Astronomy · Core Systems
The Solar System
▶ Explore this system live in the app
Space is really, REALLY big.
I built this engine because human brains just aren't wired to comprehend a billion of anything—especially kilometers. Most diagrams have to squash the solar system together just to make it fit on a screen. I wanted to see what the distances actually feel like.
This map is completely true to scale. You can toggle between comparing the accurate sizes of the planets, or mapping out the incomprehensibly massive distances between them. Using the Scale Selector, you can shrink the fabric of the cosmos until the Sun is just a single pixel, or engage the Warp Drive to see exactly how far Voyager 1 has traveled.
Explore the Multiverse Engine:
- Presets: Use the top navigation to warp to famous sci-fi systems (like Arrakis or Tatooine), or visit special systems like the real Trappist-1 or a close-up Earth-Moon system.
- Infinite Generation: Type any random word or phrase into the terminal and hit Enter to compute a mathematically unique, shareable,procedural universe based on that seed.
- Anomalies: Turn your Deep Space Scanners ON to locate hidden celestial megastructures and derelict probes.
- Easter Eggs: The engine contains hidden logic. Generate a seed starting with "waldo" to play a cosmic minigame, or type an atomic number (e.g., "element 6") to explore the quantum realm!
Celestial Bodies (69)
Sun
star · system center · 1,391,000 km diameter
Class G Main Sequence
You could fit 1.3 million Earths inside it. It contains 99.8% of all the mass in the entire solar system.
Solar Corona
region · orbits Sun · -8,000,000 km–8,000,000 km
This ghostly atmosphere defies physics by being millions of degrees hotter than the Sun itself, and scientists still aren't entirely sure why.
Parker Solar Probe
spacecraft · orbits Sun · 8,500,000 km · 1 km diameter
Spacecraft Active Probe
The fastest human-made object in history. It flies through the Sun's atmosphere at over 700,000 km/h, fast enough to travel from New York to Tokyo in under a minute!
Mercury
planet · orbits Sun · 57,909,000 km · 4,879 km diameter
🪨 Terrestrial Sub-Earth 🔥 Scorched
A day here (176 earth days) is twice as long as its year. Because of its bizarre rotation, you could literally outwalk the sunset.
Venus
planet · orbits Sun · 108,209,000 km · 12,104 km diameter
🪨 Terrestrial Earth-Sized ☣️ Toxic 🔥 Scorched
A toxic hellscape where it rains battery acid and the atmospheric pressure would crush a nuclear submarine. It's actually hotter than Mercury, despite being further from the Sun.
Earth
planet · orbits Sun · 149,597,871 km · 12,742 km diameter
🪨 Terrestrial 🌿 Habitable Zone 🌊 Aquatic
The only known place in the universe where a piece of the universe woke up and started worrying about taxes. "Mostly harmless."
The Moon
moon · orbits Earth · 384,400 km · 3,474 km diameter
Satellite Tidally Locked
It is drifting exactly 3.8 centimeters away from Earth every year, about the exact same rate that your fingernails grow.
Russell's teapot
egg · orbits Sun · 200,000,000 km · 1 km diameter
Porcelain Undisprovable
"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion..."
Mars
planet · orbits Sun · 227,939,200 km · 6,779 km diameter
🪨 Terrestrial Sub-Earth ❄️ Frozen
A planet entirely populated by robots. It also hosts Olympus Mons, a dormant volcano three times taller than Mount Everest.
Phobos
moon · orbits Mars · 9,376 km · 22 km diameter
Asteroid Captured
It orbits Mars so intensely fast that it actually rises in the west and sets in the east, twice a day. Eventually, it will crash into the planet.
Deimos
moon · orbits Mars · 23,460 km · 12 km diameter
Asteroid Captured
Its gravity is so incredibly weak that if you rode a bicycle off a ramp on its surface, you would achieve escape velocity and float off into deep space.
Asteroid Belt
region · orbits Sun · 329,000,000 km–478,000,000 km
S-Type Silicates Circumstellar Torus Resource Rich
Despite what movies show, it is mostly empty vacuum. If you stood on an asteroid here, the next closest one would likely be a million kilometers away.
Ceres
dwarf-planet · orbits Sun · 413,690,000 km · 940 km diameter
Dwarf Planet Water Ice
A dwarf planet so small its gravity can't hold an atmosphere, yet it contains more freshwater than all of Earth's rivers and lakes combined.
Jupiter
planet, gas-giant · orbits Sun · 778,169,925 km · 139,820 km diameter
💨 Gas Giant Jovian Ringed
The Solar System's cosmic defender/vacuum. Its immense gravity acts as a shield, sucking in and deflecting comets that might otherwise obliterate Earth.
