πŸͺ The Eight Planets β€” Orbits & Facts

Every planet's orbit on one horizontal scale, then a detailed card for each world β€” moons, rotation and all. Science Centre Observatory, Jurong.

Every orbit, side by side

Each bar is one world's orbit drawn on a logarithmic distance scale β€” it runs from its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) to its farthest (aphelion), with a dot at the average. A wide bar means a stretched, eccentric orbit. Notice how Pluto's orbit actually crosses inside Neptune's.

Distances in AU (1 AU = the Earth–Sun distance β‰ˆ 149.6 million km). The four rocky planets huddle inside 1.7 AU; the four giants sweep from 5 to 30 AU. Ceres (asteroid belt) and Pluto (Kuiper belt) are shown for context. For the side-on view of the orbital tilts and each planet's spin, see the overview page.

Reading an orbit

Orbits are ellipses with the Sun at one focus (Kepler's 1st law). A planet moves fastest at perihelion and slowest at aphelion (2nd law), and the farther out it is, the longer its year β€” periodΒ² grows with distanceΒ³ (3rd law), which is why Neptune takes 165 years to lap the Sun while Mercury needs just 88 days. Eccentricity (how oval) and inclination (how tilted out of the flat ecliptic plane) are small for the eight planets, which is why they all track the same narrow zodiac band across our sky.

The planets in depth

Rocky worlds first, then the giants β€” each with its moons, its spin and a few things that stick.

Orbital elements after P. Schlyter / NASA-JPL Solar System Dynamics; physical, rotation and moon data are standard published values (moon counts are "at least", as surveys keep finding more). The chart's distance axis is logarithmic so every world fits on one picture.
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