Xplanet was inspired by Xearth, which renders an image of the earth into the X root window. All of the major planets and most satellites can be drawn, similar to the Solar System Simulator. A number of different map projections are also supported, including azimuthal, Lambert, Mercator, Mollweide, orthographic, and rectangular.

Here are some representative screenshots on FreeBSD 5.1 with the Enlightenment window manager and a few transparent aterms.

Xplanet is free software, distributed according to the terms of the GNU General Public License.

I've compiled and run Xplanet successfully on i386 GNU/Linux systems, Sparc Solaris, FreeBSD, and Microsoft Windows under the Cygwin environment. Xplanet runs under Darwin and X windows as well as under Mac OS X with Aqua.

If you find any bugs or have any comments, please visit the Discussion Forums.