Solar System Map
Individual celestial bodies and human-made objects.
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Visual enchantments
Artistic effects: not how space really looks. Real space is dark and still, and stars do not twinkle (twinkling comes from Earth's air).
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Credits
Somewhere along the way, learning becomes an adventure. If you leave this place knowing something you didn't know before, or simply feeling a little more curious about the world around you, then it has served its purpose.
Sky
Deep Star Maps 2020: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC.
Textures
Sun, planet and moon textures: Solar System Scope, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (resized for the web). Asteroid rock sprites: Ash.
Orbits and positions
Planet orbits: NASA JPL, Keplerian elements for approximate positions of the major planets (E. M. Standish), valid 1800–2050.
Voyager 1, the Voyager crossing points and Halley's Comet: JPL Horizons, NASA JPL Solar System Dynamics.
Solar cycle
Sunspot numbers: Source: WDC-SILSO, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels (monthly mean total sunspot number, CC BY-NC 4.0). Forecast to 2030: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. Typical cycle shape: Hathaway, Wilson & Reichmann (1994); latitudes of the spots: Hathaway (2011).
Heliosphere
Boundary crossings: NASA/JPL Voyager mission. Interstellar wind direction: IBEX (Swaczyna et al. 2023). Distances to the heliopause: IBEX (Reisenfeld et al. 2021). Shapes: Opher et al. 2015 and 2020 (croissant), Dialynas et al. 2017 (bubble). No bow shock: McComas et al. 2012.
Oort Cloud
Distances: NASA Science; inner Hills cloud after J. G. Hills (1981).
Stellar neighbourhood
Star positions and types: SIMBAD, CDS, Strasbourg. Distances from parallaxes by ESA Gaia (EDR3, ESA/Gaia/DPAC) and Hipparcos (van Leeuwen 2007); Alpha Centauri A/B: Kervella et al. 2016; Luhman 16: Lazorenko & Sahlmann 2018; WISE 0855−0714: Kirkpatrick et al. 2021. Planets: NASA Exoplanet Archive, checked 12 November 2026, cross-checked with The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia.
Milky Way
Built from measurements, not from a picture. Spiral arms: maser parallaxes, Reid et al. 2019 (ApJ 885, 131). Bar and bulge: Wegg, Gerhard & Portail 2015; Wegg & Gerhard 2013; Bland-Hawthorn & Gerhard 2016. Warp: Gaia DR3 Cepheids, Zhou et al. 2025 (drawn three times as tall). The Sun's height: Bennett & Bovy 2019. Globular clusters: Harris catalogue (1996, 2010 edition). Magellanic Clouds: Pietrzyński et al. 2019, Graczyk et al. 2020. Andromeda: Li et al. 2021. Look inspired by ESA's 2025 Milky Way impression (ESA/Gaia/DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar).
3D models
Voyager 1: NASA Visualization Technology Applications and Development (VTAD).
Photos
Halley's Comet on 8 March 1986: NASA / W. Liller. Halley's nucleus from Giotto: ESA / MPS (Halley Multicolour Camera).
Text
Written by Ash and fact-checked against NASA and the sources listed in each panel.
Software and fonts
three.js (MIT licence). Fonts under the SIL Open Font License: Saira Semi Condensed, Instrument Sans, JetBrains Mono, Sacramento. Everything is served from this site.
Friends of the map
To reach these worlds, you need a rocket. Find them all on Spaceflight Orbitalpedia.
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© 2026 Ash. Textures, data and fonts belong to their owners and are used under the licences named above.