Planet Distance & Scale
The Solar System is mostly empty space. Wanderstar lets you switch between a physically faithful real-scale view and an enlarged visible view, so you can feel just how far apart the planets really are.
Average distances from the Sun
| Planet | Distance (AU) | Distance (million km) |
|---|---|---|
| Mercury | 0.39 | 57.9 |
| Venus | 0.72 | 108.2 |
| Earth | 1.00 | 149.6 |
| Mars | 1.52 | 227.9 |
| Jupiter | 5.20 | 778.5 |
| Saturn | 9.58 | 1,434 |
| Uranus | 19.2 | 2,871 |
| Neptune | 30.1 | 4,495 |
1 AU (astronomical unit) is the average Earth–Sun distance. Light takes about 8 minutes to travel 1 AU.
Why most diagrams lie about scale
If the Sun were a basketball, Earth would be a peppercorn about 26 metres away, and Neptune a small grain nearly a kilometre out. No textbook page can show both the sizes and the distances correctly at once — so they cheat. Wanderstar’s real-scale mode does not, which is the whole point: it shows you how staggeringly empty the Solar System is.
Try it yourself
Open real-scale mode and try to find the planets — then switch to the readable visible scale to see them clearly. Both are useful: one for truth, one for teaching.