Projects from Earth.

1 May 2026·06:13 Basel time·day 121 of 365·51 days until summer solstice

47°33′ N·7°35′ E·260 m above sea level

牡丹華 — peonies bloom·Botan hana saku · day 2 of 5 · 26 of 72

Sky

First light over Basel.

sun at +12° altitude · 89° east of north

sunrise 06:13 · solar noon 13:29 · sunset 20:34 · day length 14h 21m

waxing crescent·23% illuminated
altitude +18°·89° east of north
5 days into the lunar cycle

Place

  1. On Earth 12,756 km · 47°33′ N, 7°35′ E · 1 day per rotation
  2. in the Solar System ~120 AU · 1 AU from Sun · 1 year per orbit
  3. in the Orion Spur ~3,500 ly · Sun near centre
  4. in the Milky Way ~100,000 ly · 27,000 ly from Sagittarius A*, the central black hole · 225 million years per orbit
  5. in the Local Group ~10 Mly · 2.5 Mly to Andromeda · merging in ~4 billion years
  6. in the Laniakea Supercluster ~520 Mly · ~220 Mly to Great Attractor
  7. in the Observable Universe ~93 Bly · 13.8 billion year lookback

Time

  1. since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago
  2. since Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago
  3. since first life ~3.8 billion years ago
  4. since first mammals ~225 million years ago
  5. since Homo sapiens ~300,000 years ago
  6. since agriculture ~12,000 years ago
  7. since civilization ~5,000 years ago
  8. since the printing press ~580 years ago
  9. since the industrial revolution ~250 years ago
  10. since the internet ~50 years ago

Motion

Relative

  • We turn with Earth at this latitude310 m/s
  • We orbit the Sun, 149.7 million km away29.8 km/s
  • The Sun drifts through nearby stars, toward the constellation Hercules18 km/s
  • The Sun orbits the Milky Way~230 km/s

Absolute

  • The Sun races toward the constellation Leo~370 km/s
  • The Milky Way streams toward the constellation Hydra~552 km/s
  • The Local Group falls toward the Great Attractor — a gravitational basin pulling our supercluster, deep beyond Hydra~620 km/s

Each August, the Sun stands in Leo. That's where we fall — ~370 km/s. Perfectly still.

CMB-relative speeds are the closest physics offers to absolute rest. Outermost values approximate.

Coming soon

Sources. Twilight: U.S. Naval Observatory. Solar position and refraction: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory. Stars (J2000): Hipparcos catalogue, ESA. Laniakea: Tully, Courtois, Hoffman & Pomarède, Nature 513 (2014). Solar apex (LSR): Schönrich, Binney & Dehnen (2010). CMB dipole: Planck Collaboration (2018). Cosmic motion: NASA. 七十二候 — the seventy-two microseasons — adapted from Tang-era China.

View··