Last year we worked hard to make Universe Sandbox even better, and we’ve continued that work into this year with two updates already. We wanted to share some of the exciting plans we have for upcoming features including terrain manipulation, an expanded materials system, and more, that we have for the rest of the year (and a bit beyond).


Demonstrating some of the many features and improvements that were added to Universe Sandbox in 2020.

In 2020 we had two major updates and a few minor updates as well.

• I Like My Heat Tidal | Update 25
  
  • Rewrote the tidal heating model and temperature calculations
    
  • Major graphics performance improvements which allowed us to improve surface simulation
• Light It Up | Update 25.1
  
  • Added randomizable city lights to all planets
    
  • Improved how multiple light sources interact, particularly with atmospheres
• Even More Colors in Space | Update 25.2
  
  • Even more custom color options for clouds, city lights, asteroids, and galaxies
    
  • Improved energy calculations even more with laser, explosions, and impacts
• Reimagined Experience  - Unified VR & Desktop | Update 26
  
  • We brought the full desktop experience into VR
    
  • Reimagined user interface with a customizable bottom bar
    
  • Better looking collision fragments, rocky planets, and liquid water
• Star Fusion & the Brown Dwarves | Update 26.1
  
  • Smoother simulated transitions between gas giant, brown dwarf, and full fledged star
    
  • More customizable colors and laser improvements, including the “Wave Maker” laser
• Ending 2020 with a Bang | Update 26.2
  
  • Objects retain lasting surface damage with craters and scorched areas
    
  • More realistic explosions with better simulated gas particles

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


Demonstrating some of the features and improvements that have already been added to Universe Sandbox in 2021.

This year has already seen two notable updates that have included many fixes to our core simulation, a few new features, and improvements to the Universe Sandbox experience.

• Splish, Splash, Filling a Bath | Update 26.3
  
  • Water fills from lowest points and flows to lowest points
    
  • Smoother, better performing, and explodi-er collisions
• Fast & Flurrious | Update 27
  
  • More realistic snow simulation and better looking random rocky planets
    
  • Added a separate elevation adjusted surface temperature map
    
  • New Render Scale settings to improve performance for non-gaming hardware

Brent was hired in March as our new Science Writer & Community Advocate. Brent has a PhD in Physics and will be writing about all of the awesome science and simulations that Universe Sandbox can do (including writing this post - Hi Everybody 😃 ).

We also recently hired Brian as our new User Interface Engineer. Brian joins us after working as a frontend web engineer, and is excited to help make Universe Sandbox the best possible experience for exploring space and science. He’ll be implementing some of the many, many user interface designs we’ve been working on.


You’ve seen some of what we’ve been up to this year from the updates we’ve put out already, but there’s still a lot of new features in development. While we would love to get all of these new features and improvements out by the end of the year, there may be new priorities or unexpected difficulties that pop up, which make it hard to predict exactly when we will have these features ready.


Early development of our planet surface editing tools adding and removing water and land.

The simulation of temperature, ice, water, vapor, and other properties across the surface of an object, a feature we call Surface Grids, has become a fundamental part of Universe Sandbox. Read more about Surface Grids in our DevLog and ScienceLog series. Yet even with all of the improvements we made to them last year, there is still so much that can be done.

• Planet Surface Editing
  • Last year we did a bit of work designing and determining the best way to add tools that will allow you to directly edit the surface properties of an object, and we’re hoping to implement those tools this year.
    
  • You’ll be able to change your planet’s elevation, water level, temperature, and more with single point precision on the surface grid.
• Improved Atmosphere Simulation
  • With many improvements in performance in Update 26.3, we are looking into extending the atmosphere of planets into the surface grids simulation.
    
  • Better simulated atmospheres will allow for more realistic climate and cloud simulation.
• Fiery Collisions
  
  • We plan to build upon the collision improvements introduced in Update 26.3 with more realistic post-impact shockwaves, fragmentation, and grazing impacts.

Examples of just a few of the many different user interface designs and improvements we are working on.

Our goal for each update to Universe Sandbox is to improve your experience. This might involve updating our user interface, improving our guides for new users, increasing performance, and other small tweaks.

• Towards a Forward-Thinking User Interface
  
  • We’ve taken a responsive design approach that lets the interface work universality across desktop, mobile, VR, and future-gamepad support in mind.
    
