Solar System Scale Model

...if one light-second were the width of your browser window.

This is a simple overview of various objects that can be found falling around our sun. Where orbital distances are concerned, the model is largely one-dimensional (and therefore, largely unrealistic!). For simplicity, we will pretend it’s possible for all our solar neighbors to settle themselves onto one, cozy line.

I originally intended to include objects with a mean radius of 50 km or greater. Then I figured any known moon of a planet or dwarf planet should be allowed no matter the size. Finally, I couldn’t help adding more and more things like a few select spacecraft, objects that have been visited by spacecraft, a handful of other interesting inner-solar system objects and some comets. (The full list can be found in the upper-right corner menu.)

Sizes and distances are to scale based on the assumption that your browser window is one light-second wide. Objects are placed at the semi-major axis of orbit from their parent object. A few spacecraft disobey this rule. For example, the Parker Solar Probe is placed at what will be its closest approach to the Sun in 2025. The position of the New Horizons spacecraft is updated in real-time (albeit approximately).

Visual Options

The middle button in the upper-right corner opens the options menu.

• Object Textures—Most objects larger than, and including, Saturn’s moon Mimas will display a texture map when active. These objects can then be clicked on to get a closer look.

• Tilt Objects—Simulates the obliquity of the planets. Realistically, regular moons should also tilt along with their planet’s orbital plane. However, that’s not really possible in this model since several moons would end up falling off the screen!

• Milky Way—Adds an image of the Milky Way to the background (image credit below). It is correctly inclined relative to the ecliptic.

• HUD—Displays object labels and distance calculators.

• High Contrast Mode—Increases contrast.

Credits and Sources

Milky Way background image—ESO/S. Brunier

Texture maps:

• Mercury, Mars—Solar System Scope

• Venus, Jupiter, Ganymede, Callisto, Saturn, Neptune—Created by Björn Jónsson

• Earth—Courtesy NASA/Visible Earth

• Luna—Courtesy NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

• Ceres, Io, Europa, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Iapetus, Ariel, Titania, Oberon, Triton, Charon—Created by Steve Albers

• Uranus—Created by James Hastings-Trew

• Umbriel—Created by Phil Stooke

• Miranda—Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

• Pluto—Created by Askaniy

I may have altered some images slightly.

Size and distance values were taken from the following sites:

• NASA/JPL Small-Body Database Lookup

• Scott S. Sheppard

• Space Reference

• Wikipedia

Known issues

Ring systems can look way too bright depending on monitor settings.

Browsers may not display the model correctly if the scale gets too large. Browser windows under about 3200 pixels wide seem to be OK. This limitation is why the model is split into 10-au-sized chunks.

There are a lot of objects to draw between 40 and 50 au. Some mobile devices have trouble with this.

Contact

adam@minnesota-slim.net

Object Textures

Tilt Objects

Milky Way

HUD

High Contrast Mode

Viewport width: Thinking... km

Thinking...

Thinking... au from center

Thinking...