Pick a system
Click center · Double-click auto zoom · Wheel zoom at cursor · Drag pan · hover for photos and details. On touch: tap info · double-tap zoom · two fingers pinch.
From the Sun to Andromeda at true distances — 3D star map
A map that places the major stars within 2,000 light-years of the Sun at their true three-dimensional positions, so the distances between them become something you can look at.
Stars lifted off the celestial sphere
Looking up at night, every star seems pinned to the inside of one shell. Even the stars that outline a single constellation are, in reality, unrelated to each other and scattered at wildly different distances. This map strips that shell away and puts each star back at the depth it actually occupies. Proxima Centauri, the nearest star of all, and Deneb, far beyond it, sit inside the same volume here, which makes it plain that stars of similar apparent brightness can be nowhere near each other.
Reading distance by turning the map
Drag to rotate the map and, as the direction you are looking from shifts, the front-to-back relationships between stars come out. The moment that matters is when two stars that looked adjacent from one angle spring far apart as soon as you turn. The wheel or a pinch lets you fill the view with the Sun's immediate surroundings or pull back until the full 2,000 light-year range fits, and selecting a star confirms which one sits where. It opens in a browser with nothing to install, and the same rotation works by touch on a phone.
About the distances
Star positions are laid out from measured distance data. Distance measurements are most reliable for nearby stars and grow less certain further out, so the arrangement close to the Sun can be trusted more tightly than the region running from a few hundred out to 2,000 light-years. The point of the map is less to read individual figures than to get a feel for how the distances compare. Where an exact value matters, check it against a published catalogue.
Good ways to use it
When you need to explain why a constellation figure only holds together from Earth's particular vantage point, turning this map once does the work faster than describing it. If the light-year refuses to feel like a real quantity, seeing the gap between the nearest star and a familiar bright one helps it land. Working out which stars are genuinely our neighbours also changes how the night sky reads afterwards. Any star you select here has a fuller entry waiting in the object encyclopedia on this site.
Look it up here
- How far is Sirius from the Sun, really? 8.6 light-years — it opens with Sirius selected, and the card's distance view puts the Sun and Sirius in one frame with the 8.6-year light-travel gap. Show it here →
- How many years does light take from the Sun to Betelgeuse? About 640 years — it opens with Betelgeuse selected, and the distance view puts the 640-light-year gap to the Sun in one frame. Show it here →
- What is the closest star to the Sun? Proxima Centauri is closest at 4.25 light-years, and the 3D map shows the real gap between it and the Sun. Show it here →
- Which star is the brightest in the night sky? Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, and tonight's view marks where it stands and how high. Show it here →
- Is Betelgeuse about to go supernova? It is a red supergiant near the end of its life, bound to explode on no fixed date; the 3D map shows its bulk up close. Show it here →
- Can I rotate the stars and see their 3D layout? A rotation-only 3D view lets you spin the neighbouring stars to any angle and see which ones lie in front. Show it here →
FAQ
How far out does the map go?
It covers the major stars within 2,000 light-years of the Sun. On the scale of the galaxy that is a small neighbourhood, but most of the bright stars visible to the naked eye fall inside it, so the familiar ones from the night sky are nearly all here.
Are the stars in a constellation close to each other?
Usually not. A constellation is a pattern drawn between stars that merely happen to lie in a similar direction as seen from Earth, so when you rotate the map the members of one constellation often turn out to be separated by enormous gaps in depth.
Where is the closest star to the Sun?
Proxima Centauri sits right beside the Sun. Zoom in on the Sun's surroundings and it turns up immediately; zoom back out until Deneb is in frame and the contrast between the nearest star and a distant one becomes obvious in a single move.