  • We already redesigned the Add panel in Update 27 and unified the styling in preparation for future tools and features, like the surface enhancement tools we mentioned above.
• The Most Enjoyable Experience
  • In addition to guide rails, which help walk users through our tutorials, that were added in Update 27, we want to update and add more guides and science simulations for new and old users alike.

In addition to all of these plans, we also have some longer-term goals, and though many of these may not happen for a while, we wanted to share with you.


Design mockup of how adding more materials to the surface of objects may work in the future.

We want to give you access to more basic materials, like methane, CO2 (carbon dioxide) and O2 (oxygen), to our current system. Not only will a more robust material system allow you to further customize your planets, moons, and asteroids, but it will also make future features, like Life Simulation and realistic atmosphere simulation, possible.

• A Material World
  • More materials will allow for more planet customization and allow more versatility in terraforming planets. They will also allow you to customize your planet’s atmosphere - will it be suitable for life, or mostly composed of methane like Titan?
    
  • Multiple materials will be critical for developing life simulation in the future. Life is made up of complex materials after all.
• Unified Materials System
  • Our goal is to track all the different materials, and the state that they’re in, in each point in a surface grid on planet surfaces.
    
  • Keeping track of all of these materials and their properties will allow for more realistic simulation calculations in general, like the phase state (solid, liquid, gas) changes for all of our new materials.

Early research into DOTS-based Unity Physics with 20,000 objects.

Currently our physics engine isn’t optimized for rigid body physics required for proper human scale (like dice and spacecraft) object interactions. We’re working to change that and have been researching different methods of implementing a whole new suite of physics into Universe Sandbox.

• DOTS-based Unity Physics
  • Unity has introduced a promising new physics engine that we’ve been spending time researching. Based on the Unity DOTS (Data Oriented Technology Stack) framework, the new Unity Physics engine promises significantly better performance.
    
  • This DOTS-based Unity Physics would not only enhance our rigid body physics, but would also be used to improve the performance of our gravity simulation.
• To Infinity and Beyond
  • Much like Surface Grids, rigid body physics lays the foundation for many simulation features to come, such as spacecraft, thrusters, and megastructures.
    
  • Having more bodies that follow these new physics will also allow you to better simulate how larger bodies form as smaller objects clump together. Make planets out of asteroids, or pigeons, it’s up to you.

Development version of Universe Sandbox running on an iPhone.

We’re still actively working on a mobile release for both iOS and Android, though there’s still many design questions to be answered.

• The Full Experience on Mobile
  • When we bring Universe Sandbox to mobile, we plan to bring the full desktop version to mobile so you’ll have access to all the same features, just in your pocket!
    
  • A smaller screen means our user interface will need to be even more innovative, and we’re working hard to make sure that the mobile experience is just as fun to play as it is on a desktop.

There’s no shortage of additions and improvements to be made when you’re simulating the Universe! We’re also thinking about future features like Lagrange points, atmospheric scattering, and life simulation, and we’re excited to share them all with you!


We’re currently hiring another Physics Engineer, join us!

We’re really glad that you all enjoyed reading our Roadmap. You asked a lot of good questions and we wanted to answer some of them here:

1. Will you be able to export (and import) height maps for celestial objects?

We plan to support importing and exporting of surface maps, but we don’t yet know when that will happen.

Much of the surface data (like elevation and color) that we use for known solar system objects is based on data available online. You can find similar maps to the ones we use online, like this set of Moon elevation and color maps (though these are not exactly what we use).

2. What materials are you planning on adding?

Development of adding additional materials to the simulation is still in flux. Our goal is to add all the basic materials that are necessary for simulating basic life like carbon dioxide and oxygen, as well as some others like methane and sulfur, which are found in large quantities on other planets and moons in the solar system.

3. Will we be able to make planets out of any materials?

Great question. When we add additional materials to Universe Sandbox, we are planning to make them available as part of an object’s Composition properties, similar to our current system, so you’ll be able to make planets out of any material we add.

4. Will we be able to make megastructures like Death Stars?

We think this would be really fun, and actually have this on our Roadmap already. The general idea would involve a separate system to build megastructures like Dyson Spheres (or even Death Stars). However we still have a lot to do before we start work on that.

5. Are we adding sentient life as part of our life simulation?

That is a cool idea. We’re still a ways away from even the simple life simulation we are hoping to implement though. The first version of life simulation will likely be a surface map, similar to our other surface grid maps, that would show “amount of biomass” or “vegetation,” but we don’t have all of the details worked out yet.

