Solar System Map
Explore where Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are around the Sun. Move through time, compare planet distances from Earth, and see why the planets visible tonight change as Earth travels through its orbit.
Explore Earth’s orbit around the Sun, including seasonal events and its changing distance.
Move through time to watch the planets change position around the Sun.
Compare the orbital speeds of all eight planets and explore why a planet speeds up near the Sun. Orbital speed describes travel around the Sun, separate from axial rotation or distance from Earth.
Click a planet on the map to open its detail card and inspect distance and orbit details.
Closest approach
Search around the selected moment. Results use the same local orbital model as the map, so treat them as educational estimates rather than official ephemerides.
Opposition finder
Opposition is when a planet appears almost opposite the Sun in Earth's sky. This usually makes outer planets easier to observe and often places them near their closest approach.
For a focused Earth–Mars comparison, explore the current distance to Mars, its changing separation and the radio-signal delay. To compare all seven neighbors, find the closest planet to Earth and explore the changing distance ranking.
For a guided introduction, read where the planets are right now and use the compact, date-based Planet Position Explorer.
The Sun is placed in the center. Each orbit line shows a planet's path around the Sun, compressed for readability. The marker position shows where that planet is estimated to be at the selected moment, so the page works as a live planet position map and a simple orbit simulator.
This is different from the main Celesiq world map. The world map shows apparent subpoints on Earth; this solar system map shows heliocentric geometry, which is often the missing piece when trying to understand why Venus, Mars, Jupiter or Saturn are visible at certain times of year.
Real solar system distances are too large for a practical single-screen view. If the inner planets were shown at true scale, Neptune and Pluto would sit far outside the page. This map keeps the order and approximate orbital positions, but compresses distances.
A planet's visibility depends on where Earth, the planet and the Sun sit relative to each other. When an outer planet is near opposition, for example, Earth is roughly between that planet and the Sun, which can make it visible for much of the night.
Closest approach finds when a planet is nearest to Earth in space. Opposition finds when an outer planet appears opposite the Sun in our sky. These often happen near each other, but they are not always exactly the same moment because planetary orbits are elliptical and tilted.
The map includes Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. You can click a planet for a detail card, change the selected moment, or drag a planet along its orbit to move the entire solar system view through time.
For the eight planets between 1800 and 2050, the map uses JPL’s approximate Keplerian elements, shared with the Planet Position Explorer. Earth represents the Earth–Moon barycenter. Pluto and dates outside that interval use the previous simplified model. Calculations run locally without external ephemeris calls. It is suitable for understanding the layout of the solar system, but exact scientific work should be checked against specialist ephemerides. The project includes a maintenance check that can compare these positions with JPL Horizons reference vectors.
A solar system map shows the Sun and planets in their orbits. This page focuses on the layout of the solar system from above, while the main Celesiq map focuses on where objects appear over Earth.
Yes. Use Live now to see approximate planet positions today, or choose a different moment to watch how the planets move around the Sun over days, months and years.
True solar system distances are too large for a useful page view. The map compresses orbit distances so all planets remain visible, while still showing their order and approximate geometry around the Sun.
Opposition happens when an outer planet appears nearly opposite the Sun in Earth's sky. Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are often especially good targets near opposition because they can be visible for much of the night.
It is best used as an educational, visual guide. The positions are calculated locally for speed and are good for understanding solar-system geometry, but official scientific work should use specialist ephemerides.
Use this page to understand the solar-system layout. Then open the live world map to see where the Sun, Moon, planets and spacecraft appear above Earth at the same moment.
Map markers are enlarged for visibility. For a measured physical comparison, explore how many Earth volumes each planet contains.
Orbital motion determines a year; axial rotation defines a sidereal day. Explore how long a day lasts on each planet to compare the two.
Explore how long a trip to Mars takes and watch a spacecraft follow an ideal transfer while Earth and Mars keep moving.
Follow Earth and Jupiter in the live Earth–Jupiter distance explorer, inspect their full three-dimensional separation and jump to the next closest or farthest approach.