Jupiter's Magnetosphere
region · orbits Jupiter · -7,000,000 km–654,435,372 km
Magnetic Field High Radiation
If this massive magnetic field glowed and you could see it from Earth, it would look two to three times larger than the full Moon in our night sky.
The Monolith
egg · orbits Jupiter · 2,000,000 km · 9 km diameter
Artificial Indestructible Alien Artifact
A mysterious black monolith left by an unseen extraterrestrial species. My God, it's full of stars!
Io
moon · orbits Jupiter · 421,700 km · 3,643 km diameter
Satellite Volcanic Tidal Heating
A tortured moon caught in a gravitational tug-of-war. The friction actually causes the solid ground to bulge up and down by 100 meters, triggering hundreds of massive volcanoes.
Europa
moon · orbits Jupiter · 671,100 km · 3,121 km diameter
Satellite Subsurface Ocean
Underneath its cracked, icy shell lies a vast liquid ocean holding twice as much saltwater as all of Earth's oceans combined. One of the best candidates for alien life.
Ganymede
moon · orbits Jupiter · 1,070,400 km · 5,268 km diameter
Satellite Magnetic Field
Bigger than the planet Mercury. It's the only moon in our solar system massive enough to generate its own magnetic field.
Callisto
moon · orbits Jupiter · 1,882,700 km · 4,820 km diameter
Satellite Ancient Surface
The most heavily cratered object in the solar system. Lacking geological activity, its surface is a 4-billion-year-old museum of cosmic impacts, completely frozen in time.
Saturn
planet, gas-giant · orbits Sun · 1,433,449,000 km · 116,464 km diameter
💨 Gas Giant Jovian Low Density
It is so massive, yet so completely composed of lightweight gas, that if you could find a bathtub big enough, the entire planet would float like a rubber duck.
Mimas
moon · orbits Saturn · 185,520 km · 396 km diameter
Satellite Death Star Lookalike
It looks like the Death Star due to the Herschel Crater, an impact so massive it nearly shattered the entire moon.
Enceladus
moon · orbits Saturn · 238,020 km · 504 km diameter
Satellite Cryovolcanic
It shoots massive geysers of saltwater and organic compounds hundreds of miles into space, which freeze to create one of Saturn's outermost rings.
Tethys
moon · orbits Saturn · 294,660 km · 1,062 km diameter
Satellite Icy
It features a massive canyon called Ithaca Chasma that runs nearly from pole to pole. If it were on Earth, it would be deeper than the Mariana Trench.
Dione
moon · orbits Saturn · 377,400 km · 1,122 km diameter
Satellite Icy
A moon that is heavily cratered on its trailing hemisphere but incredibly smooth on its leading hemisphere—the exact opposite of how moons usually work!
Rhea
moon · orbits Saturn · 527,040 km · 1,527 km diameter
Satellite Icy
It might be the only moon in the solar system with its own ring system, though scientists are still searching for direct visual proof.
Titan
moon · orbits Saturn · 1,221,830 km · 5,149 km diameter
Satellite Dense Atmosphere Hydrocarbon Lakes
The only moon with a thick atmosphere. It has lakes, rivers, and rain, but instead of water, the weather is driven by freezing liquid methane.
Hyperion
moon · orbits Saturn · 1,481,100 km · 270 km diameter
Satellite Chaotic Rotation
It looks like a giant space sponge and has a chaotic, unpredictable rotation. If you stood on it, the sun would rise and set in completely random directions.
Iapetus
moon · orbits Saturn · 3,561,300 km · 1,469 km diameter
Satellite Two-Toned
The solar system's two-toned "yin-yang" moon. One half is pitch black like asphalt, while the other half is as bright as fresh snow.
Uranus
planet, gas-giant, ice-giant · orbits Sun · 2,872,463,000 km · 50,700 km diameter
🧊 Ice Giant Jovian Ringed
A massive collision knocked it entirely sideways. It rolls around the Sun like a barrel, meaning its poles experience 42 years of continuous sunlight followed by 42 years of absolute darkness.
Miranda
moon · orbits Uranus · 129,390 km · 471 km diameter
Satellite Icy
Features a wildly varied surface, including ice cliffs over 20 kilometers high.
Ariel
moon · orbits Uranus · 190,900 km · 1,158 km diameter
Satellite Icy
The brightest of Uranus' moons.
Umbriel
moon · orbits Uranus · 266,000 km · 1,169 km diameter
Satellite Icy
The darkest of Uranus' major moons.
