Two new additions to the family of animated Solar System diagrams for Google Earth Sky.

These Orrerys combine KML Screen Overlays to display a top-down view of current planet positions in the top left corner of the screen, and run on a 3 month time-loop alongside the default Our Solar System Layer.

To squeeze everything into the corner of the window, the original animation showed the planets spread evenly apart - only giving part of the story about relative locations.  Here I’ve added two further options which split the Solar System in two,  and display accurate average orbital distances:

• A chart showing the positions of the Inner (Terrestrial) planets; Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars
• Another for the Outer (Jovian) planets;  Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, plus the Earth for reference.

These are available alongside the original through a single KML Networklink. 

Planets in Orbit (60kB)

- Download the file and select the option you want displayed.

- Then click the Time Slider play button.

If the networklink is stored under My Places, the file will automatically update either if Google change the time span of their planets layer, or when I add  anything else - e.g. a diagram including the Moon.