01Europa · Jupiter II
Breathing Ice
Compare ice echoes, guide a tethered probe through hidden passages and bring back evidence.
Play this expeditionA field guide to your next journey
Explore Jupiter’s moons through play
Four very different moons. Five connected expeditions. Join the crew beneath the giant, from fractured ice to an ocean we can only imagine.
Choose an expedition- Free to play
- No download or account
- Three languages
A good place to begin
Breathing Ice
Begin on Europa. Compare echoes through the ice, choose a passage and guide a tethered probe. Then follow the crew to Io, Ganymede and Callisto before returning to Europa for a fictional ocean expedition.
Play this expedition ↗Beneath the Giant
What will you discover?
Follow the story, or land on the moon that makes you curious.
01
02Io · Jupiter I
Furnace Clock
Read old crust and fresh lava with Mara. Choose a crossing and recover a stranded probe.
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03Ganymede · Jupiter III
Magnetic Cathedral
Leave a reference with Mara, remove local interference and compare the field beneath the aurora.
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04Callisto · Jupiter IV
The Oldest Witness
Walk the impact rings. Read overlapping ridges to find a crossing and uncover a world’s history.
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05Europa · An imagined ocean
The First Reply
Explore the ocean, compare currents and create a refuge. Investigate a quiet, uncertain response.
Play this expeditionSmall journeys. Room for curiosity.
Cosmic Archive is a collection of free, single-player browser adventures. Walk with Mara, Sol and Nia, read the landscape, and use what you notice to find a way forward. Each game has its own destination and a connected story.
Move, observe, try an idea.
Use arrow keys or WASD to move, and Space for the action shown on screen. Touch controls are available in the game. You can explore at your own pace and return to a nearby safe point when a route goes wrong.
Why these four moons?
Europa, Io, Ganymede and Callisto are Jupiter’s four large Galilean moons. Their ice, volcanic activity, magnetic environment and impact records inspire different ways to explore. The final ocean and its inhabitants are fiction, not evidence of life on Europa.
Spacecraft observations inspire the real destinations. The crew, routes, equipment and encounters are fiction; distances and times are compressed. Each expedition separates its scientific background from its imagined adventure. These games are not mission or survival simulators.
NASA · Explore the real observations ↗Before you set out
Are these space games free?
Yes. The expeditions are free to play in your browser, with no download or account. Optional support helps keep the project going.
Do I need to play in order?
You can start with any destination. For the full crew story, begin with Last Seed and follow the next-chapter links. Each collection also has its own sequence of five games.
Will my expedition resume next time?
A new visit starts a fresh expedition. Checkpoints help during the current visit; supported completion records and preferences stay in this browser when local storage is available.
Another way into the universe