Angular Size of Solar System Objects

The largest solar system objects (and Betelgeuse) to scale based on their angular diameters. Click here for full size.

The interior planets are shown in crescents to represent their maximum angular diameters at their inferior conjunctions, and disks to represent their minimum diameters at their superior conjunctions. The variation in size of each planet and moon system represents their closest and furthest approaches to Earth, and thus their maximum and minimum angular diameters. The only exception is the star Betelgeuse, whose change is largely due to the star’s instability. Additionally, Uranus and more distant planets are shown with the distances between moons to scale. The Images were obtained from a wide variety of sources, including the NASA Mariner 10, Messenger, Galileo, Voyager, New Horizons and Cassini spacecraft, and the Hubble Space Telescope.