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 online orrery — an interactive digital solar system model 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, planet parades and conjunctions so you can see exactly how the planets lined up.
Two companion pages put the same model into words: where the planets are right now lists every planet's distance, light time, evening or morning sky, retrograde motion and next opposition, and planetary alignments and planet parades gives the upcoming and past parade dates with links straight into the orrery.
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. The result is a live picture of the planetary sky: which planets are up tonight, roughly where to look for them, and when each next reaches opposition or its best viewing date.
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 (pronounced OR-uh-ree) is a mechanical or digital model of the solar system that shows the planets in their correct relative positions and movements around the Sun. The name comes from Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery, for whom one of the first clockwork models was made around 1712. Orrery.live is a digital orrery - a free online, interactive 3D version you can explore in your browser.
Orrery.live opens on today's date, so the planets you see are where they actually are right now. Hover or tap any planet and its tooltip describes the planetary sky as seen from Earth: whether the planet is an evening-sky or morning-sky object at the moment, up most of the night, or lost in the Sun's glare - plus its distance and light-travel time from Earth and its next opposition or best viewing date.
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 - popularly called planet parades - and conjunctions, from tight five- and six-planet clusters to the moments the planets spread evenly around the Sun. It includes the planet parades of June 2022, January and February 2025, February and August 2026, and the next big ones on 25 December 2027, 3 February 2034 and 8 September 2040. You can also set any date yourself to check an alignment.
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 model 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.