Is this drawing to scale?

No, and it cannot be. The moon is drawn about 24 times too close to the Earth, and the sun about 3,151 times too close and 52 times too small. Shrink the Earth to a 16 mm marble and the moon is a 4.4 mm bead about 48 cm away, while the sun is a 1.7 m ball roughly 188 m down the road. What IS true here is every direction and angle: where the sun and moon lie around the Earth, which half of the Earth is lit, and where you are on it.

What am I looking at?

The Earth from far above its orbit, looking down from your own hemisphere. Sunlight arrives from the top left, so the half of the Earth facing that way is having its day. The marker is the place you chose, the dotted circle inside the globe is the path that spot rides as the Earth turns, and the moon sits at its true angle from the sun.

Why does the moon always look half lit?

Because from this vantage you are looking at the moon side-on: the sun lights one half of it, and from above you see the boundary edge-on. The phase people see from Earth is not how much of the moon is lit — it is how much of the lit half faces us, and that is the ANGLE between the moon and the sun in this picture. Line the moon up with the sun and it is a new moon; put it opposite and it is full. The phase disc beside the read-out shows the same instant as it looks from the ground.

Why do we always see the same side of the moon?

Because the moon turns on its own axis exactly once per orbit — 27.3 days for both — so the same hemisphere faces us permanently. Earth's pull slowed its spin over billions of years until the two matched, which is called tidal locking. A wobble in the orbit lets us see about 59% of the surface over time. It also means "the dark side of the moon" is a misnomer: the far side gets exactly as much sunlight, and at new moon it is the fully lit one.

Does it show eclipses?

No — deliberately. Earth's real shadow reaches well past the moon's orbit, so drawing it would put the moon inside it at every full moon and imply an eclipse every month. What actually decides an eclipse is how far the moon sits above or below the plane of Earth's orbit, and that is the one thing this flat view cannot show. Lunar eclipses have their own pages.

How accurate are the positions?

The sun and moon positions come from the same solver the rest of the site uses — good to about a minute of time for sunrise and sunset, and to a fraction of a degree for the moon. It runs entirely in your browser, so nothing is cached or stale. The methodology pages set out where each figure stops being reliable.

Can I share the exact view I am looking at?

Yes. The location, date, time and span are all in the address bar, so copying the URL shares the exact sky on screen. The link builder further down writes one for you if you would rather fill in a form than edit a URL.

TimeAndSpace.Science

Sun, Moon & Earth Movement Simulator

Watch where the sun and the moon actually are, from any place on Earth, at any moment you like. Drag the slider through a day, a week or a month and the picture, the phase and every number move with it.

Three views of Earth, and how it fits with the rest of the solar system

1 · From a place on EarthSun & moon from your own townThe Earth turns under a marked location: day and night, sunrise, moonrise and tonight's phase.You are here 2 · Step backEarth & the moon's orbit around the sunAll three moving at once — the month, the seasons and the year on one screen. 3 · Step back againThe full solar systemEarth's orbit among all eight, from Mercury's 88 days out to Neptune's 165 years.

Showing New York40.710°, -74.010°

Waxing gibbous 98% lit

Wed, Aug 26, 2026, 4:46 PM

——

Waxing gibbous 98% lit from the ground at —

Sun altitude31.4°

Sun directionWSW

Moon altitude-24.9°

Moon directioneast

Moon–sun angle165°

Daylight that day13 h 22 m

Sunrise · sunset6:18 AM · 7:40 PM

Moonrise · moonset7:04 PM · 4:30 AM

Jump to the next

New York is the marker on the globe — on the daylit half at the time shown, riding the dotted circle its spot traces as the Earth turns. The moon is 165° from the sun in the sky then, and that angle is the phase: waxing gibbous. You are looking down on the Earth from far above its orbit, from the north — the side you are on — with sunlight arriving from the top left, so the half of the Earth facing that way is the half having its day. Sizes and distances are not to scale; the directions are.

What this is, and how it works

This is a working model of the Sun, Earth and Moon for one place on Earth. The Earth turns, the Moon goes around it, and the Sun sits off to the left. Drag the slider through a day, a week or a month. Now jumps back to this moment. Tilt tips the view. Playback speed is how fast that time plays.

Every angle is real. Every size and distance is not — the card below says by how much, computed from the drawing itself.

This picture is not to scale — here is how far out it is

Every direction and angle in the simulator is real. Every size and distance is not, and it is worth being exact about which, because a diagram that quietly lies about the solar system is how people end up thinking the moon is a few Earth-widths away.

The moon is drawnabout 24× too close

The sun is drawnabout 3,151× too close, and 52× too small

The moon’s size next to Earthvery nearly right — 27% of Earth’s width, against a real 27%

Try it in a corridor. Shrink the Earth to a 16 mm marble. The moon is then a 4.4 mm bead — about a peppercorn — held 48 cm away. The sun is a 1.7 metre ball, taller than a person, standing 188 metres down the road: nearly two football pitches. Nothing about that fits on a screen, so this picture keeps the angles honest and lets the distances go.

Those figures are for the picture as it sits on this page. The drawing's HEIGHT is what sets every size in it, so a wider frame changes nothing except the gap between the sun and the Earth — which is why full screen is less wrong than this: it hands the picture the screen's own shape, and on a phone held sideways that puts the sun roughly 1,575× too close instead of 3,151×. Still hopeless, and better.

