Awesome Exploration

In this upcoming PC game from the creator of Art of Rally, you’ll drive rugged off-road vehicles into a vast wilderness. You’ll experience beautiful scenes inspired by real-world locales. The game’s dynamics will include weather simulation, day and night driving, and the ability to outfit your 4×4 with all the necessary gear. Add it to your Steam wishlist.

The ESA’s Euclid mission was designed to explore and map the dark universe observing galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away. This video teases the first images captured by the probe, combined into a 208-megapixel mosaic that retains detail even when zoomed 600x. Incredibly, this represents just 1% of the total area the mission aims to document.

When it comes to video games, it’s easy to go from fun to frustration as timers tick down and difficulty levels ramp up. Caravan SandWitch promises none of that. The game encourages players to go at their own pace as they explore on foot or in their van to help find their missing sister. Coming to Steam, Epic, PS5, and Nintendo Switch this year.

Solo developer Dan Govier is promising both scale and detail in this ambitious sandbox game. He claims that he’s designing the spaceships as if they were real-world naval vessels, including having full wiring and plumbing. To top it off, the game is set in a 1:1 scale adaptation of the Milky Way, filled with other systems and life forms. A demo is out now on Steam.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can easily get lost in the woods. Serious explorers know how to navigate with as little as the sun, stars, or wind. Still, it’s possible for even the greatest explorers to become lost and never found again, as Erin at Mental Floss explains.

To explore the ends of the earth in comfort and style, Viking sets a new standard for expedition ships with the launch of the Viking Octantis. The star of Viking’s first Antarctic season of expedition voyages is luxuriously appointed, equipped with science labs, and built to take on weather extremes.

With a depth of 36,070 feet, the Mariana Trench is the deepest known point in the Earth’s oceans. Bright Side explains what you might experience if you descended all the way to the bottom and what equipment upgrades you’d need as you went lower and lower.

We’re a long way from reaching the limits of space exploration. But scientists say there is a finite limit to how far future generations of humans will be able to go. Kurzgesagt explains just how much universe there is, and why so much of it is permanently out of our reach.

Australian indie developer Samurai Punk created this relaxing game in which you assume the role of a bird, and fly around a vast island. As you explore and take in the colorful scenery, the weather and time of day gradually change, accompanied by a soothing ambient soundtrack. Available now on PS4, Switch, PC, and Xbox One.

While we’re as excited about space exploration as anyone, adventurers and scientists continue to make discoveries right here on Earth. TheHUB looks at some of these remote and elusive locations, along with the unusual organisms and ecosystems that thrive in them.