Earth · zoom out to explore our Solar System.
ONE PLANET. SO MANY POSSIBILITIES.
Real sunlight. Predicted orbits. A little perspective.
Loading a dated CelesTrak snapshot…
Tap a satellite to identify it, or the globe for solar time.
FOLLOW THE JOURNEY
OTHER TRAVELERS
Distance from Earth · logarithmic scaleConnectors are illustrations, not flight paths. These dated values do not follow the mission timeline.
No tracked flight or confirmed survival. This dashed comparison imagines just one year at 66 km/s, ignoring air and gravity—not where the cap actually went, and not a speed record.
FIND A FAMILIAR TRAVELER
A dated active-satellite catalog plus selected deep-space missions—not a complete inventory. Deep-space results open their interactive mission. The distance comparison is a separate fixed-date snapshot.
A NEW WINDOW ON OUR UNIVERSE
Earth is the next chapter of Milkdromeda: a place to explore what circles our home, and how far our curiosity has taken us.
The globe turns at Earth’s actual rate. The gentle initial motion is the camera orbiting it. Sunlight and the Moon follow the displayed time; drag to look around, or speed up the clock. Tapping Earth shows approximate local solar time—not the time zone on someone’s watch.
Satellites are SGP4 predictions from a dated CelesTrak snapshot, not live telemetry. This includes the catalog’s active group, not every satellite, debris fragment or classified object. Predictions more than seven days from an object’s element epoch are hidden. When the snapshot ages, replay its date instead. Maneuvers and element errors can make predictions wrong much sooner; this is an educational viewer, not a navigation tool.
To avoid double-counting, eccentricity ≥ 0.25 goes in Highly elliptical first. A period within 30 minutes of a sidereal day goes in Geosynchronous next; this does not imply geostationary. The remaining objects are Low (apogee ≤ 2,000 km), Medium (apogee below 35,786 km), or High Earth orbit. These are display conventions, not universal definitions.
Earth is a sphere. Satellite positions use the TEME frame; Sun and Moon use approximate equator-of-date positions. The small frame difference, polar motion, atmospheric refraction and detailed surface topography are omitted. Point sizes are exaggerated; orbital distances are not. The Moon is our natural-satellite layer; temporary natural companions are not included. The Blue Marble is a composite, not current weather.
The default orrery calculates the eight planets’ heliocentric positions using Astronomy Engine, in ecliptic J2000 coordinates. It starts at your Earth date and speed, with a 1900–2200 exploration window. Positions and distances are calculated; globes are enlarged and surfaces are stylized. Closed orbit guides are osculating two-body ellipses derived from a position and velocity at one epoch. They show the shape of an orbit, not an exact future track; real perturbations can shift the planet slightly away from an older guide.
Travelers are optional mission experiences with separate clocks. Voyager 1, Voyager 2, New Horizons and Webb use NASA/JPL Horizons geometric position and velocity samples. Each journey starts at its first included post-launch sample and stops at its last sourced sample—no invented launch ascent or future extension. See “Coverage & model notes” in the journey menu for dates, limitations and original query URLs. Planetary reference rings are closed two-body guides here too; the colored spacecraft trail only shows its traveled path.
Voyager’s early paths are approximate mission-design trajectories; later segments are tracking fits and predictions. One-minute holds at verified source joins avoid connecting incompatible arcs. New Horizons combines navigation reconstructions and predictions. Webb uses Goddard Flight Dynamics Facility reconstructed and predicted solutions. Interpolation is checked at withheld samples; this checks display error, not mission accuracy. Giant planets and Pluto use system barycenters; Arrokoth uses its mission-target solution.
Webb’s Earth–Sun view translates to Earth and rotates with its ecliptic azimuth. Earth is fixed; the Sun’s projected direction is fixed, with its small out-of-plane motion retained. Historical trail points use Earth’s position at each sample, revealing modeled loops rather than a drawn ellipse. L2 is only an approximate 1.5-million-km reference point, not a body exerting gravity. This is ephemeris playback, not our own calculation of station-keeping thrust.
