Solar system

CURRENT TIMECalculated positions · current clock or selected date

Date and time (UT / UTC)

Timeline range

Move through time

Preparing the timeline.

View Distances Find objectParentObjectEnlargement

Orbit guidesEnlarge bodiesBelt samples

Preparing model

Focus: Sun / systemDrag to pan · scroll at the pointer to zoomShift-drag to rotate · two fingers to pan · F to center · 0 for full systemCatalog stars · NASA Milky Way · representative belt samples

Selected object

Earth

Distances compressed · bodies enlarged

Position coverage Checking position coverage

Position coverage is separate from adopted radius and body orientation. Their limitations remain in the selected-object details.

Coordinates, sources and visual fidelity

Selected position
Reference	Sun-centered · J2000 ecliptic · geometric position
Body orientation
Source now
Expanded moon dates	Pluto and all five moons, eight inner Jupiter moons, and both Mars moons use original NASA family coefficients within their supported dates. Position coverage lists the exact adopted bounds. Larger windows prepare as needed; other moons retain their shorter coverage. Missing or loading positions are hidden rather than held at an old time.
Positions	Now follows the current clock using checked dated NASA caches. Date edits or Show date pause at the chosen instant. The timeline centers on today with ±1, ±10, ±100 and ±1,000-year ranges. After the selected range loads, scrubbing evaluates NASA coefficients continuously in the browser. Larger ranges require more data. All loaded objects follow their dated caches, with unavailable objects hidden. The date service evaluates downloadable NASA DE441 ephemeris coefficients; it does not call NASA web APIs from the website. Positions are geometric predictions, not observations or telemetry.
Position coverage	Date selector: October 2, 526 – October 2, 8026, using a proleptic Gregorian calendar. Sun, Earth, Moon, Mercury and Venus plus the other planetary system centers span the full range. Packaged moon, small-body and spacecraft positions generally cover September 2026 through January 2030. Objects outside packaged coverage are hidden and remain searchable; this does not imply NASA has no other data.
Outside coverage	Selected dates use NASA DE441 SPK coefficients, or the existing checked NASA cache for an individual body, in J2000 ecliptic / ICRF, AU and AU/day. Where individual planet centers are unavailable, the model labels planetary-system barycenters. Time is NASA UT: UT1 before 1962, UTC afterward. Historical UT1 conversion is an estimate; future unknown leap seconds are held at the last known value. Long-term predictions do not imply uniform observational accuracy. Stellar background positions are fixed to their catalogue epoch. Failed date requests retain the previously displayed date.
Scale	Compressed distances preserve direction from the Sun and distort distances between objects. True scale preserves actual relative spacing. Planets, moons and small worlds share one enlargement factor. The slider shows the available range up to the clear-separation limit for the current view. The enlarged Sun has a separate display size, twice Jupiter’s displayed radius; enlarged Sun/planet ratios are illustrative. Disable enlargement to use the adopted natural radii and NASA spacecraft component dimensions. Neither mode changes predicted coordinates.
Orbit guides	Approximate instantaneous ellipses; spacecraft show a 240-day segment. Earth and Moon view uses true distances.

Body axes and rotation

Supported body poles and rotation phases use NASA NAIF / IAU orientation models, transformed into the same J2000 ecliptic frame as the positions. Earth uses ITRF93 orientation and polar motion through December 27, 2026, then an explicitly approximate IAU fallback. The Moon uses DE440 mean-Earth/polar-axis orientation and libration through January 1, 2030. UTC is converted to TDB using the published leap-second table. These are dated predictions; future leap seconds and updated Earth orientation require a data update.

Saturn’s rings follow its equatorial plane in both renderers. Unknown poles are identified in the selected-object details. Textures are reusable illustrations, with approximate longitude registration; cloud patterns, solar features and spacecraft attitudes are not current observations. Gas-giant rotation uses the adopted reference system rather than tracking individual clouds.

Sky orientation

J2000 ecliptic axes. The Galactic plane is tilted 60.1886° relative to the ecliptic, from the ESA Galactic pole definition. Sky sources use J2000 equatorial coordinates, rotated by the 23.4392911° obliquity.

ESA Galactic coordinate definition. These reference buttons align the camera to the source directions; the sky remains fixed as you translate or zoom.

Catalogue and size sources

465 recognized satellites, checked October 1, 2026. Search names, provisional designations and aliases; choose a parent to explore its satellites. Moons appear in parent views or when selected. Entries without verified positions remain searchable; unknown radii have no invented surface. Catalogue and sources · Adopted radii, uncertainties and component dimensions · Position coverage and sampled errors.

3D appearance

Sunlight follows each world’s calculated position, with day and night shading, cloud shadows on Earth and shadows between Saturn and its rings. Earth has a thin atmospheric limb and restrained ocean reflections. Brightness is adjusted for visibility; this is not a calibrated photograph or an eclipse prediction tool.

The Moon uses NASA’s LRO color and elevation maps: December 2025 reference color and measured LOLA terrain from 2009–2016. Terrain changes the lighting at its actual slope strength; the outline remains a mean-radius sphere. The color product includes NASA’s aesthetic processing and filled polar coverage.

Cloud patterns and ocean reflections are representative imagery, not weather reconstructed for the displayed date. Earth’s nominal cloud layer is 8 km high; the atmospheric glow is an approximation. Ring colors, transparency and fine radial structure are illustrative, with approximate shadow attenuation. Ring-plane shadows are withheld when Saturn’s dated pole is unknown. All position, orientation and size limitations still apply.

Surface imagery

Planetary maps by Solar System Scope, used under CC BY 4.0. Maps combine NASA data with color adjustments and reconstructed gaps; they are visual reference maps, not current photographs.

Body orientation models are used only from 1972 through 2100 as a conservative display limit; physical accuracy remains body-dependent. Outside that interval axes and spin phases are unknown, and surfaces use a neutral display orientation. Small bodies use spheres with documented mean or estimated radii; Voyager structures use approximate NASA component dimensions; assembly details and attitude are illustrative. Main-belt and Kuiper-belt sample points represent sparse populations, with enhanced visibility and synthetic orbital phases; they are not an exact census or measured individual positions.

Sky: 8,920 bright Milky Way foreground stars from HYG Database v4.1, David Nash / Astronexus, selected and converted to J2000 coordinates under CC BY-SA 4.0 (derived catalogue; license). The diffuse background is from NASA/Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio, Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, converted to sRGB at 2048 pixels. Its original faint sky includes Magellanic Cloud sources; no additional galaxy layer is rendered. Both sky layers are aligned to J2000 ecliptic directions. Brightness, color mapping and exposure are illustrative; proper motion and Solar System parallax are not simulated.

Population regions follow NASA descriptions of the sparse main asteroid belt and Kuiper belt. Belt grains show representative distributions and approximate resonance gaps, not actual objects or physical point sizes.

Illustrative Voyager geometry follows NASA’s spacecraft description.

Orbital data: NASA JPL Horizons. Fallback: Astronomy Engine. Graphics: Three.js.