“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

    - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

And now we’ve made it a bit easier to comprehend the scale of space.

The unit of measurement selection menu now explains what each unit means to help you better understand the vastness of space. Unit names based on the properties of other objects (like Earth mass) have also been updated for clarity.

On September 29, 2022, the Juno spacecraft performed a flyby of Jupiter’s moon Europa, coming within 352 kilometers and taking the highest-ever resolution close-up image of the moon’s surface. Watch this close flyby in our new simulation
Juno Flyby of Europa in 2022


You can now view and monitor the data views for all objects in a simulation at once, also called the Atlas, by going to Open View Panel Settings > 2D Settings > Show All Maps Atlas. The interface for this type of view is a work in progress.


Object holograms have been updated to look the same, be more visible across different backgrounds, and clearly show their positions in front of or behind other objects
This update includes 4+ additions and 15+ fixes and improvements.

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 31.4

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

Stars have different naming formats, from Altair to HR 4623, as shown in the Nearest 400 Stars simulation in Universe Sandbox.

You’ve probably heard of the star Betelgeuse. It’s the second brightest star in the constellation Orion and made headlines in 2019 when it dimmed very quickly (don’t worry, it’s back to normal now). But have you heard of the star HR 2061? What about HIP 27989? You may not have heard of them, but they’re just different names for Betelgeuse!


In the constellation Orion, Betelgeuse is roughly where Orion’s hand would be.

Why do some astronomical objects have multiple names? Thousands of years ago, there were no rules for how to name them, and different cultures had different names for stars. Many familiar star names come from Arabic, including Betelgeuse, whose Arabic name (which was most likely Yad al-Jauzāʾ and translates to “the hand of al-Jauzā’”) references its position in the constellation Orion.



Nowadays, humanity has observed billions of astronomical objects, and it would be very inconvenient to give them all individual names. Instead, astronomers follow a set of rules set by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), including

• Objects outside the Solar System are named using an acronym, which refers to the catalog name (such as “HIP” for the Hipparcos Catalog), followed by an identification number
  
• Dwarf planets beyond the orbit of Neptune are named after a deity or figure related to creation myths (like Makemake)
  
• Minor planets can be named by the person who discovered them after a formal review. If not named, minor planets are given only a sequential identification number. The ID number for the minor planet Mr. Spock (which you can find in Universe Sandbox) is 2309.
  
• Comets are named based on the type of comet (P for periodic, C for not-periodic), the year they were discovered, a letter for the half of the month they were discovered in (for example B for the second half of January), and then another number indicating the order of discovery. P/2005 S2 is a periodic comet discovered in 2005 that was the second comet discovered in the first half of October.

These rules, while complicated, make it much easier to reference objects in large catalogs, like the Yale Bright Star Catalog. This catalog, which is included in Universe Sandbox, contains 9,110 stars visible to the naked eye from Earth and uses the letters “HR” as a reference to its original name, the Harvard Revised Photometry Catalogue, which came out in 1908. Current space telescopes like Gaia have observed and cataloged over 1 billion astronomical objects, showing how valuable these naming rules are!

The same objects are often part of multiple astronomical catalogs, with a different name for each catalog. Betelgeuse, for example, has 46 different names! While databases like SIMBAD collect these different names in one place, sorting through them can be difficult.



Universe Sandbox contains a database of over 45,000 known astronomical objects sourced from different catalogs, including the Open Exoplanet Catalog. While this is small compared to the billions of known astronomical objects, including all of them would make Universe Sandbox quite large (the Gaia catalog alone is over a terabyte of data).

If you want to find Betelgeuse in Universe Sandbox, you can search for Betelgeuse, HR 2061, or HIP 27989 and find it under the searched name. In the future, we plan to allow you to view all of the names that a star has in its properties, but for now, each object can only show one name at a time.


Three Betelgeuse’s each with a different astronomical name

For now, try checking out some Solar System objects with interesting name origins in Universe Sandbox

• C/1906 E1 - The “C/” designates this as a non-periodic (only passes by the Sun once) comet. 1906 is the year of its discovery, and E1 means and was the first comet discovered in the first half of March (between March 1-15)
  
• Haumea - A dwarf planet named after the matron goddess of the island Hawai’i
  
• 2014 NW65 - A yet-unnamed minor planet. 2014 is the year of its discovery, N means it was discovered in the first half of July (between July 1-15), and W65 means it was the 1647 object found during that half month.

