Atlas · The Solar System
The Solar System from above
Eight planets and nine dwarf planets, each on its real path round the Sun. One drawing cannot hold them all: at a scale that fits Neptune, the Earth’s orbit is three hundredths of the width. So there are three.
Drawing I
The inner Solar System
The four rocky planets and Ceres. The scale bar is one astronomical unit: the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. The faint band is the asteroid belt, where millions of small rocky bodies orbit; only Ceres, by far the largest, is drawn.
The drawing is 6.8 au across, which is 1.02 billion km.
Drawing II
The outer Solar System
The four giant planets and seven worlds beyond Neptune. The small square in the middle is the whole of drawing I. The faint band is the main part of the Kuiper belt, a ring of icy bodies of which these seven are among the largest.
The drawing is 152 au across, which is 22.7 billion km.
Drawing III
Out to Sedna
Sedna takes about eleven thousand years to go round once, and at its furthest is over a thousand times the Earth’s distance from the Sun. The square is the whole of drawing II, and the small ring inside it is Neptune’s orbit.
The drawing is 1,120 au across, which is 168 billion km.
How to read it
You are looking straight down on the plane of the planets, from its north side. Everything goes round anticlockwise. The Sun is the dot in the middle. Distances are to scale; the Sun and the worlds are not, because at these scales every one of them would be too small to see.
A flat drawing cannot show tilt. The planets keep within a few degrees of one flat sheet, but several of the dwarf planets do not: Eris is tilted by 44°, so its path rises far above the sheet and dips far below it. Where two orbits cross on the page, the worlds are usually nowhere near each other. Pluto’s path crosses inside Neptune’s here, yet the two never come close. The tilt of each orbit is in the lists.
- Solid dot. A spacecraft has mapped the whole surface.
- Ring. Never seen as more than a point of light or a blur of a few pixels.
- Faint band. A belt of many small bodies, shown as the zone they keep to. The bodies themselves are not drawn.
One astronomical unit, written au, is the average distance from the Earth to the Sun: 149.6 million km. Touch a row in the lists to pick out its orbit.
The planets
Eight worlds, each large enough to have cleared its own path round the Sun. They all go round the same way and keep close to one flat sheet.
| World | Orbit size | One orbit | Tilt | Width | Moons | See it in 3D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury. Mapped by spacecraft.57.9 million km from the Sun | 0.387 au | 88 days | 7.0° | 4,879 km | none | Fly there |
| Venus. Mapped by spacecraft.108 million km from the Sun | 0.723 au | 225 days | 3.4° | 12,100 km | none | Fly there |
| Earth. Mapped by spacecraft.150 million km from the Sun | 1.00 au | 365 days | 0.0° | 12,700 km | 1 | Fly there |
| Mars. Mapped by spacecraft.228 million km from the Sun | 1.52 au | 1.88 years | 1.8° | 6,779 km | 2 | Fly there |
| Jupiter. Mapped by spacecraft.778 million km from the Sun | 5.20 au | 11.9 years | 1.3° | 139,800 km | 115 | Fly there |
| Saturn. Mapped by spacecraft.1.43 billion km from the Sun | 9.54 au | 29.4 years | 2.5° | 116,500 km | 292 | Fly there |
| Uranus. Mapped by spacecraft.2.87 billion km from the Sun | 19.2 au | 84 years | 0.8° | 50,700 km | 29 | Fly there |
| Neptune. Mapped by spacecraft.4.5 billion km from the Sun | 30.1 au | 165 years | 1.8° | 49,200 km | 16 | Fly there |
Dwarf planets
Round like a planet, but sharing their part of space with many other bodies. These five are the ones the International Astronomical Union has named as dwarf planets.
| World | Orbit size | One orbit | Tilt | Width | Moons | See it in 3D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ceres. Mapped by spacecraft.414 million km from the Sun | 2.77 au | 4.6 years | 11° | 939 km | none | Fly there |
| Pluto. Mapped by spacecraft.5.92 billion km from the Sun | 39.6 au | 249 years | 17° | 2,377 km | 5 | Fly there |
| Haumea. Seen only as a point of light.6.44 billion km from the Sun | 43.1 au | 283 years | 28° | 1,596 km | 2 | Fly there |
| Makemake. Seen only as a point of light.6.82 billion km from the Sun | 45.6 au | 308 years | 29° | 1,430 km | 1 | Fly there |
| Eris. Seen only as a point of light.10.2 billion km from the Sun | 67.9 au | 560 years | 44° | 2,326 km | 1 | Fly there |
Likely dwarf planets
Large, far-off worlds that most astronomers who study them expect to be round. The International Astronomical Union has not ruled on them.
| World | Orbit size | One orbit | Tilt | Width | Moons | See it in 3D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orcus. Seen only as a point of light.5.89 billion km from the Sun | 39.4 au | 247 years | 21° | 917 km | 1 | Fly there |
| Quaoar. Seen only as a point of light.6.46 billion km from the Sun | 43.2 au | 284 years | 8.0° | 1,110 km | 1 | Fly there |
| Gonggong. Seen only as a point of light.10 billion km from the Sun | 66.9 au | 547 years | 31° | 1,230 km | 1 | Fly there |
| Sedna. Seen only as a point of light.81.3 billion km from the Sun | 544 au | 12,700 years | 12° | 995 km | none | Fly there |
Where this comes from
- NASA/JPL, approximate positions of the planets (orbits of the eight planets, good from 1800 to 2050)
- NASA/JPL Small-Body Database (orbits of the dwarf planets, as measured for mid 2026)
- International Astronomical Union, Pluto and the Solar System (which bodies are named dwarf planets)
- NASA, dwarf planets (the moons of Haumea, Makemake, Eris and the others)
- NASA, Kuiper belt facts
- NASA, asteroid facts
Orbit size is the average of a world’s nearest and furthest distance from the Sun. Tilt is measured from the plane of the Earth’s orbit. Width is the average width; several of these worlds are not round, and Haumea is nearly twice as long as it is thick. The belts are drawn between the distances where most of their bodies orbit: 2.06 to 3.27 au for the asteroid belt and 39.4 to 47.8 au for the main Kuiper belt.