How far apart are the planets?
Why every poster lies to you
Textbook solar systems show planets shoulder-to-shoulder because the truth is un-drawable: the gaps between planets are thousands of times wider than the planets themselves. When Voyager 1 photographed Earth from 6 billion km away — the famous Pale Blue Dot — our whole world covered less than a single pixel, a "mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam".
This site's 1:1 mode is the un-lied version: one scale for sizes and distances alike. The planets become sub-pixel specks on enormous orbit lines, and finding them takes real effort. That feeling — slightly lost, surrounded by nothing — is the most accurate model of the solar system you will ever experience. Try it.
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Every figure on this page is a real, rounded value checked against primary sources. Found something out of date? See how we keep it accurate.