Live Sun–Earth orbit model with solar flares and CME cones
The Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars at their true positions right now, with the space weather between them drawn in: every coronal mass ejection NASA has analysed in the last ten days as an expanding cone from the Sun, solar flares as rays from their source regions, the spiral the solar wind actually takes, and Earth's magnetic shield. Drag to turn it, scrub time, and watch a CME front cross Earth's orbit.
What the cones are
Each cone is one coronal mass ejection from NASA's DONKI catalogue, drawn from the analysed direction (heliographic latitude and longitude, where 0° longitude is the Sun–Earth line), the half-angle of the ejection, and its speed. The cone's length is where the front is now: speed multiplied by the time since the ejection passed 21.5 solar radii. Those are the same four numbers NOAA's WSA-Enlil model is seeded with, so the cone you see is the model's input drawn honestly, not a single arrow. A cone whose half-angle includes the Sun–Earth line is flagged Earth-directed, with an arrival estimate from Enlil when NOAA has published one, otherwise from the speed alone.
Flares, wind and the shield
Solar flares are drawn as rays from their source region on the Earth-facing side of the Sun, coloured by class (C, M, X). Flare radiation reaches Earth in eight minutes if the region faces us; the cone that may follow takes one to four days. The cyan spiral is the Parker spiral: the solar wind leaves the Sun radially, but because the Sun rotates every 25 days the stream winds into a spiral, and its pitch here is set by the live wind speed from NOAA. Earth's magnetosphere is shown compressed on the sunward side and stretched into a tail behind.
Through the galaxy
The Sun is not standing still. It moves at about 20 km/s relative to the nearby stars, toward a point in Hercules called the solar apex. Switch on “Through the galaxy” and that motion is added, so the planets' orbits become the helices they really trace through space: one Earth year of travel is about four astronomical units, roughly four times the orbit's radius.
How this differs from NASA Eyes and ESA's tracker
NASA's Eyes on the Solar System and ESA's Solar Orbiter tracker show spacecraft and planets, and ESA's adds the Parker spiral. Neither draws the current CMEs in space. NOAA's Enlil output does, as a top-down image. This model puts the three together in one turnable scene with live data and a time scrubber, for free, without a sign-up. It is the Sun–Earth panel of the UET-NET live dashboard and of its museum exhibit screen.
Data: NASA DONKI via CCMC (flares and CME analyses), NOAA SWPC real-time solar wind, planet positions computed on this device with the astronomy-engine ephemeris in the ecliptic frame. Sun and planet sizes are not to scale; distances are. Refreshes every 15 minutes.
See it with the live Earth, aurora and the sky: the live dashboard · the exhibit screen