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It’s been one hell of a weird year here on planet earth. We’re sure that you’d have taken one giant leap at the chance to blast off and leave London behind – using your Oyster card to tap in before embarking on a commute around a totally different galaxy.
No, we’re not here to tell you that Elon Musk has made that possible... yet. However, the Royal Observatory Greenwich has imagined what that kind of journey might look like on its ‘Night Sky Tube Map’.
In celebration of Nasa’s Mars 2020 mission, the clever astronomers from team ROG have reimagined all 11 tube lines on our humble travel map, naming a whopping 400 stations after stars, galaxies, spacecraft and observatories around the world.
Nebulae populate the Jubilee line, making Bermondsey station the ‘Tarantula’. You can imagine alighting at stations named after comets on the Hammersmith & City line – Royal Oak has become ‘Halley’ and Wood Lane ‘Hale-Bopp’. The Central line was an obvious choice for astrophysics, with West Ruislip (undoubtedly, where life as we know it began) now coined ‘The Big Bang’.
There are 100 limited-edition prints of the map available (in two versions, with either a blue or white background) from the Royal Observatory’s online shop, priced at £10 for white and £75 for blue. All money raised from sales of the map will go towards supporting the museum and London’s transport network.
The map will act as a mighty fine form of escapism on that bare wall you've been gazing at for the last four-ish months.
More into pints than astronomy? Find out where you can get the cheapest jars at each London tube station.
Want to see some more celestial sights? Here are nine super spots for stargazing in London.