Target-Earth for Windows
About Target-Earth
A local astronomy visualization by Jost Jahn, published under the Amrum Software project name.
Purpose
Target-Earth turns time-tagged small-body and observatory data into a visual record of the final approach to Earth. It is designed to keep coordinate frames, time, source provenance and uncertainty visible instead of replacing missing precision with plausible-looking animation.
Technical basis
The application uses a Canvas 2D renderer for the object view and WebGL for free 3D/stereo. Object, Earth and Sun are evaluated at one UTC epoch. States with positions and velocities use Hermite interpolation only inside coherent segments. Earth orientation and solar illumination are derived for the same epoch. Frames are composed offscreen and presented atomically.
Sources
Primary data come from MPC, NASA/JPL CNEOS and ESA NEOCC. OpenStreetMap/Nominatim supplies map and nearest-place context. NASA Blue Marble supplies the Earth texture. The local application retains retrieval times and SHA-256 provenance.