Scivra
Free~18 min

Solar System Scale

True distances and sizes of planets in perspective

How it works

The solar system is overwhelmingly empty space. The Sun contains 99.86% of the system's mass. If the Sun were a basketball (24 cm diameter), Earth would be a 2 mm peppercorn 26 meters away, and Jupiter would be a 2.5 cm marble 135 meters away. Neptune would be over 770 meters away. The planets' sizes span 4 orders of magnitude: Mercury (4,879 km) to Jupiter (139,820 km). Distances span even more: Mercury at 0.39 AU to Neptune at 30.07 AU. One AU is about 150 million km. Light takes 4.2 hours to reach Neptune from the Sun.

Step-by-step

  1. Scroll horizontally to travel through the solar system at true proportional distance scale.
  2. The top bar shows planet sizes at true relative scale.
  3. Toggle between size-accurate view (shows relative diameters) and distance-accurate view (shows true spacing).
  4. The data panel shows real measurements for the selected planet.

Key formulas

  • 1 AU=1.496×108 km1\,\text{AU} = 1.496 \times 10^8\,\text{km}Astronomical Unit: average Earth-Sun distance, used as the standard measure of solar system distances
  • Light time=dc≈8.3 min (Sun to Earth)\text{Light time} = \frac{d}{c} \approx 8.3\,\text{min (Sun to Earth)}Light travel time: even at 300,000 km/s, sunlight takes 8.3 minutes to reach Earth

Frequently asked questions

If Earth is 1 AU from the Sun, how far is Jupiter in AU?
Jupiter orbits at ~5.2 AU from the Sun.
How many Earths could fit inside Jupiter by volume?
Jupiter's radius is ~11.2× Earth's. Volume scales as r³: 11.2³ ≈ 1,400 Earths.
How long does light take to travel from the Sun to Neptune?
Neptune is ~30 AU away. Light crosses 1 AU in ~8.3 min. 30 × 8.3 ≈ 249 min ≈ 4.15 hours.