Welcome to Solar System Builder! Here you can create your own solar system and watch it evolve. I've tried to be as scientifically accurate as possible in the simulation. Feel free to tell me if there's anything you want me to add that's not already included. Best viewed on fullscreen. Instructions: Set the star's temperature. Use the Choose Planet tab to insert up to 20 planets into your solar system. You can choose the type (small, Earth-sized, super-Earth, Jupiter, and Bigger sizes), but the color, rings, and moons of the planet will be completely randomized (though they can later be changed.) Using the box in the bottom left you can turn visualization of the habitable zone on and off, and super-Earth sized planets or smaller in the habitable zone have the potential to evolve life, but it will take a while to get started. Stars will eventually die - small stars have long lifespans into the tens of billions of years while big stars only last tens of millions, not enough time for life to emerge. Once your star dies, all the planets in the solar system will vanish. Use the up and down arrows to zoom. Press S to reveal the current seed. NOTE: Though I've tried to be as scientifically accurate as possible, I still need to make the sun and planets much larger than they would actually look in real life at this scale. Otherwise they would all be a pixel across. The orbits don't take millions of years either - but it would be impossible to simulate orbital times realistically without making the wait for life or star death agonizingly long. And, of course, the chance of life's evolution is completely made up, as we will probably never know the real number.
Woohoo 5000 views! Partially inspired by Universe Sandbox^2 (which is awesome) If you liked this, check out some other projects of mine: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/23941807/ https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/89811578/ SEIZURE WARNING: Pulsar spins VERY quickly. Features that will NOT be added: -Binary stars (orbital mechanics of a three-body system is just too complicated, and the death of a binary system is really hard to simulate.) Updates are temporarily on hold while I work on other projects. But don't worry, I will be back for this at some point. Update 3.9 will be focused on star death. Update 3.8 will be focused on prettier graphics. 1-16-15: Update 3.7 -Finally squashed the bug with orbital rendering during collisions! -New settings menu to make more room for things! Habitable zone show/hide moved into this menu Collisions can be enabled/disabled (though planets will still crash into the sun) -Time speed can be changed -Decreased lag with lots of planets by 30% -Lots of bugfixes 1-6-15: Update 3.6 Random system is fully functional. Planets are now easier to click on. Text editor slightly easier to use. Added planet collisions! When a big planet and a small planet collide, the small planet will explode and the big one will grow. Planets can also crash into the sun. Debris (and sometimes an asteroid belt) is left behind after collisions. Fixed a whole lot of bugs that I really should have seen earlier, including a significant lag reduction. 12-23-15: Update 3.5 Help screen is now actually helpful! Fast orbits are back! Orbits will fully render all at once, instead of slowly rendering as the planet goes around. 11-5-15: Update 3.4 -Random System button - so far it just resets the system and randomizes the star. Random planets functionality will be added soon. -Pause button -All orbits now follow all of Kepler's Laws! -Deleting planets now allowed. -Orbit colors now match the colors of planets. -Planets now orbit counter-clockwise instead of clockwise. -Added custom asteroid belts! (up to 10 at once) -Made the sun look slightly nicer 10-27-15: Update 3.3: -Added a help screen with some instructions. -Added a customization screen! Click on a planet once it is placed to customize it. You can change the name, rings, moons, spin speed, and color so far, as well as view the progress of evolution, temperature, and planet type. 10-25-15: Update 3.2: -Star temperature in Kelvin instead of weird arbitrary units. -Added a zoom bar, you can now zoom in and out from 0.25x to 2x! Up and Down arrows are zoom shortcuts. Scale bar scales with zoom. -Fixed nasty bug with moons filling up the clone limit and stopping planets from being added beyond around 8 or 9 -Planet rotational periods can vary from one planet to another, and planets can now be tidally locked if too close to the sun, which causes them to have a smaller chance of developing advanced life. -Planets look darker when they are further from their stars, to reflect the inverse square law of light. -Planets around dimmer stars will receive less light as well. -A couple of buttons are easier to click. VERSION 3 UPDATE: 9-13-15: Update 3.1 is finally finished! Update 3 and 3.1 changelog! -A small chance that if a comet crashes into a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone it will boost life's evolution. -Comets crash into planets and slowly regenerate afterwards. -Friendly starting screen -A little more user-friendly UI -Evolution of star (mostly complete) -Supernovas when large stars die, planetary nebulas for smaller stars, and the smallest red stars will slowly burn out when they die. -Planetary nebulas will create white dwarves and supernovas will create pulsars, which will stop pulsing after 100 million years. -Black holes! -Corrected calculation of orbital velocity (planets now move faster when closer to star) -Prettier planets -Scale bar -3 comets -Up to 20 planets (unlimited makes collisions very difficult :P) -Life now emerges more quickly in Turbo Mode -Life can, with a 1/3 probability, eventually evolve on a planet if it's within the star's habitable zone. -Once life evolves it will very slowly develop into advanced, and then even intelligent, life. -Some planets take longer than others to develop life, and planets near the edge of the habitable zone are less likely to get it. -Planets will sometimes have moons. -40% of planets have rings (only on super-earth or larger) -Moons' orbits will not overlap the sun From Update 2: -Circular border around solar system to prevent planets from crashing into edge of the rectangular frame. -Random ambient asteroids floating around the system. -System Age (Millions of Years) -Comets -Stellar classes OBAFGKMLT -Visualization of habitable zone (green belt around star) can be turned on or off
