Aster Studio: apps that make science interactive, accessible, and joyful

Aster Studio

The apps

Four are out in the world.

  • HiveLab

    A honeybee colony, simulated

    An interactive simulation of a honeybee colony across a full year of its life. The seasons turn, the colony answers each one, and the reasoning is there to follow.

    App Store Website

  • Gramigo

    Nutrition, from a photograph

    A social nutrition companion that makes eating well simple, engaging, and sustainable. A photograph is enough to know what is in a meal, and keep the habit light.

    App Store Website

  • Even

    Stress, measured and eased

    A stress tracker that reads one score each morning from the sleep, body, and activity an iPhone records. Under it are sessions for that state, each one measured.

    App Store Website

  • Orrery

    The solar system, set in motion

    A solar system computed from the mathematics of planetary motion, so orbits and alignments unfold as they do overhead. It reaches past sight, into sound and touch.

    App Store Website

Three more are in development. They are the unnamed lights in the house above.

Recognition

Featured by the App Store editors.

  • Orrery Best New Apps Apps with VoiceOver New Discoveries

The studio

Science you can pick up
and turn over in your hands.

Aster Studio builds thoughtful, science-grounded, and beautifully crafted software that helps people learn and live better. Every app begins with a real question about the natural world, and becomes something you can hold, explore, and return to.

Making science interactive, accessible, and joyful.

  • Science

    Every app is grounded in the real phenomenon, and checked against the research that describes it.

  • Craftsmanship

    Deep expertise meets patience for the smallest details.

  • Clarity

    The apps are rich and comprehensive, arranged so the depth never gets in the way.

  • Privacy

    Each feature collects only the data it genuinely needs, and nothing beyond that.

Van Ngo, founder of Aster Studio
Van Ngo Founder and CEO

From the founder

I build the apps I wanted to exist.

I work in AI and machine learning as a product manager and researcher. Aster Studio began as the thing I kept making on evenings and weekends: small, precise apps about the parts of science that made me curious in the first place.

Part of why these apps exist is where I began. I grew up without much access to science education: curiosity was easy to come by, but answers were not, and no one around me could put a name to the things I wondered about. A gap like that does not close on its own, and I remember what it felt like to stand inside it. It is why I believe that when people come to care about science from a young age, all of society is better for it.

Nature is beautiful long before anyone explains it, and the science that explains it is beautiful too. Most of us simply never get close enough to see either one properly. Every app here exists to close that distance.