To join our community discussions, please join us on our Steam Forum and our official Discord community.




Gaia DR2 4152993273702130432 is the designation for the star UY Scuti, one of the largest known stars, in the Second Data Release (DR2) of the Gaia catalog. Here “UY” doesn’t stand for a survey but instead follows a different set of IAU naming rules for variable stars. Scuti means that the star is located in the constellation Scutum, and UY indicates it was the 38th variable star discovered within this constellation.

Variable star labeling starts at R, S, etc., and goes through Z (9 labels total), then goes to RR through RZ (another 9 labels), then SS through SZ (8 more labels), until we get to ZZ. This is why UY is the 38th; 9 (R-Z) + 9 (RR-RZ) + 8 (SS-SZ) + 7 (TT-TZ) + 5 (UU-UY) = 38. Wow, this gets complicated quickly.

If more labels are needed, after going to ZZ, it starts over at AA going through AZ, then BB to BZ, and up to QQ through QZ for a total of 334 unique names for variable stars within a single constellation.


Stellar size comparison showing how much bigger UY Scuti is than other well-known stars.

NASA’s DART mission will intentionally collide the DART spacecraft with the asteroid Dimorphos, attempting to change its orbit & testing humanity's ability to protect Earth from future asteroids. Check out our simulation of this mission:
Open > DART: Humanity's First Planetary Defense Experiment

Fragment temperature and glow from collisions are now realistically based on the collision energy. Low energy collisions, like the one shown here, don’t generate enough energy to make the particles glow.


Camera transitions after the target collides are smoother


Explosions now create rock fragments and dust clouds


Under-the-hood improvements to make referencing known objects more reliable



This update includes 1+ additions and 20+ fixes and improvements.

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 31.3

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

Today, August 24, 2022, marks the seventh anniversary of Universe Sandbox’s Early Access launch on Steam!

To celebrate, Universe Sandbox is on sale for another 120 hours (that’s until August 29). Pick up a copy for yourself or a friend today.

Over the last seven years, we’ve added tons of new features to make Universe Sandbox better than ever, and we’re still going strong. Our current development plans include

• Adding more materials to simulate planetary features lakes of liquid methane on Saturn’s moon Titan
  
• New rigid body physics for more realistic interactions between objects like bowling pins and satellites
  
• More realistic planetary collisions

Learn about what we’re working on in our 2022 Roadmap
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/230290/view/4963541146758964452

All of this would not be possible without the support of our community. You all use Universe Sandbox in ways we could never have imagined, and we are so grateful for all of you. Here’s to another amazing seven years.

We’ve updated Unity, the game engine we use to create Universe Sandbox. While you won’t see immediate changes, this will allow us to utilize new features for future improvements to our physics simulation.


Use the Settle Water button to immediately stabilize the water level of a planet.




Control the lowest temperature of space with the Background Temperature. By default, this is set to 2.73 Kelvin to approximate the Cosmic Microwave Background. Adjust it under
Simulation > Advanced Simulation Settings > Temperature > Background Temperature



Random object icons in the Add tool have been updated

Learn about habitable zones and how Universe Sandbox models them in our guide
Guides > Science > Habitable Zones



Stellar collisions now partially merge and transfer mass before going supernova

Collision shockwaves are now realistically circular

Particles now collide more consistently, and gas cloud momentum is now transferred to and from impacting objects



This update includes 3+ additions and 27+ fixes and improvements.

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 31.2

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

The Moon colliding with the Earth. Made with Universe Sandbox, a product of Giant Army.

In October 2021, Giant Army, the creators of Universe Sandbox, a physics-based space simulator, officially adopted a 4-day, 8 hours a day workweek at full salary. This change has positively impacted our team, so we wanted to share how we made this decision to encourage other game studios and companies to experiment with a 4-day workweek.

We started discussing a 4-day workweek after Microsoft Japan trialed it and found that it increased their productivity. Those discussions continued as we saw other companies and organizations experiment with it. In May 2021, as part of the team’s effort to reduce burnout, we decided to take Fridays off for a month.

Most of our team found that the 4-day workweek left them refreshed and just as productive, so we extended it for another month, and then another. In July 2021, we extended it through September but added one condition: you can take Friday off if you share a short daily update and screenshot summarizing what you did, Monday through Thursday.

For a fully remote team spread across multiple time zones, a quick, daily team meeting is not practical. This makes the importance of communication about progress or problems even more valuable.


A moon being ripped apart by intense gravitational forces.

