Solar System Explorer

How to zoom and pan

• To zoom, scroll in or out (or use the I–O keys).
• To pan around, click and drag (or use the W–A–S–D keys).

Don’t see anything?

• Sometimes you’re facing the nighttime side of a planet. Try panning around the object to get to the daytime side.
• Sometimes the image data loads slowly—if you’re sure you’re not on the nighttime side, wait a few moments for the object imagery to load.

Object size

• By default, objects in the solar system are displayed 25 times larger than their actual size (i.e., NOT to scale).
• The farther you move the slider to the left, the more exaggerated the object sizes will be (and the farther they will be from their actual scale).

Time controls

• By default, time runs at actual speed. (If you watch Earth for 24 hours, it would spin around once.)
• Speed time up a little to watch most planets and moons spin on their axes and experience day and night.
• Speed time up a lot to watch planets orbit around the Sun and experience a year (or to watch moons orbit their planets).

Realistic lighting

• Leave “on” if you want to observe day/night on planets and moons.
• Turn “off” if you want to look for features on planets and moons that are on the dark nighttime sides.