locphamnguyen/solar-system-3d

This project is an interactive 3D model of the solar system that runs directly in a web browser. There is nothing to install. You download the files, open the HTML file, and you get a spinning, orbiting solar system you can explore with your mouse. The Sun, all eight planets, eleven major moons, and a rocky asteroid belt are all included, each with real surface textures sourced from NASA imagery. Navigation is built around clicking and dragging. You can drag the view to orbit the camera around any object, scroll to zoom in or out, and click any planet or moon to have the camera smoothly fly over and follow it as it moves along its orbit. Clicking a body also opens a side panel with a photo and basic facts such as diameter, distance from the Sun, orbital period, and number of moons. Time in the simulation is adjustable. A slider lets you run the system at anywhere from 0 to 200 simulated days per second, so you can watch Mercury zip around the Sun in fast-forward or slow everything down to study the outer planets. You can also pause the simulation, toggle orbit path lines on and off, hide labels, or turn the asteroid belt off entirely. The project uses Three.js, a widely used library for drawing 3D graphics in browsers, along with plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. There is no framework and no build step. The files are also available in Vietnamese, making the project accessible to a wider audience. Orbital period ratios between planets reflect real values, though the visual distances are compressed so everything fits comfortably on screen. Adding new objects is straightforward. All planetary data lives in one list near the top of the code, and appending a new entry automatically generates its orbit, label, and info panel. The project is MIT licensed.