Titania
moon · orbits Uranus · 435,910 km · 1,576 km diameter
Satellite Icy
Its surface is split by massive canyons, some of which are hundreds of kilometers long and slice through impact craters, suggesting violent quakes in its past.
Oberon
moon · orbits Uranus · 583,520 km · 1,522 km diameter
Satellite Icy
The outermost major moon of Uranus. It features a mysterious, massive mountain peak that towers 6km above its icy, ancient surface.
Neptune
planet, gas-giant, ice-giant · orbits Sun · 4,495,060,000 km · 49,140 km diameter
🧊 Ice Giant Jovian Ringed
The windiest place in the solar system. Supersonic storms whip around the ice giant at over 2,000 km/h. Deep in its atmosphere, it literally rains solid diamonds.
Triton
moon · orbits Neptune · 354,800 km · 2,706 km diameter
Satellite ↩️ Retrograde Orbit
It orbits Neptune backwards! It's actually a captured dwarf planet from the Kuiper Belt, and it shoots geysers of dark nitrogen gas 8km into its thin atmosphere.
Kuiper Belt
region · orbits Sun · 4,507,715,230 km–8,227,882,888 km
Icy Planetesimals Circumstellar Torus Primordial
A donut-shaped ring of icy debris left over from the formation of the solar system. It's home to millions of frozen remnants and dwarf planets like Pluto.
Pluto
dwarf-planet · orbits Sun · 5,906,380,000 km · 2,376 km diameter
Dwarf Planet Sub-Earth Binary System
Its surface features mountains made of solid water ice that are as hard as rock, surrounded by massive, flowing glaciers of frozen nitrogen snow.
Charon
moon · orbits Pluto · 19,591 km · 1,212 km diameter
Satellite Tidally Locked Binary System
It's so massive compared to Pluto that they actually orbit a point in empty space right between them, making them the solar system's only double dwarf planet.
Scattered Disc
region · orbits Sun · 5,235,925,474 km–14,959,787,070 km
Trans-Neptunian Scattered Disc Highly Eccentric
The wild west of the outer solar system. Objects here have extreme, erratic orbits that were destabilized by Neptune's gravity billions of years ago.
Halley's Comet
comet · orbits Sun · 5,280,000,000 km · 11 km diameter
☄ Comet Short-Period
A 15km-long dirty snowball that has terrorized human history every 75 years. Mark Twain was born when it appeared, predicted he'd die when it returned, and did.
Orcus
dwarf-planet · orbits Sun · 5,850,000,000 km · 910 km diameter
Dwarf Planet Plutino
Often called the "anti-Pluto." It is locked in the same orbital resonance with Neptune, but is always on the exact opposite side of the Sun from Pluto.
Vanth
moon · orbits Orcus · 9,000 km · 442 km diameter
Satellite
The massive moon of Orcus. Because of its large size relative to its parent, they are sometimes considered a binary system, much like Pluto and Charon.
Haumea
dwarf-planet · orbits Sun · 6,452,000,000 km · 1,632 km diameter
Dwarf Planet Extreme Rotation
It spins so incredibly fast, completing a rotation every 4 hours, that centrifugal force has stretched it out into the shape of a giant cosmic football.
Namaka
moon · orbits Haumea · 25,657 km · 170 km diameter
Satellite
The smaller and inner moon of Haumea. It is named after a sea goddess in Hawaiian mythology who is the sister of Haumea.
Hiʻiaka
moon · orbits Haumea · 49,880 km · 320 km diameter
Satellite
Haumea's larger, outer moon. Water ice on its surface is completely crystalline, which means it must have been heated and refrozen relatively recently in cosmic terms.
Quaoar
dwarf-planet · orbits Sun · 6,480,000,000 km · 1,110 km diameter
Dwarf Planet Ringed
It features a dense ring system that orbits far beyond the theoretical Roche limit, challenging our understanding of how rings and moons form.
Weywot
moon · orbits Quaoar · 14,500 km · 170 km diameter
Satellite
The only known moon of Quaoar. It is named after the sky god (and son of the creator god Quaoar) in the mythology of the indigenous Tongva people of Southern California.
Makemake
dwarf-planet · orbits Sun · 6,850,000,000 km · 1,430 km diameter
Dwarf Planet
One of the reasons Pluto lost its planet status. Its discovery in 2005 forced astronomers to rethink what a planet actually is.
New Horizons
spacecraft · orbits Sun · 9,620,000,000 km · 1 km diameter
Spacecraft Active Probe
NASA's probe that gave us our first close-up look at Pluto. It carries a portion of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who originally discovered the dwarf planet.
