Home▸Space & Astronomy▸Planetary Palette: A Size & Color Guide

Planetary Palette: A Size & Color Guide (2D)

A 2D top-down companion: the eight planets move on real Kepler ellipses — true eccentricities and Kepler's-third-law periods, not a fixed angular rate — with a size/color legend and a live numeric readout (diameter, distance, orbital speed, period) for whichever body you click.

Space & Astronomy2DEasy60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version

This 2D companion trades the 3D scene's orbiting camera for a readable top-down diagram: all eight planets move on real Kepler ellipses, solved from Kepler's equation each frame with each planet's true eccentricity and sidereal period, so Mercury's stretched orbit and its speed-up near perihelion (via the vis-viva equation) are directly visible rather than implied by a constant angular rate. Click any planet — or the Sun — to read its real diameter, current distance, orbital speed and period in the side panel, switch between a compressed-true-distance and an evenly-spaced diagram layout, and toggle fading orbit trails to see how eccentric each path really is.

⚙ Under the hood

A 2D top-down companion: the eight planets on real Kepler ellipses (true eccentricities, Kepler's third law periods) with a size/color legend and a live numeric readout per planet.

solar systemkepler orbitsplanet sizesorbital eccentricityvis-viva2d

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install