Manim Astronomy: Animate the Universe

Want to show a planet orbiting a star? A black hole bending space? The solar system in motion? There’s a plugin for that.

Meet manim-astronomy, a plugin that brings the universe to your Manim animations.

What Is Manim Astronomy?

Manim astronomy is a free plugin created by Hassam ul Haq. We love their work.

So what does it do? It adds space stuff to your animations. Planets, stars, orbits, and even the fabric of spacetime itself.

Normally, animating astronomy is hard. You need to draw spheres, calculate orbital paths, and make everything move just right. With manim-astronomy, you skip all that. You say “here’s a planet” and “here’s its orbit.” The plugin does the rest.

The result? Beautiful 3D animations of celestial objects moving through space. No astronomy degree required.

What Can It Do?

The plugin has four main features. Each one helps you explain something about space.

Celestial Bodies

These are the objects in space. Planets, stars, moons. The building blocks of any astronomy animation.

A planet is a sphere. You pick its size and color. It looks like a real planet floating in 3D space.

A star is different. Stars glow. The plugin creates them using particles. Tiny dots of light that shimmer together. They look alive, like real stars do.

You can create our Sun. Or make up your own star systems. Add moons around planets. Build whatever universe you want.

Elliptical Orbits

Planets don’t orbit in perfect circles. They move in ellipses. That’s an oval shape, like a stretched circle.

This is one of Kepler’s laws. Johannes Kepler figured this out 400 years ago. The plugin brings his discovery to life.

You create an orbit path. You place a planet on it. The planet moves along the ellipse, speeding up when it’s close to the star and slowing down when it’s far away. Just like real planets do.

Great for teaching orbital mechanics. Students can see why planets move the way they do.

Solar System Models

Want to show our whole solar system? The plugin can do that.

Create the Sun at the center. Add Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars. Keep going to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Each planet orbits at its own distance and speed.

It’s not perfectly accurate. The plugin is for visualization, not scientific simulation. But it shows the idea beautifully. Students see how our cosmic neighborhood is organized.

Space-Time Fabric

This is the coolest feature. And the hardest concept to explain without it.

Space-time is the fabric of the universe. Einstein showed that massive objects bend this fabric. That bending is what we call gravity.

The plugin creates a grid that represents space-time. Flat at first. Then you add a massive object, like a star or black hole. The grid bends around it, creating a dip. A well.

Now students can see gravity. Not as a force pulling things, but as curved space guiding how objects move. This visual changed how people understand Einstein’s ideas.

Why Use It?

Space is big. Really big. And most of it is invisible. You can’t see gravity. You can’t see an orbit. You can’t see why planets speed up and slow down.

But you can animate it. When students see a planet sweeping through its orbit, Kepler’s laws make sense. When they see space-time bend around a black hole, Einstein clicks.

Animation turns abstract ideas into visible motion. That’s powerful for learning.

The Hard Part

Here’s the catch. Manim astronomy is still code. Python code.

You need to learn the classes. Planet, Star, SpaceTimeFabric, EllipticalOrbit. You need to position objects in 3D space. You need to set up cameras and lighting. You need to debug when things don’t work.

For teachers who just want to explain astronomy, that’s a lot of extra work. They want to teach about black holes, not fight with Python errors.

That’s Where Animo Comes In

Animo is an AI tool that writes Manim code for you. You describe what you want in plain English. Animo writes the Python.

It works as an extension in your code editor. VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Kiro, whatever you use. Just install the extension and start talking to it.

Want a planet orbiting a star? Type “create a blue planet orbiting a yellow star in an elliptical path.” Want to show spacetime curving? Type “show a grid that bends around a massive object like a black hole.”

Animo understands manim-astronomy. It knows the classes, the parameters, the 3D positioning. You don’t have to.

The code appears in your editor. You run it. You get your animation.

No Python experience needed. No struggling with 3D coordinates. Just describe your universe and watch it come to life.

One Important Note

The plugin creators are clear about this: manim-astronomy is for visualization, not scientific accuracy. The orbits look right, but they might not match real astronomical data exactly.

If you need precise simulations for research, use dedicated astronomy software. But if you want to explain concepts in a way that students will remember? This plugin is perfect.

Learn More

Check out the official documentation for technical details.

Or just head to Animo and start creating space animations today. Planets, stars, orbits, black holes, spacetime. The universe is waiting.