Meteorium — Meteor Dust Trails
Perseid dust trails in 3D
Free
Version 1.1: the Leonid forecasts for 2030-2035 ship with the app, the published 1998-2009 datasets load straight in, and the ground view reaches a ZHR 100000 storm sky.
Meteorium is an astronomy app that scientifically visualises the "dust
trails" — the ribbons of comet dust that give rise to meteor showers.
It shows 60,000 dust grains released by comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, the
parent of the Perseid meteor shower, over its eight perihelion returns
from 1079 to 1992. Each grain is ejected from the comet's nucleus
around perihelion and followed by full orbital integration including
planetary gravity and solar radiation pressure, then rendered in 3D
against NASA's all-sky star maps. The comet's position at the moment of
ejection is anchored to the JPL Horizons ephemeris, which uses an orbit
solution fitted to the observations of each historical apparition.
Features:
• 3D dust trails coloured by ejection year
• Multiple viewpoints (ecliptic north/south, latitude sweep, Sun,
ground, comet) plus a free view that tours the highlights every 10 s
• Run time forward/backward at 10-10,000x to watch the trails evolve
• Realistic Milky Way (NASA Deep Star Maps 2020), constellation lines
and names, planets
• Japanese / English
Why do meteor showers return on the same dates every year? How does
comet dust spread through the solar system? Meteorium shows you the
three-dimensional structure and its evolution over time — and from the
ground view you can simply enjoy the meteor shower itself.
The app works fully offline, with no data collection and no ads.
A Pro edition — theory computation for every shower, worldwide
observation databases, ZHR outburst forecasts, dust-trail
cross-sections, recording and image export — is in preparation.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
This release opens the paper's own results inside the app.
- The Leonid forecasts for 2030-2035 now ship with the app. Each year is computed from a dataset matched to that encounter's epoch, exactly as in the manuscript submitted to Icarus.
- "Fetch published data..." has been added to the Model calculation menu. The epoch-matched datasets published with the paper - 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2009 - load straight into the app, and choosing one sets the forecast year for you.
- The ground view now lets the meteor rate be set to ZHR 100 / 1000 / 5000 / 10000 / 100000, so a storm sky like 1999 can be reproduced.
- The viewpoint menu on the bottom bar shows which viewpoint is in effect.
- Dataset names are written consistently (epoch and grain count).
All computation and rendering still happen on your device. The app goes online only when you choose to fetch the published datasets. No accounts, no purchases, no ads.
The developer, Shinsuke Abe, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Shinsuke Abe
- Size
- 31.3 MB
- Category
- Education
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.6 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.6 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 17.6 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 15.6 or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.3 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Shinsuke Abe a.k.a. Avell