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Solar System Orrery

A working model of the solar system, driven by real ephemeris.

About this scene

The Sun through Pluto move according to real ephemeris (astronomy-engine), not a canned animation. Scrub time forward or back and every body follows its actual orbital motion.

Body sizes are exaggerated by default for legibility — this is not to scale. At true scale, every body in the solar system would be a point far smaller than a coin held 1 AU away (the Earth–Sun distance, about 150 million km).

The dwarf planets (Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, Eris), nine comets and the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS are propagated as two-body orbits from JPL Small-Body Database elements. Those elements are a fit to one particular time, so the further the date is from their epoch (the HUD's "element epoch" line), the further the body drifts from where it really was — Halley's set, for instance, is from 1968.

Ephemeris: astronomy-engine / Orbital elements: JPL Small-Body Database / Textures: Solar System Scope (CC BY 4.0; the dwarf-planet maps are artist impressions)

Full credits
Orbital elements (dwarf planets, comets, interstellar)
JPL Small-Body Database (ssd-api.jpl.nasa.gov)