Putting the planets where they are tonight…

Every planet, moon, dwarf planet and spacecraft here is drawn where it really is right now, worked out from NASA JPL orbit data. Run time forwards or backwards with the bar at the bottom.

The Sun and planets

  • Sun
  • Mercury
  • Venus
  • Earth
  • Mars
  • Jupiter
  • Saturn
  • Uranus
  • Neptune

Dwarf planets

  • Ceres
  • Pluto
  • Haumea
  • Makemake
  • Eris

Moons

  • Moon
  • Phobos
  • Deimos
  • Io
  • Europa
  • Ganymede
  • Callisto
  • Mimas
  • Enceladus
  • Tethys
  • Dione
  • Rhea
  • Titan
  • Iapetus
  • Miranda
  • Ariel
  • Umbriel
  • Titania
  • Oberon
  • Triton
  • Charon

Belts

  • Asteroid Belt
  • Kuiper Belt

Spacecraft

  • Voyager 1
  • Voyager 2
  • New Horizons
  • Pioneer 10
  • Pioneer 11

Fall inside

  • Inside the Sun
  • Inside Mercury
  • Inside Venus
  • Inside Earth
  • Inside Mars
  • Inside Jupiter
  • Inside Saturn
  • Inside Uranus
  • Inside Neptune
  • Inside the Moon
  • Inside Europa
  • Inside Titan
Right now · live

Voyager 1

The farthest thing humans have ever made, still calling home.

Voyager 1 is the farthest thing humans have ever made. It launched in 1977, flew past Jupiter and Saturn, and has been heading out of the solar system ever since.

In 1990, from 6 billion km away, it turned around and took a photo of Earth: a pale blue dot, smaller than a pixel. Everyone who has ever lived was on it.

In 2012 it crossed the edge of the Sun's bubble of wind, becoming the first spacecraft in interstellar space.

Around November 2026 it becomes the first spacecraft one full light-day from Earth. A message to it takes a day to arrive, and the reply takes another.

It carries a golden record with sounds and pictures of Earth, in case anyone ever finds it.

If you rode along

Silence and darkness. The Sun would look like a very bright star, and you'd be moving at about 61,000 km/h with nothing around you to show it.

The numbers

Launched
5 September 1977
Visited
Jupiter (1979) and Saturn (1980)
Left the Sun's bubble
August 2012, the first craft to reach interstellar space