Welcome to the Solar System!
This map shows where the planets and dwarf planets really are today. Their positions are worked out from their true orbits, so it matches the real sky. Click any world to learn all about it — including every one of its moons.
Or grab the map and drag it: sideways to spin the whole solar system round, up and down to tip it over, so you can see the planets and dwarf planets from any angle.
Every world is turning on the spot, just like the real thing: giants such as Jupiter and Saturn whizz round, while slow Venus crawls — and goes backwards! The spins are hurried up so you can see them all move. The night side of each world faces away from the Sun, just like in real life. The grey speckles between Mars and Jupiter are the asteroid belt — each dot is a rock on its own orbit, and we keep a little space clear around Ceres so you can always see it. Switch to + Dwarf planets and you will also find the icy Kuiper Belt out past Neptune, with a clearing kept open around Pluto, Haumea and Makemake so they never get lost in the crowd. Sizes are drawn bigger than real life so you can see them — if they were to scale, Earth would be far too small to spot. Use Zoom in to make the worlds bigger and push their orbits further apart.
Or pick a world from the list
Dwarf Planets 🤍
A dwarf planet is round like a planet and circles the Sun like a planet — but it has NOT cleared all the other rocks and ice out of its path. There are five official ones. Click to explore!
Stars ⭐
A star is a giant ball of glowing gas that makes its own light and heat. Our Sun is a star — it just looks bigger because it is much, much closer than all the others.
Our star: the Sun
The closest star to Earth, and the reason our planet is warm and bright. Click to read more.
Kinds of stars
Famous stars in the sky
How does a star live?
- Nebula — a huge cloud of gas and dust starts to squeeze together.
- Baby star — the middle gets hot enough to switch on and start shining.
- Grown-up star — it shines steadily for billions of years. Our Sun is here now.
- Red giant — the star runs low on fuel and puffs up very large.
- The end — small stars fade into white dwarfs. Big stars explode as supernovas and may leave a neutron star or a black hole.
Galaxies 🌌
Every galaxy below is drawn star by star, right here in your browser — blue stars in the arms, old yellow ones in the middle, pink clouds where new stars are being born. Click any one to explore it.
You live here
The Milky Way
Click to explore our home galaxy →
Kinds of galaxies
Famous galaxies
How far away is all this? 🔭
Galaxies are so far apart that we measure the gaps in light-years — how far light travels in a whole year. When you look at one, you are looking back in time:
- The Large Magellanic Cloud — light left it 163,000 years ago.
- Andromeda — 2.5 million years ago, before the first humans.
- The Whirlpool — 31 million years ago, when whales were learning to swim.
- Hoag's Object — 600 million years ago, before there were any animals on land.
Nobody has ever seen these galaxies as they look today. We never will!
The Whole Universe 🔭
The universe is everything — every star, every planet, every galaxy, and all the empty space in between. Here are the big ideas, explained simply.
How big is big? 📏
Imagine the Sun shrunk down to the size of a beach ball. Then:
- Earth would be a peppercorn, about 26 metres away.
- Jupiter would be a walnut, about 135 metres away.
- Neptune would be a pea, about 800 metres away.
- The next star would be another beach ball — nearly 7,000 kilometres away!
Space is mostly empty space. That is why it is so hard to travel across!
Activity ✏️
Answer the questions, fill in the crossword, or go and make something. Everything you need is somewhere in this app — so have a look around if you get stuck.
Questions 🧠
Answer all 24 questions, then press Check my answers at the bottom to see which ones you got right.
The space crossword 🧩
The clues are all about the planets, the dwarf planets, the stars and the galaxies you have met in this app. Press Check my crossword at the bottom when you are done.
Make & Do ✂️
Twelve space things to build out of paper, cardboard and whatever is already in the recycling. Every one comes with a full list of what you need, the steps in order, and the real science behind it. Click any card to open the instructions.
Search 🔍
Can't find something? Type the name of a planet, a moon, a star, a galaxy, a space word — or something you would like to make, such as paper craft about space — and we will find it for you. Space Explorer only knows about space, though; ask it about anything else and it will say not available.