Earth & Space · Interactive
The Solar System
Watch the eight planets orbit the Sun. They start roughly where they really are today. Tap a planet to find out about it.
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Not to scale
Each second in the simulation =
Space play/pause · ← → change planet
Compare the planets
Why it's not to scale
Space is mostly empty. If Earth were a 1 cm marble, the Sun would be about 109 cm across and 117 m away, and Neptune would be about 3.5 km from the Sun. A true-scale picture would show tiny dots and lots of nothing, so the planets here are drawn bigger and closer together. In the Inner planets view, distances from the Sun are to scale (sizes still aren't).