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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Generate animated solar system timelapse videos for any date range

A fork of Solar System Live that generates animated videos showing planetary orbits over any date range. Tracks orbital statistics (how many times Earth was lapped by Mercury/Venus, or lapped outer planets) and overlays dates/ages on each frame. Example: Einstein's lifetime (1879-1955) showing 76 years of solar system evolution. Built with Python + Pillow + ffmpeg, runs locally with Lighttpd. https://github.com/simondorfman/solar_system_live

This tool generates animated videos of the solar system's planetary orbits across any selected date range. Built with Python, Pillow, and ffmpeg, it runs locally and overlays dates and orbital statistics on each frame… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 4 we have checked on their own sites, 4 of them free or with a free tier.

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    Watch time unfold and witness 40 years of planetary change

    2021 · earth.google.com · its alternatives →

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    Atlas of Spacefree▲770

    Hello HN! Sharing a recent side project of mine, the Atlas of Space, that I built out to explore the Solar System. As a long-time space nerd, I realized recently that I didn't have a good intuition on the scale, speed, and relative orientation of the celestial bodies around us. So over the break I built out a kind of spatial Wikipedia to click around and learn about planets, moons, asteroids, and other bodies orbiting the Sun. The physics is all simulated in the browser using simple Newtonian mechanics. There's a lot left to do from here, including modeling objects in non-Keplerian orbits…

    2025 · atlasof.space · its alternatives →

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    AstraPixelsfree tier, from $5/mo▲267

    ​​A pixel-art solar system at its real current positions.​

    Aug 2026 · astrapixels.com · its alternatives →

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    Walk in the cosmos

    2021 · its alternatives →

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    Live NASA solar imagery in 12 wavelengths, the moon phase tonight for 200+ cities, and real space weather. Free on iOS and Android. No ads, no signup.

    Apr 2026 · lumara-space.app · its alternatives →

  7. 7GI

    Just for fun and self education, I've built this over a weekend to teach myself why orbits exist, not just show planets going around. Something that was never clearly explain to me in school. It opens with a guided tour that builds the idea up step by step: two bodies and the equal/opposite force, inertia (the Sun is removed and Earth just drifts straight), then "an orbit is falling and continuously missing," cosmic velocities with a little rocket, Voyager 1 & 2's real gravity assists (the clock runs the actual 1977–1989 dates so the planets orbit into their grand-tour alignment and the…

    Jun 2026 · qunabu.github.io · its alternatives →

  8. 8WI

    Special relativity simulator in which light crawls along at a human speed, so Lorentz contraction, aberration and Doppler shift happen at walking pace.

    Sep 2026 · rivendell.dmitrybrant.com · its alternatives →

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    Earth looked very different long ago. Search for addresses across 750 million years of Earth

    2018 · dinosaurpictures.org · its alternatives →

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    A tediously accurate scale model of the solar system

    2014 · joshworth.com · its alternatives →

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    A simple viewer for planetary orbits in our Solar System

    2021 · 8planets.app · its alternatives →

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    3D visualization of NASA meteor shower data. Scientifically accurate and fully interactive.

    2015 · ianww.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13IB

    I built this because measuring my age in years felt boring—I wanted to see the kilometers. The first version only used Earth's orbital speed (~30km/s), but the number moved too slowly. To get the "existential dread" feeling, I switched to using the Milky Way's velocity relative to the CMB (~600km/s). The math takes some liberties (using scalar sum instead of vector) to make the speed feel "fast," but it gets the point across. Under the hood, it's a single HTML file with zero dependencies. No React, no build step. The main challenge was the canvas starfield—I had to pre-allocate the…

    Jan 2026 · cosmic-odometer.vercel.app · its alternatives →

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    A rotatable Earth that drags today's countries and major cities through the Merdith 2021 plate reconstruction model, plus a simple future extrapolation. Continents keep their color families while the land follows plate motion from 1000 million years ago to 250 million years ahead.

    Aug 2026 · douwe.com · its alternatives →

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    Features include: - Several preset periodic orbits: the classic Figure-8, plus newly discovered 3D solutions from Li and Liao's recent database of 10,000+ orbits (https://arxiv.org/html/2508.08568v1) - Full 3D camera controls (rotate/pan/zoom) with body-following mode - Force and velocity vector visualization - Timeline scrubbing to explore the full orbital period The 3D presets are particularly interesting. Try "O₂(1.2)" or "Piano O₆(0.6)" from the Load Presets menu to see configurations where bodies weave in and out of the orbital plane. Most browser…

    Nov 2025 · trisolarchaos.com · its alternatives →

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    3D-Universefree▲2

    The whole solar system, live in your browser

    Jun 2026 · metaworldos.com · its alternatives →

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    Sloooow▲76

    Change your relationship with time. Take it Sloooow™

    2020 · sloooow.app · its alternatives →

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    I made this as a fun tiny project to experiment with Remotion [1] to generate videos. You can find the source code on GitHub [2]. [1] https://www.remotion.dev/ [2] https://github.com/scastiel/github-stars-video

    2023 · scastiel.dev · its alternatives →

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    Gravity WebGL experiment in the Solar System

    2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20TS

    Inspiring the Web with Just 10k

    2016 · a-k-apart.com · its alternatives →

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    Nikmati kemudahan deposit via QRIS, Dana, OVO, LinkAja, GoPay, dan bank BCA/Mandiri/BRI di Buaya138. Proses cepat tanpa potongan. Minimal deposit 10rb.

    2019 · sunlight.live · its alternatives →

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    WebGL simulation of the solar system. Contribute to olane/orbits.js development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2014 · github.com · its alternatives →

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    Hey HN! I made Orbit, an iOS app that allows you to see the satellites, planets, and constellations above you in AR, on a 2D map, and on a 3D globe. The app includes more than 15,000 objects tracked by CelesTrack, together with their pass predictions, descriptions, and detailed orbital data. A searchable catalog of all objects is also available, as well as a built-in chatbot designed to answer any space-related questions you might have. This is my first published iOS app, so any feedback is greatly appreciated! App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6772174570

    Jul 2026 · nagylukas.github.io · its alternatives →

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    I built StellarSnap as a calm, ad-free space to explore NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) and learn astronomy along the way. What it includes: - A clean APOD archive browser with a Random APOD button - A growing Glossary with term highlighting across the site - A 2D Orbit Simulator where you can test satellite motion with real physics - A deeper Encyclopedia, still early, but expanding - Subtle touches like “see past APODs using this term” - And more to come It’s entirely ad-free, cookie-free, and not affiliated with NASA, but I was honored to have StellarSnap mentioned on the…

    2025 · stellarsnap.space · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →