Beyond Mars the distances grow enormous — Jupiter is 5 times farther from the Sun than Earth, Neptune 30 times. These giants are too far to show on the same diagram, but most are still findable in the night sky. Past Neptune lies the Kuiper Belt, a vast ring of icy worlds where Pluto orbits.
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AU (Astronomical Unit) — the average Earth–Sun distance, about 93 million miles (150 million km). Mercury orbits at 0.4 AU, Saturn at 9.5, Neptune at 30, and Pluto averages 39.
Orbit lines — each inner planet's real elliptical path, drawn brighter along the arc just travelled (behind it) and dimmer along the path ahead.
Kuiper Belt — a doughnut-shaped zone of icy bodies beyond Neptune, from about 30 to 50 AU. Pluto is its most famous resident; it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.
Distance from Earth changes nightly — a planet is closest and brightest near opposition, when Earth passes between it and the Sun.