Open navigation menu
Geography · Physics
Orbits and day–night in the Solar System
Loading resource…
Loading resource…
Select a planet, follow its orbit and explore day and night in 3D.
Select a planet to approach · Left drag to orbit · Right drag to pan · Scroll / pinch to zoom
Preparing the 3D scene…
Solar System
Whole Solar System
Sizes and distances are not to a common scale
Choose a planet
Orbital distances are spread out for visibility.
Display
Watch orbits keeps the selected planet and the Sun. Choose Solar System to show all planets again.
The Sun is at the center of this model, with eight planets moving along their orbits. Sunlight and axial rotation produce each planet's day and night regions.
8 planets
4 rocky planets · 4 giant planets
Neptune's orbit ≈ 30 AU
This is the extent of the eight displayed planets, not the boundary of the Solar System.
All 8 planets
| Choose a planet | Rotation period (Earth hours) | Orbital period (Earth years) | Orbital semi-major axis (AU) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,407.51 | 0.241 | 0.387 | |
| 5,832.43 | 0.615 | 0.723 | |
| 23.93 | 1 | 1 | |
| 24.62 | 1.881 | 1.524 | |
| 9.92 | 11.863 | 5.203 | |
| 10.66 | 29.447 | 9.537 | |
| 17.24 | 84.017 | 19.189 | |
| 16.11 | 164.791 | 30.07 |
1 AU = 149.6 million km. Cards show semi-major axes, not instantaneous distances.
Camera view
Select a planet to approach · Left drag to orbit · Right drag to pan · Scroll / pinch to zoom
All orbits run in the same direction when viewed from north of the Solar System plane. The small arrow around a planet shows its rotation.
Tilt is measured from the perpendicular to the orbital plane.
Model notes
- This periodic Kepler model freezes NASA/JPL J2000 orbital elements. It omits perturbations, precession and solar barycentric motion. Time is simulated duration, not an astronomical calendar.
- Learning spreads the orbits for visibility; Real uses one common AU scale for all orbits. Both preserve ellipses and foci, but body sizes remain enlarged. Compare preserves mean radius ratios using standard lighting and arranged positions.
- One clock drives both rotation and revolution. No planet has a separate time multiplier. Fast rotations can appear to reverse through sampling: use Watch rotation and the direction arrow.
- Axial tilts use reference values; pole azimuths and initial meridians are illustrative. Do not infer seasons, calendar dates, geographical locations or precise rise/set times.
- The Sun is a point light source; incoming rays are parallel at each planet. The Sun-facing side is day. Atmospheric refraction, twilight, eclipse shadows and light travel time are omitted.
- The animated solar corona and Saturn ring shadows are illustrative effects, not magnetic-field or inter-body eclipse simulations.
- Sidereal rotation differs from a solar day. Venus uses a radar map beneath its clouds; gas planets show illustrative clouds without differential rotation. Saturn uses a reference rotation of ≈ 10.66 hours, not a unique atmospheric measurement.
NASA/JPL · Science and image sources
Textures: Solar System Scope / INOVE · CC BY 4.0 · Resized and converted to WebP