The Solar System

Atlas of Space

Positions are computed live in your browser: planets from JPL Keplerian elements, the Moon from the Astronomical Almanac series, asteroids and comets from the JPL Small-Body Database, satellites from CelesTrak TLEs propagated with SGP4. Planet orientations follow the IAU rotation models, so Saturn's ring tilt, Earth's day/night line and eclipses match the real sky (approximately).

Exploration scale enlarges bodies ×40 (Sun ×5) while keeping true distances; moons keep their true distance in parent radii so eclipses stay correct.

Earth surface: NASA Earth Observatory Blue Marble Next Generation (R. Stöckli), one mosaic per month. Other planet textures © Solar System Scope (CC BY 4.0), based on NASA data. Moon, dwarf-planet and Vesta maps: Steve Albers and Björn Jónsson (non-commercial use), from NASA Galileo, Cassini, Voyager, New Horizons and Dawn imagery. Close-up surfaces are streamed: Earth from EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2020 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Vesta and Ceres from NASA Trek, with 3D terrain from LOLA, MOLA, MESSENGER/USGS and Dawn/DLR elevation models; Vesta and Ceres are drawn in their measured shapes. Live clouds: EUMETSAT/NOAA infrared composite via clouds.matteason.co.uk (every 3 h). Live Sun: NASA SDO/HMI images via NOAA SWPC. ISS and Hubble 3D models: NASA 3D Resources. Earth normal/specular maps from three.js examples. Stars: Yale Bright Star Catalogue; 3D star positions from the HYG database v4.1 (Hipparcos/Yale/Gliese, CC BY-SA 4.0). Exoplanets: NASA Exoplanet Archive (Planetary Systems Composite). The Milky Way and Andromeda are illustrative particle models built on measured structure; stars, nebulae, black holes and exoplanet hosts are placed at their catalogued positions. Orbital data: NASA JPL. TLE: CelesTrak.

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