence: Public domain (NASA).
  • Wikipedia: short descriptions in object cards. Wikipedia contributors (each card links its article). Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
  • Wikimedia Commons: object thumbnails (free licences only; author and licence shown on each card). Individual authors, see each card. Licence: Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA).