Educational Guided Tours

We Are Small includes a suite of educational guided tours and interactive modes designed to bring astronomy concepts to life. These are available to premium users.

Guided tours

Guided tours are narrated, step-by-step journeys through the Solar System. The camera automatically flies to each destination while educational text explains what you are seeing.

The Grand Tour

Visit every major world in the Solar System in a single narrated journey. The Grand Tour takes you from the Sun outward through all eight planets and beyond, with facts and context at each stop.

Inner Planets Tour

A focused tour of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars — the rocky worlds closest to the Sun. Learn about what makes each one unique and why Earth is the only one with liquid water on its surface.

Outer Planets Tour

Journey to the gas and ice giants — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Discover their massive sizes, incredible ring systems, and dozens of moons.

Interactive educational modes

Beyond narrated tours, We Are Small includes interactive modes where you can experiment with real physics concepts:

Scale comparison

See how planets compare in size when placed side by side. This mode strips away the vast distances and lets you appreciate just how small Earth is compared to Jupiter, or how large Jupiter is compared to everything else.

Eclipse simulator

Watch solar and lunar eclipses unfold from the perspective of Earth. Adjust the speed to see the Moon's shadow sweep across the planet or watch Earth's shadow engulf the Moon.

Orbital mechanics

Visualise Kepler's three laws of planetary motion with interactive diagrams. See how planets sweep equal areas in equal times, why orbits are elliptical, and how distance relates to orbital period.

Terminator line

See the boundary between day and night on every planet. The terminator line shows exactly where sunlight meets shadow, updated in real time as planets rotate.

Hill spheres

Visualise each planet's gravitational sphere of influence — the region where its gravity dominates over the Sun's. See why moons can only orbit within this invisible boundary.

How to access tours

1. Open the explorer
2. Click the Guided Tours button (bottom-right corner)
3. Browse available tours and modes
4. Select one to begin

Tours can be paused, resumed, and exited at any time. Interactive modes have their own control panels for adjusting parameters.