Milestones distinguish exact published times from day-level anchors. Voyager 2’s planet flybys use midnight on the published dates, not the precise closest-approach instant. Its November 5, 2018 interstellar crossing follows NASA’s dedicated interstellar-mission account. The separate distance comparison remains a fixed-date logarithmic chart; the Pascal-B cap remains a hypothetical comparison, not a tracked flight.
The worker calculates SGP4 positions and velocities at three-minute intervals. Between those samples, the display uses a curved, velocity-aware interpolation on every frame—not straight-line jumps or motion blur. If accelerated playback outruns the buffer, the clock waits briefly instead of inventing a future position. This display interpolation adds a small approximation; it is not suitable for navigation.
Imagined by Atticus James Asher Williams.
Designed and architected by Brandon Tyler Williams · GitHub ↗.
Home base: Earth · Orion Arm · Milky Way Galaxy.
Created with assistance from OpenAI’s Codex, affectionately called “Sir Astra,” and Qwen 3.8 Flash. These tools assisted during development; they are not scientific sources or independent validators. Model choices and any mistakes in this project remain our responsibility. Scientific credit belongs to the researchers and data creators cited below.
Additional mission data and credits: Voyager 2 samples · New Horizons samples · Webb samples. Each asset preserves NASA/JPL source queries, response checksums and interpolation checks. Import methods & mission references.
Traveler image labels use locally served NASA illustrations, not live views or spacecraft attitude solutions. They appear when the selected traveler is followed or approached closely; the distance comparison also includes pictures. Image sizes are not physical scale.
The glowing heliosphere is a schematic round solar-wind bubble with a 120 AU reference radius, not a measured boundary or a forecast. Oort Cloud glows emphasize uncertain distance guides, not detected surfaces or comet densities. Tap reference lines or keyboard-accessible labels for explanations.
Galactic sky: real catalog directions, stylized star sizes, colors and Milky Way glow. Around Earth, J2000 directions rotate into the equator-of-date frame; Beyond Earth uses ecliptic J2000, additionally rotated with Earth’s ecliptic azimuth in Webb’s rotating view. This is a distant reference sky, not a view with stellar proper motion, parallax or observer travel modeled.
Space landmarks are educational guides, not extra simulated bodies. Kuiper Belt rings outline its approximate main region. Oort Cloud wire guides illustrate uncertain inner-edge (2,000–5,000 AU) and outer-edge (10,000–100,000 AU) estimates, not detected surfaces. Crossing markers combine NASA’s event dates with the sampled Voyager trajectory; they do not model the changing shape of the heliosphere. Zooming to a landmark never advances the mission clock. Dated crossing-site markers belong only to the Voyager 1 replay.
Science is a shared endeavor. These researchers, missions and maintainers make this view possible.
Original educational summaries, with credit to NASA and ESA. Each story links to its source. These are background science, not live hazard reports or an endorsement.
Pulling back beyond the Oort Cloud opens the full Milky Way–Andromeda encounter. First entry into Galaxy uses 1.5 million years per second so the stars visibly move; later visits retain your chosen Galaxy speed. Earth and the planetary orrery retain their own speeds. Each view keeps its own date; returning from an encounter restores Earth’s, the orrery’s or the mission player’s valid date and speed rather than moving satellites billions of years forward. Live Earth resumes actual UTC.
Sol marks an illustrative arm location attached to a model stellar tracer, not an accurately placed star or a prediction of the Sun’s orbit. The first arrival frames both galaxies with the Milky Way in the foreground. The pullback is a camera effect, not a spacecraft trajectory, and zoom itself never advances the timeline.
NASA · our galactic neighborhood · NASA / Spitzer · the Orion Spur and Milky Way structure. The Oort Cloud’s estimated outer extent is not a sharp measured boundary; our zoom threshold is a navigation choice.
Earth needs JavaScript and WebGL. Project credits.