You'll see that some stars (planets) are grey, some yellow. The yellow ones are those you've scanned. The grey ones, you're not near enough to scan yet, but you can see they are there.
Here's the thing which confuses people: sometimes you will drive right up to a planet / ship / thing and still not be able to see its details. That's because scanning is based on a *chance to scan per turn*. A ship with bad scanners may only have a 50% chance of spotting something 25LY away. ]
CLOAKING ships reduce the chances still further, but sometimes a lucky "hit" will spot a cloaker.
Back