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Celestia refers to two distinct entities: a modular blockchain network that raised $55 million and a long-standing open-source 3D astronomy program.
The term "Celestia" refers to two separate technologies: a modular blockchain network that recently secured significant funding and a long-running open-source astronomy program [1, 2]. While the software enables users to simulate space travel and explore celestial objects, the blockchain project focuses on providing data availability layers for decentralized networks [1, 2].
Key takeaways
Celestia Labs announced a $55 million funding round led by Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital to develop its modular blockchain network [2]. The round, which combined Series A and Series B investments, included participation from Coinbase Ventures, Jump Crypto, FTX Ventures, Placeholder, Galaxy, and Delphi Digital [2]. The company claims its architecture addresses scaling challenges inherent in established "monolithic" Layer 1 blockchains like Ethereum and Solana [2]. By stripping down its own layer-1 to focus solely on ordering transactions and ensuring data availability, Celestia allows other blockchains to handle execution and computations [2]. Co-founder Mustafa Al-Bassam stated that modular blockchains will define the next decade of Web3 innovation, arguing that the current ecosystem is bottlenecked by platforms sacrificing decentralization for lower fees [2]. Several projects, including Eclipse, Constellation, and dYmension, have chosen Celestia as their data availability layer [2].
In a different context, Celestia is a real-time 3D astronomy software program created in 2001 by Chris Laurel [1]. The free and open-source software, released under the GNU General Public License, allows users to virtually travel through the universe and explore cataloged celestial objects using OpenGL [1]. It is available on a wide range of platforms, including Linux, macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android, and had been downloaded approximately 12 million times from SourceForge between 2001 and May 2017 [1]. Although development initially stopped in 2013, it restarted under a new team in 2016, with beta builds of version 1.7.0 available as of 2018 [1]. The software displays stars from the Hipparcos and Tycho-2 catalogues, with version 1.7.0 incorporating Gaia data to increase the star count to over 2 million [1]. However, the program has limitations, such as the inability to simulate gravity, fixed galaxy locations, and the exclusion of variable stars and black holes from the standard distribution [1].
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Yes, Celestia was ported to mobile devices in 2020 and is available for iOS and Android.
Yes, Celestia can be extended with new objects and has support for third-party, user-created add-ons available for installation.
Yes, Celestia serves as a planetarium, showing accurate positions of solar system objects in the sky, and can be used as a planetarium for an observer on any celestial object.
For the blockchain sector, Celestia's approach aims to provide a scalable infrastructure where developers can launch their own blockchains with reduced technical complexity and cost, offering benefits such as shared security and sovereignty of choice [2]. For the scientific and educational communities, the Celestia software offers a tool for visualizing the cosmos, supported by a community that continues to develop ports for new devices like mobile platforms and Apple Vision Pro [1]. Both projects represent ongoing efforts to expand their respective fields, one through decentralized data layers and the other through open-source space simulation [1, 2].
Yes, Celestia is free and open-source software released under the GNU General Public License.
Celestia's development stopped in 2013, but it was revived in 2016 and has since received updates, including the addition of new features and support for mobile devices.