Even after an extensive trial period, there was concern that a 4-day workweek would lead to reduced productivity. So why did we do it?

[h4]Support from the Team[/h4]
The team supported it. Direct quotes from our team include:

“Working a 4-day workweek for me has been a positive experience overall. I feel more organized and less stressed with both personal and work time.”

“[The 4-day workweek has led to] Fewer typos, far fewer odd little mistakes… etc. The sort of mistakes that go away when you're even 10% sharper than before, or you have less brain fade.”

[h4]Steady Progress[/h4]
While it’s difficult to quantify productivity, one would imagine that dropping a day a week would result in a drop in productivity. However, we continued to innovate and iterate on Universe Sandbox, adding new features and providing regular updates. Given the steady progress and increased happiness, switching to a 4-day workweek seemed like the right decision.


The Sun explodes in a supernova, heating up and vaporizing the Earth.

We think adopting a 4-day workweek has been a net positive for Giant Army. The shorter week has:

• Pushed us to optimize our time, leading to shorter and more efficient meetings
  
• Improved our work environment
  
• Helped us to attract candidates for our current and future open positions

There are some drawbacks to the shorter week:

• We have a rule not to release an update right before the weekend to avoid needing to be on-call during the weekend. Previously we did not release on Fridays. Now we don’t release on Thursdays (mostly).
  
• More emails and messages come in over a 3 day weekend
  
• Fewer days to schedule meetings (or is this a benefit?)

The number of code commits or changes (which are not generally a good measure of productivity) made to Universe Sandbox and the number of updates we released in 2021 is similar to the previous 2 years. While our official transition wasn’t until late 2021, and these measures don’t quantify how much work went into each commit or update, they support the idea that everybody has been just as productive.

Overall, we’re happier, and progress on Universe Sandbox is steady. If you have any questions about our 4-day workweek, please contact us.

Universe Sandbox is an interactive physics-based space simulator that merges gravity, collisions, and climate to reveal the awesomeness of our universe in a whole new way. Learn more on our website.

Here are a few more details based on the questions we’ve received about our 4-day workweek:

Q: Did we take a pay cut because we are now working 4 8-hour days instead of 5?

A: No. Everybody on our team is salaried, and nobody took a pay cut as part of this transition.

Q: Did we consider having some team members work Monday-Thursday, and some work Tuesday-Friday so there would always be somebody reachable 5 days a week?

A: We actually did the opposite and tried to make sure everybody had as much overlap as possible to maximize collaboration. That means that our team member in Australia has Mondays off instead of Fridays because they’re a day ahead of our primary work time zone (PST).

Last Updated: July 21, 2022

[h4]Welcome to Universe Sandbox[/h4]
Discover your infinite power to create and destroy! Our all-new welcome guide now better highlights the awesome potential of Universe Sandbox. Check them out
Home > Guides > Welcome to Universe Sandbox


[h4]More Highlights[/h4]

• Blank planets now have the densities of rocky planets instead of gas giants
  
  
  
• The habitable zone no longer intersects planets, giving you a clearer view of the surface
  
  
  Before
  

  
  After
  

This update includes 1+ additions and 18+ fixes and improvements.

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 31.1

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

Explore constellations from different cultures and watch as they change over thousands of years as stars move across the sky. Stars also look more realistic and planet and star glows depend on the same physical properties.

[h4]Constellations[/h4]
We’ve added constellations! There are currently constellation sets for 10 cultures.
Find them under: Home > Open > Constellations
Learn more about constellations in our new guides: Home > Guides > Constellations


[h4]Realistic Stellar Edges[/h4]
Stars now show limb darkening, an observed phenomenon where the edges appear dimmer than the center.

[h4]Dynamic Object Glows[/h4]
The size of an object’s glow now corresponds to how bright the object is, in addition to its temperature and how far away it is, with brighter objects getting larger glows.

[h4]More Highlights[/h4]

• Glows from stars and planets of the same radius and temperature are now the same size
  
  
  Before
  

  
  After
  
  
  
• Random Rock Particles and Dust Clouds can now be added directly from the Add panel
  
  
  
• The dynamic habitable zone now displays a notification indicating the object it is showing the habitable zone for
  
  
  
• Many user interface improvements: added two-column menus, fading scrollbars, and unit changes persisting in an object’s properties panel
  
  
  
• The Gravity button now only turns the gravity between objects on or off. You can turn the gravity holding objects together on or off in the Advanced Simulation setting.
  
  
  
• The Guide panel has been reorganized. Check it out under: Home > Guides
  

This update includes 4+ additions and 25+ fixes and improvements.

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 31

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

We’re constantly working to make Universe Sandbox even better, and we’ve only scratched the surface. Our plans this year include more materials, rigid body collisions, and more!


Demonstrating planetscaping, atmosphere opacity, and collision improvements added in 2021.

Over the course of 2021, we had 3 major updates and 5 minor updates.

• Splish, Splash, Filling a Bath | Update 26.3
  
  • Oceans fill from lowest to highest elevations (like a bathtub)
• Fast & Flurrious | Update 27
  
  • Snow simulation is more realistic for known and random rocky planets
    
  • Temperature calculations are smoother at high sim speeds
• Clouds in Motion | Update 27.1
  
  • Cloud speed is now simulated from an object's temperature and rotational speed
• Atmospheric Adjustments | Update 27.2
  
  • Atmosphere Opacity is now simulated (and customization)
• Codename: Fire Ring | Update 28
  
  • Object collisions now have shockwave-based impacts
    
  • Object trails project back in time and show their past trajectory
• My Eyes, the Space Goggles Do Nothing | Update 28.1
  
  • Realistic Object Visibility better reflects what the human eye would see
• Starlite Starbrite | Update 28.2
  
  • Stars now have Absolute and Apparent Magnitudes, which measure their brightness at different distances
    
  • Starlight color on nearby objects updates in real-time
• Planetscaping | Update 29
  
  • Manipulate object surfaces with the Planetscaping (Surface Editing) tool
    
  • Collisions are more realistic with updated frictional forces

View our “What’s New” for a chronological list of changes.

Showcasing some of the updates we’ve already made to Universe Sandbox in 2022.

This year has already brought one major and one minor update, both focused on our collision-based goals for the year.

• Consistent Collisions, James Webb, & Planetscaping Tweaks | Update 29.1
  
  • Fragments are now longer-lasting, and collisions are more consistent
    
  • The Planetscaping tool now includes an eyedropper
• Hit Hard, Spin Fast | Update 30
  
  • Spin planets apart at high rotational speeds with the new Force Spin tool
    
  • Similar-size object collisions now symmetrically heat and fragment both objects

From simulation improvements to smoothing out our development process, we’re excited about what’s ahead. While we would like to do everything listed here this year, new priorities or unanticipated difficulties might arise and delay our plans.


The constellation Orion viewed from two different angles in Universe Sandbox. The camera is moving while the stars are stationary. Constellations are a work in progress.

We’re planning to add new star-related features and are working to improve our star simulation.

• Constellations
  
  • We want you to view and interact with Constellations dynamically. This is one of the oldest things on our to-do list.
    
  • To simultaneously simulate the 691 stars for constellations, we’ve been improving performance for star glows, object labels, and more.
• Star Simulation
  
  • Overhauling our current star simulation code to enable smooth star transitions as their properties change is a large task we’re actively working on.
    
  • Revamped star simulation will lay the groundwork for improving stellar evolution.

Tidal forces due to the Moon orbiting close to the Earth dramatically change the Earth’s tides. Adding tidal forces to influence water flow in Universe Sandbox is a work in progress.

Collision and physics have been and continue to be a significant focus for us this year.

• Rigid Body Physics
  
  • Anybody up for space-bowling? We’re continuing work to add new physics to allow better human-scale interactions (like bowling pins and satellites).
    
  • This new system will serve as the foundation for spacecraft, thrusters, and megastructures in the future.
• Core Engine Rewrite
  
  • As Unity continues to develop their new physics engine based on the Unity Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) framework, we’ve begun transitioning Universe Sandbox to this new system.
    
  • This massive undertaking will eventually handle most computations in Universe Sandbox and will improve performance, particularly for physics simulation.
• Collisions: Physically Accurate & Overall More Awesome
  
  • Allowing objects in collisions to deform fluidly will create more realistic collisions, including total disintegration.
    
    • Previously we’ve looked into a method called Smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) for this simulation. However, due to some limitations of that method, we are now exploring other options more suitable for Universe Sandbox, like Positions Based Fluids (PBF) or Fluid-Implicit-Particle (FLIP).
  • Rock fragments and gas clouds interacting and collecting more material over time will allow a more realistic planet or moon formation simulation.

Navigating the home menu in Universe Sandbox with a gamepad. Gamepad support is a work in progress.

Our progress on the mobile version of Universe Sandbox (iOS and Android) was slower than expected last year, but we’re ramping it up this year.

• The Universe in Your Pocket
  
  • Our two new user interface engineers will help us tackle the remaining challenges of mobile development, like window management on a small screen.
    
  • Our goal is for the mobile version of Universe Sandbox to match the full desktop experience. Learn more in our Mobile DevLog.
• The Universe from Your Couch
  
  • Want to play Universe Sandbox on your couch? Us too! We’ve begun experimenting with gamepad support for the desktop version, which is critical for future console development.

Adding additional materials, like Carbon Dioxide and Helium, in Universe Sandbox. This is a work in progress.

We want you to have access to more of the materials that make up our universe, like sulfur and oxygen, within Universe Sandbox. Adding more materials to our current system will allow better simulation of atmospheres, volatiles, and, eventually, life.

• Building with Basics
  
  • Adding basic materials like methane, necessary for simulating the liquid lakes of methane on Titan, will be the first step for this material system.
    
  • New materials will be included in surface simulation as we track their phase changes and movement across an object’s surface.
• Volatiles
  
  • More materials will allow us to create a more realistic volatiles system, which determines both the composition of fragments and if an object is losing material.

Our internal server allows our team to compare the results of automated tests and easily catch any issues when new features are added. This is a screenshot of our internal tool.

Part of developing Universe Sandbox (or any game) is identifying (and fixing!) bugs as early as possible. To help us with this, we’re creating new internal systems for our team to use to automate our deployment processes and test new and existing features.

• Build Automation
  
  • An updated version, or build, of Universe Sandbox is automatically created every time we make a code change so we can easily playtest new changes.
    
  • Developing tools to build and push new updates to Universe Sandbox automatically lets us get new features and fixes to you faster.
• Feature Testing
  
  • We’re creating a suite of automated tests and setting up a system to compare their results so we can easily see simulation changes or issues.
    
    • These tests can automatically click buttons, record GIFs, and more!

The key to creating a great game like Universe Sandbox is having a great team. Hiring the right people for the job takes time, but is always worthwhile.

• We’re Currently Hiring!
  
  • If you know someone (or you’re someone) who you think would be great for our Cross-Platform Engineer or Spacecraft Physics Engineer positions, tell them to apply.
    
  • If working on Universe Sandbox is your dream job, but we don’t have an open position for you, send us an email. We are always looking for help from the right candidates.

Creating Lagrange Points in Universe Sandbox based on an object and its orbital parent. This is a work in progress.

In addition to all of this, we have already

• Done some work to add Lagrange Points
  
• Started planning an expansion and overhaul of our in-game guide system
  
• Begun testing to allow access to even more planet customization options

We can’t wait to share this and more with you this year!

Run Steam to download Update 30, or buy Universe Sandbox via the Steam Store.

Spin apart planets with the Force Spin tool and discover the destructive potential of the newly simulated centrifugal force. We’ve also improved same-sized object collisions so you can launch the Earth at itself and watch the shockwaves heat and fragment both planets on impact.



[h4]Centrifugal Force[/h4]
Planets will fragment at very high rotational speeds as the centrifugal force overwhelms the gravity holding them together. Learn more: Home > Guides > Centrifugal Destruction


[h4]Same-Size Object Collision Improvements[/h4]
Colliding two objects of similar size now causes heating and fragmentation on both objects. See the destruction yourself: Home > Open > Earth & Earth Collision

[h4]Move Oceans[/h4]
Centrifugal force now pushes water on fast-spinning objects toward the object’s equator.


[h4]Force Spin Tool[/h4]
Change an object’s rotational speed, poles, and equator with the new Force Spin tool. Check it out in: Tools > Force > Spin


[h4]More Highlights[/h4]

• Rotation and speed of objects after collisions are now more accurately conserved, decreasing when mass is gained and increasing when mass is lost
  
  
  Before
  

  
  After
  
  
  
• The habitable zone changes to use the properties of the object you have selected to show its optimal habitable distance
  
  
  
• You can now change the Number of Atmosphere Layers an object has and create Venus-like planets
  
  
  
• The Hubble Space Telescope has been added to Universe Sandbox
  
  
  
• We’ve corrected the orientations of the James Webb Space Telescope (now facing away from the Sun) and Parker Solar Probe (now facing toward the Sun)
  
  
  Before
  

  
  After
  

This update includes 12+ additions and 43+ fixes and improvements.

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 30

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.