What did you change in the model?
Labs / Astronomy
Solar System Orrery
Press play and the eight planets sweep around the Sun using their true relative orbital periods. Speed up the clock, click any planet to track its angle and lap count, and switch between evenly spaced and true-distance views to see just how empty the outer system really is.
Labs / Astronomy / Solar System Orrery
Solar System Orrery
Press play and the eight planets sweep around the Sun using their true relative orbital periods. Speed up the clock, click any planet to track its angle and lap count, and switch between evenly spaced and true-distance views to see just how empty the outer system really is.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Astronomy uses patterns in light and motion to explain objects we cannot touch directly. This model lets you change one part of a space system and see what the evidence would look like.
Explore
Try the model
Day 0 d (0.0 yr)Earth θ 0°T 365 dlaps 0.00
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- How many times does Mercury circle the Sun before Earth finishes a single lap?
- Turn on true distances. Where do Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars end up compared to the giants?
- Click Neptune and let it run. Roughly how many Earth-years pass before it completes one orbit?
- Watch an inner planet catch and pass an outer one — why does that lapping keep happening?
- Pause and step forward. Which planets barely move per step, and which jump ahead?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Look for a cause-and-effect rule: what did you change, what responded, and what stayed the same? Astronomers use those patterns to infer how distant systems work.
Check
Before you leave
What visible evidence changed?
What rule could explain that change?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.