Accuracy and method

Verified against NASA JPL data

Yes, the alignment is real. Every Planetry Print places the planets using orbital data published by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA JPL Solar System Simulator renderPlanetry Print aligned over the NASA renderNASA JPL · raw renderYour Planetry Print

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The same day, 13 October 2021. Drag across NASA's own render to reveal the print laid on top: the same Sun, the same planets, in the same positions.

Check it yourself

Recreate this view on NASA's own simulator

Don't take our word for it. Open NASA's free Solar System Simulator, enter these five settings, and you'll land on the exact same alignment we printed, for any date you like.

  1. Show meThe solar system
  2. As seen fromAbove
  3. OnYour print's date
  4. Field of view45 degrees , raise it to zoom out
  5. OrbitsTicked on

NASA Solar System Simulator

space.jpl.nasa.gov
Open the simulator ↗

Where the positions come from

Every print starts with one number per planet: where it sat in its orbit, in degrees, on your date.

Those angles come from the orbital data NASA's Solar System Dynamics group publishes for exactly this purpose, the same public data set used for telescope pointing and mission planning. Not a lookalike, not an artistic approximation, not a stock illustration adjusted to look plausible. JPL's numbers, run forward to your date, and drawn.

How accurate is it, really?

NASA publishes the expected error in its own data, so this can be answered in millimetres instead of adjectives.

On the 16 x 20 inch print, the largest size we sell:

  • Saturn, the least precise of them, sits within 0.65 mm of true.
  • Jupiter, within 0.35 mm.
  • Earth, Venus and Mercury, within 0.01 mm.

A pencil line is about 0.5 mm wide. On the 8 x 10 inch print every one of those figures halves. The error is smaller than the ink.

What we do not claim

Two honest limits, because a proof page that only makes claims is not a proof page.

  • Orbital distances are compressed, not to scale. Neptune is thirty times further from the Sun than Earth. At true scale the inner planets would be a smudge. Every planet is at its true angle. The gaps between the rings are designed for the wall.
  • This is a view from above, not the view from your window. The print shows the solar system from overhead, the way a diagram does, not the sky as it looked from your garden that night.

A moment the sky will not arrange the same way again.

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