Gonggong
dwarf-planet · orbits Sun · 10,070,000,000 km · 1,230 km diameter
Dwarf Planet
One of the reddest objects in the solar system, its surface is likely covered in organic compounds called tholins and frozen methane.
Xiangliu
moon · orbits Gonggong · 24,020 km · 100 km diameter
Satellite
The only known moon of Gonggong. It is named after a nine-headed venomous snake monster from ancient Chinese mythology that brings floods and destruction.
Eris
dwarf-planet · orbits Sun · 10,120,000,000 km · 2,326 km diameter
Dwarf Planet
The most massive known dwarf planet. It's so far away that sunlight takes over 9 hours to reach it, making the Sun look like just a slightly brighter star.
Termination Shock
region · orbits Sun · 11,200,000,000 km–13,500,000,000 km
Boundary Subsonic Solar Wind
The invisible boundary where the solar wind slams into the interstellar medium, abruptly slowing down from millions of miles per hour to a subsonic crash.
Sedna
dwarf-planet · orbits Sun · 11,400,000,000 km · 995 km diameter
Dwarf Planet Eccentric Orbit
It has one of the most eccentric orbits of any known object, taking 11,400 years to complete a single trip around the Sun. Its origins remain a complete mystery.
Rupert
egg, planet · orbits Sun · 12,500,000,000 km · 4,500 km diameter
Planet Fictional
"Astronomers discovered an additional planet and named it Rupert..."
Heliosheath
region · orbits Sun · 13,500,000,000 km–17,800,000,000 km
Boundary Turbulent Plasma
The turbulent, bubble-like outer layer of our solar system where the solar wind piles up and twists as it pushes against the pressure of deep space.
Heliopause
region · orbits Sun · 17,800,000,000 km–18,300,000,000 km
Boundary Interstellar Medium
The absolute edge of the Sun's influence. Beyond this invisible boundary lies the cold, dark, and unimaginably vast expanse of interstellar space.
Voyager 2
spacecraft · orbits Sun · 21,340,000,000 km · 1 km diameter
Spacecraft Interstellar Probe
Launched in 1977, it's the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus and Neptune. It's still operating today on less computing power than a modern key fob.
V'Ger Energy Cloud
egg, region · orbits Sun · 23,850,402,129 km–24,149,597,871 km
Energy Cloud
A massive energy cloud measuring 2 AU in diameter, concealing the VGer vessel at its center.
V'Ger
egg · orbits Sun · 24,000,000,000 km · 90 km diameter
Spacecraft Sentient
"Learn all that is learnable. Return that information to the Creator."
Voyager 1
spacecraft · orbits Sun · 25,450,000,000 km · 1 km diameter
Spacecraft Interstellar Probe
The farthest human-made object in existence. It carries the Golden Record—a mixtape of Earth's sounds, music, and greetings intended for anyone (or anything) that might find it.
Dragon's Egg
egg, star · orbits Sun · 37,399,467,500 km · 20 km diameter
Neutron Star Rogue Capture Extreme Gravity Fictional
A rogue neutron star passing through our solar system. On its incredibly dense surface, the microscopic Cheela live at a pace a million times faster than humans.
Planet Nine
egg, planet, gas-giant, ice-giant · orbits Sun · 60,000,000,000 km · 40,000 km diameter
🧊 Ice Giant Mini-Neptune Hypothetical
A hypothetical massive planet lurking in the dark. We haven't seen it yet, but the weird, clustered orbits of icy rocks in deep space strongly suggest something huge is hiding out there.
Oort Cloud
region · orbits Sun · 300,000,000,000 km–7,959,787,070,000 km
☄ Long-Period Comets Spherical Shell Gravitational Boundary
A theoretical spherical shell of trillions of icy objects enveloping our solar system. It extends so incredibly far out that its outer edge is a quarter of the way to the nearest star.
Nemesis
egg, star · orbits Sun · 14,211,797,000,000 km · 200,000 km diameter
Red Dwarf Hypothetical
A hypothetical "death star" companion to our Sun. Originally proposed to explain periodic mass extinctions on Earth, suggesting it nudges comets toward us every 26 million years.
Sun's Hill Sphere
region · orbits Sun · 18,000,000,000,000 km–18,921,460,000,000 km
Boundary Interstellar
The absolute gravitational boundary of our Solar System. Beyond this sphere of influence, roughly 2 light-years out, an object is no longer bound to the Sun and would be pulled away by the gravity of the Milky Way or other passing stars.
Proxima Centauri
star · orbits Sun · 40,174,930,000,000 km · 214,550 km diameter
Class M Red Dwarf
The absolute closest star to our own. Even traveling at 1,000 km/h, it would take you over 4.5 million years to reach it. Space is really, really big.