Drag to orbit · scroll to zoom · right-drag or two-finger drag to pan. Hover or tap a body for facts · double-click to follow it.
Orrery.live is a free, interactive 3D orrery — a working model of the solar system that you explore in your web browser. Every planet is placed in its true position around the Sun using JPL orbital elements, so the view shows the real arrangement of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto for any date you choose. Drag to orbit the camera, scroll or pinch to zoom, right-drag (or drag with two fingers) to pan, and hover or tap any body to read live facts about it. Double-click a planet or moon to lock the camera onto it and follow it as time plays.
Use the date picker or the time slider to scrub forwards and backwards through time, anywhere from 3000 BC to 3000 AD. Speed time up to watch the planets race around their orbits, or pause on an exact moment and copy a shareable link to it. The 'Jump to a notable alignment' menu travels straight to famous planetary alignments and conjunctions so you can see exactly how the planets lined up.
The background is the genuine night sky: 1,637 naked-eye stars from the HYG database in their true positions, with optional constellation figures and named bright stars. Planet positions come from real orbital data, while body sizes and orbit spacing are scaled up for visibility — the same compromise used by physical orreries.
Follow Halley's Comet, Comet Encke, Hale–Bopp and Rosetta's comet 67P on their real orbits, or trace Voyager 1 and 2, Pioneer 10 and 11 and New Horizons along trajectories from JPL Horizons. Tooltips show each planet's distance from Earth, light-travel time, where it sits in tonight's sky and its next opposition or best viewing date — and the events menu lists upcoming oppositions and elongations computed live from the orbital model.
An orrery is a model of the solar system that shows the planets in their correct relative positions and movements around the Sun. Orrery.live is a digital, interactive 3D orrery you can explore in your browser.
Each planet's position is computed from JPL orbital elements, so the planets appear in their true heliocentric positions for any date between 3000 BC and 3000 AD. Orbit spacing and on-screen body sizes are scaled for visibility, but the angular positions are real.
Any date from 3000 BC to 3000 AD. Inside that range the positions are computed from the JPL data; outside it the simulation still runs but warns that positions are approximate because it is extrapolating beyond the orbital data.
Yes. The 'Jump to a notable alignment' menu lets you instantly travel to famous planetary alignments and conjunctions and watch how the planets line up.
The background is 1,637 naked-eye stars from the HYG database, placed in their true positions on the sky — the real night sky, not a decorative starfield.
A true-scale solar system would leave the planets as invisible specks separated by huge empty gaps. Orrery.live keeps positions and orbital geometry real but scales body sizes and orbit spacing for visibility — and the Size and Orbits sliders let you morph the model to true scale to see the emptiness for yourself.
Orrery.live is completely free with no sign-up and runs in any modern browser that supports WebGL, including phones and tablets.