Only two designers who care about realism are Chris Roberts and lead physics programmer. Rest of the folks are typical LA hipsters who just want their game to look cool. Luckily, Roberts is in charge and physics dude has his full support which the reason they are still tweaking game physics that is properly modeled instead of going easy route, with pre-calculated values.
But when it comes to current maps they are work of a person who loves lens flares and similar effects. Maybe newly appointed lead designer for persistent universe will change that.
If you want proper universe with actual scale of celestial bodies, Elite Dangerous is the only game in town. And SpaceEngine, but that isn't a game.