The view is heliocentric, looking down on the J2000 ecliptic plane from the north. Planet markers are symbolic; orbital distances are not the same scale as planet sizes.
Positions are calculated locally from JPL’s published approximate Keplerian elements and secular rates. The tighter 1800–2050 fit is retained around today; JPL’s 3000 BCE–3000 CE fit is used outside that interval, with smooth Cartesian blending from 1800–1810 and 2040–2050. It is suitable for accurate visualisation, not spacecraft navigation.
Compressed mode applies a logarithmic radial transform while preserving each planet’s true angular direction. True distance uses a linear AU scale.
Drag to pan, scroll or pinch to zoom, and double-click to reset. Keyboard: Space play/pause, N now, R reset, L labels, O orbits, Escape close.
Earth is represented by JPL’s Earth–Moon barycentre. “From Earth” distances are therefore geometric EMB distances. UTC is converted toward ephemeris time using the leap-second history through 2026 and NASA ΔT polynomials elsewhere; TT is used as a sub-millisecond-to-millisecond proxy for TDB. The displayed speed is the two-body vis-viva speed of the fitted ellipse, or the numerical speed of the blended trajectory during transition windows. Civil-zone conversions use the browser’s IANA time-zone database from 1900–2100. Outside that interval, clean fixed standard offsets are shown because ancient and far-future daylight-saving rules are undefined.