← All builds

Moving with the Sun · 230 km/s

This is how the solar system moves

The Sun is not standing still. It carries every planet around the Milky Way, so each orbit is stretched into a helix behind it.

What's to scale
  • Real timing. Planets start where they are today, and each orbit takes its true period, from Mercury's 88 days to Neptune's 165 years. Run time backward to see where they were.
  • Real tilt. The planets' orbital plane sits about 60° to the Sun's path around the galaxy. Drag the tilt to 90° to see the popular "vortex" version.
  • Compressed distances. Orbit sizes use the square root of true distance, so Mercury and Neptune fit on one screen.
  • Slowed Sun. At the real 230 km/s, Earth's helix would advance about 48 AU per year, nearly 50 times its orbit's width. Use "Helix stretch" to explore that.
Date
—
From today
0 km
Galactic orbit
0%