customcommercial ?Credit: Requiredverified 29d agoGo to source
Full-sky star map built from 1.7 billion stars (Hipparcos-2, Tycho-2, Gaia DR2), supplied as linear half-float OpenEXR in plate carree projection from 4k up to 64k wide. A strong source for a space skybox. Marked needs-review: the page states credits but no licence of its own, and the data blends NASA output with ESA Gaia data and Sky and Telescope constellation figures.
Celestial (ICRF/J2000 RA and Dec) and galactic mappings are both offered; celestial is better for 3D, per the page. Boundary, figure and grid overlays are grayscale TIFF.
Equirectangular, so it maps straight onto a sphere or skybox cube in most engines. Distortion near the poles is a projection effect, not galaxies.
The 64k EXR is 3.8 GB; the 4k is 34 MB. Convert to a compressed cubemap for shipping.
The page's credit line asks for NASA/Goddard SVS and for Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC. Constellation figures are credited to IAU / Alan MacRobert of Sky and Telescope; omit those overlays if you cannot clear them.
NASA's media guidelines say NASA should be acknowledged and that content must not imply endorsement. See also NASA 3D Resources.
Evidence
SVS page (2026-10-04): "Please give credit for this item to: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio."
Same page (2026-10-04): "Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC"
NASA media guidelines (2026-10-04): "NASA should be acknowledged as the source of the material."
Same guidelines: "may be used without needing explicit permission" when used factually without implying endorsement. The SVS page has no per-item licence statement, so commercial status is unconfirmed here.