What you can trust here: the direction of the sun and the moon from the Earth and from your own spot; which half of the Earth is in daylight; the angle between the moon and the sun, which is the phase; the tilt of the Earth’s axis and how much of your daily circle falls in the light. What you cannot: any distance, the sun’s size, or anything about eclipses.

What this picture is telling you

The question is the link. A short answer sits here; tap through for the drawing and the deeper pass.

What is the Tropic of Cancer? It is the circle at 23.4° north. The Sun is straight overhead there once a year, on the June solstice, and never north of it. That number is Earth’s tilt, not a climate zone someone drew.
Why do we have seasons? Not because Earth gets closer to the Sun. When it is summer in the United States it is winter in Australia, on the same planet, at the same distance. Seasons happen because the axis is tilted 23.4° and keeps pointing the same way all year.
Why does the Moon change shape? The Moon makes no light of its own. One half is always lit by the Sun. Phases are your changing view of that lit half as the Moon goes around Earth — about 29.5 days from full moon to full moon.
What causes tides? The Moon’s gravity pulls harder on the water nearer to it than on the Earth’s centre, and harder on the centre than on the far-side water. The ocean stretches into two bulges. Earth then turns under those bulges, so most coasts see two high tides a day.
What is a synodic month? A synodic month is the time from one full moon to the next, about 29.5 days. It is longer than the Moon’s trip around Earth relative to the stars, because Earth has moved and the Moon must catch up to the same angle with the Sun.
What is tidal locking? The Moon keeps the same face toward Earth because it turns once in the same time it goes around us. That match is tidal locking — not a dark side that never sees the Sun.
What is libration? Libration is a small wobble in the Moon’s facing. We still have one near side, but over time we see about 59% of the surface, not 50%. The extra is a peek around the edges.
Why does moonrise get later each night? The Moon moves east along its orbit while Earth turns. Earth has to spin extra — about 50 minutes — to bring the Moon back to the same place on your sky. That extra is why moonrise (and moonset) slip later day by day.
Why isn’t there an eclipse every month? The Moon’s path around Earth is tipped about 5° to Earth’s path around the Sun. Most months the full Moon rides above or below Earth’s shadow, and the new Moon rides above or below the Sun. An eclipse needs the Moon at a crossing, not just at a phase.

Pick a city

Every city with a sunrise page has a simulator page of its own — 1,103 of them. The largest are here; for anywhere else, use the search above or start from that city’s sunrise or moon page.

Amsterdam Anchorage Athens Atlanta Auckland Austin Baghdad Bali Bangkok Bar Harbor Barcelona Beijing Berlin Bogotá Boston Brisbane Brussels Buenos Aires Cabo San Lucas Cairo Calgary Cancún Cannon Beach Cape Town Caracas Casablanca Chicago Copenhagen Dallas Delhi Denver Detroit Dubai Dublin Dubrovnik Edinburgh Frankfurt Geneva Halifax Hanoi Havana Helsinki Ho Chi Minh City Hong Kong Honolulu Houston Ibiza Istanbul Jakarta Jerusalem Johannesburg Karachi Kathmandu Key West Kuala Lumpur Kyiv Lagos Las Vegas Lima Lisbon London Los Angeles Madrid Malé Malibu Manila Marrakech Melbourne Mexico City Miami Milan Minneapolis Montreal Moscow Mumbai Nairobi Nashville New Orleans New York Nice Nome Osaka Oslo Pago Pago Papeete Paris Perth Philadelphia Phoenix Phuket Portland Prague Queenstown Reykjavík Rio de Janeiro Riyadh Rome Salt Lake City San Diego San Francisco Santiago Santorini São Paulo Seattle Sedona Seoul Shanghai Singapore Stockholm Sydney Taipei Tel Aviv Tokyo Toronto Vancouver Vienna Warsaw Washington, D.C. Zanzibar Zurich

Where New York appears elsewhere

Sunrise & sunset in New York Moonrise, moonset & phase Predicted tide times World clock

Or browse the families: sunrise & sunset by city, moonrise, moonset & phase, predicted tide times, world clock.

Using it in a classroom

Every control here is a lesson. Set the slider to a day and press Play — the Earth turns, and the marker rides in and out of the light. That is day and night. Leave it on a month and watch the moon–sun angle and the phase disc together: 0° is new, 180° is full. Nothing covers the moon up.

The scale card above is the activity students remember: a marble, a peppercorn, and a ball down the corridor. The classroom guide has timed plans; the link builder below hands every screen the same sky.

Zoom out, one step at a time

This page is one town, looking up. The next step out is the three bodies moving together — Earth going round the sun, the moon going round the Earth, on one screen and openly not to scale, with the real ratio between the two the one thing kept honest. Beyond that is where the planets are — Mercury and Venus racing round inside us, Jupiter and Saturn crawling, Neptune barely moving in a lifetime — the solar system simulator, with the same kind of slider over a month, a year, a decade or a century, and a zoom that climbs from the Earth and Moon out to Neptune.

Make a link to a particular sky

Pick a place, a starting date and time and how much time the slider should cover. The link builds itself as you choose, and the sentence under it says in words where that link goes — so you can check it before you send it.

Place Starting date Starting time Slider covers

What the parameters mean

citya city slug — ?city=seattle

lat & lonany coordinates — ?lat=47.6&lon=-122.33, with optional name and tz

dateYYYY-MM-DD, the day the span starts

timeHH:MM in the place’s own clock

spanday, week or month

City slugs are the ones in the address of a city page: /sun/seattle/. Coordinates win if you give both.

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