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
Generate animated solar system timelapse videos for any date range launched on January 21, 2026 with 10 votes, #1,059 of 14,584 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches.
In plain words
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, such as how many times inner planets lap Earth or outer planets lap Earth. Users can visualize decades of solar system evolution, with example output showing 76 years of planetary movement during Einstein's lifetime.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
Solar System Live is an interactive orrery for the Web that lets you view the solar system in a variety of ways for any date between 4713 B.C. and A.D. 8000. An ephemeris can be displayed for any location on Earth and, given orbital elements in the form published in the IAU Circulars and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the orbit and position of ast - simondorfman/solar_system_live
This repository is a fork of Fourmilab's Solar System Live with added tooling to generate animated videos of the solar system over time. Perfect for creating unique birthday videos! Generate time-lapse animations showing how the solar system evolved during someone's lifetime, complete with customizable text overlays showing dates, ages, and planetary orbital statistics. Watch as planets orbit while tracking how many times Earth (or your friend) was lapped by Mercury and Venus, or how many times they lapped the outer planets. Note: This repository is macOS-focused (setup scripts and instructions assume macOS/Homebrew), but you can probably adapt it to work on other Unix-like systems (Linux,…from github.com
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