Explore
The solar system in 3D
Fly around the Sun and every planet, wrapped in real NASA maps. Tap any world for a deep dive.
For explorers aged 13–16
Every dot in this picture is a galaxy.
This is a real photo from the Hubble Space Telescope. It holds about 5,500 galaxies, in a patch of sky a tenth the width of the full Moon. Orbit Lab is where you explore all of it.
- 8 worlds
- in 3D, with real NASA maps
- 1 black hole
- simulated live, plus the real one
- 13.8 billion
- years of history in 2 minutes
What’s inside
Real science you can touch, fly through and play with
Every planet, mission and simulation is built on real data and real physics, explained in plain English.
Black holes
A black hole, live
Watch gravity bend light around a black hole, traced in real time with Einstein’s equations.
Big Bang
13.8 billion years in 2 minutes
From the first instant to the first stars and today’s galaxies, with real temperatures and times.
Missions
Launch to landing
Ride a spacecraft from liftoff to a Mars landing, a Moon touchdown or orbit around Jupiter.
Deep dives
Every world, inside and out
What each planet is made of, its moons, the missions that visited it and the big ideas behind it.
Watch
Life in orbit and beyond
How space stations are built, a day aboard the ISS, killer asteroids and the space junk problem.
Made from real telescope data
We rebuilt the first photo of a black hole
In 2017, eight radio telescopes around the world worked together as one dish the size of Earth to look at the giant black hole in the galaxy M87, 55 million light-years away.
The Event Horizon Telescope shared its data with everyone. We ran it through the team’s own imaging code, and this ring appeared. Inside Orbit Lab, students learn exactly what they are looking at.
M87* · 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun · data recorded 11 April 2017
Ready for launch?
The universe is waiting. Come and explore it.
Sign in to open Orbit Lab. It works in your browser on a phone, tablet or laptop, with nothing to install.