Explore the Cosmos with the Wolfram Planets and Stars Reference Apps

The next time you go stargazing, bring the power of computation along with the Wolfram Planets Reference App and Wolfram Stars Reference App for iOS. Both apps provide access to real-time data and the computational power of Wolfram|Alpha in order to perform advanced calculations and provide data on the planets and stars.

Exploring all of the planets in our solar system is easy with the Wolfram Planets Reference App. Using real-time data on the eight major planets, as well as dwarf planets and minor planets, the app can: compute a planet’s orbital properties, including orbital period and distance from the Earth and Sun; provide physical properties like radius, rotation period, and number of moons; and show information about a planet’s atmosphere, including atmospheric pressure, average temperature, and major constituents.

Impress your friends by finding out which planets are visible from your current—or from any—location, then perform advanced physical astronomy computations using stationary orbits, escape velocity, and Kepler’s third law like it’s no big deal, all from the same app!

It’s impossible to count all of the stars, but with the Wolfram Stars Reference App, you’ll have access to real-time data on over 100,000 of them. For easy browsing, stars are sorted into groups such as the Northern or Southern Sky stars; brightest stars; nearest stars; and giant, supergiant, and main sequence stars. The app also allows you to enter any star name to get information and to examine and compare properties for each star, such as its magnitude, spectral class, temperature, mass, lifetime, and distance from Earth.

Using the power of Wolfram|Alpha, compute a star’s current sky position from your location, find out whether it is visible, learn the times of the star’s next rise and set, and perform advanced astronomical calculations using the Stefan-Boltzmann law, Wien’s displacement law, blackbody luminosity, and mass-luminosity relationship.

Both the Wolfram Planets Reference App and Wolfram Stars Reference App can be found on the iTunes App Store for $0.99.