6. Any plans to make the game run in Vulkan?

While we don’t have any plans right now to support Universe Sandbox for Vulcan, an API for graphics rendering and computing (different from what we currently use), on Desktop, that doesn’t mean we won’t look into it in the future.

7. Will we be adding continental drift or volcanoes?

Right now we don’t have any plans to add either of these features, though we have thought about adding very simple volcanoes in the past. There are a lot of improvements and fixes we need to make to the core features before we think about adding in complicated features like that.

8. Is there a way to beta test new features?

Yes! We will occasionally release Community Test builds to get feedback on new features and help us find bugs. We announce when these go live in a post on the Steam Forums and on our Discord server.

9. What devices will Universe Sandbox mobile be available on and will it be free for those who have already bought Universe Sandbox?

Universe Sandbox will be available on both iOS and Android devices. Minimum device requirements have not been finalized yet.

We still do not have a release date or official price for mobile, but we do plan on it being a one-time paid app with no ads or in-app purchases. The desktop and the mobile versions will be sold on separate stores and will be separate purchases. If you want Universe Sandbox on your mobile device you will need to purchase from the mobile store, even if you already own Universe Sandbox on desktop.

10. Are we still working on Smoothed-particle Hydrodynamics (SPH)?

We have shifted our focus on fixing problems and bugs with the fundamental systems and simulation before resuming work on awesome new features like SPH. That said, we still want to do SPH, but are actively working on improvements to the current collision system that we discussed in the Roadmap.

Learn more about SPH in our SPH blog post.

Updated July, 15, 2021

Sedna colliding with Mars. The impact sites heat up the Martian atmosphere, increasing the amount of water vapor it can hold. They also heat up ice on the Martian surface, creating more water vapor. As the increased water vapor spreads to cooler regions around the impact site, the lower elevation-adjusted temperature and warmer atmosphere with more water vapor allow rings of snow to form.


It turns out it’s a lot harder to simulate snow, or any weather for that matter, than it is to simulate regular surface water. In Universe Sandbox the phases of water on the surface of an object depend just on the sea level temperature, and we even make sure to conserve the total surface water mass in all of its phases, which you can find under Properties > Surface > Total Water Mass. However, because snow depends on so many other conditions we don’t keep track of it in the same way.



We keep track of and conserve the total water mass and how much is in vapor (upper left map), liquid (lower left map), and ice phases (upper right map). But snow is only simulated on the surface of the planet depending on properties like surface temperature and water vapor pressure.


Like all phases of water, snow is also tracked with surface grids, which we discussed in our first ScienceLog. We simulate snow by checking if each point on the surface grid has the right elevation, amount of water vapor, and surface temperature, needed for snow to form. If the point meets all of our checks, we know snow needs to be added to that point. This is much more complex than how we simulate ice, which only depends on whether the sea level temperature of a point on the surface grid is below freezing.

As of Update 27 we’re also keeping a record of where snow is being formed. One thing this allows us to do now is add and remove snow more realistically. This is a big improvement over our previous snow simulation where snow would just appear and disappear instantaneously depending on the properties of each point on the surface grid at any given time. We’re also doing a better job of simulating snow and ice on random planets by stabilizing the water phases and then running our snow checks when the planet is created.



Three random rocky planets with more accurate snow and ice simulated upon creation.




Now, you may be wondering why we don’t just simulate snow with the rest of the phases of water. To do that, we would need to simulate the entire water cycle, which we just can’t do accurately at simulation speeds faster than about one second per second on a desktop computer (yet). Even organizations like NASA need supercomputers to accurately simulate weather! This limitation comes from how fast we can allow water to flow through the points on a surface grid and maintain a stable surface simulation. In the water cycle, the phases change much faster than we can simulate the flow rate of water. This means we can’t keep track of which points should have which phases. For simulating the phase changes of water on the surface of a planet, like liquid water to ice, we aren’t limited because the flow rate of water is faster than the phase changes of this surface water. However, as consumer computers get faster, our snow simulation has the potential to become more realistic. So while we may not have personal supercomputers anytime soon, you can still check out how much better snow looks by checking out the Tidally Locked Earth or Mars Collisions Sims.


This blog post is part of our ongoing series of ScienceLog articles, intended to share the science behind some of Universe Sandbox’s most interesting features. If you would love to learn about the real-life science powering our simulator, please stay tuned and let us know what you would like to read about next.

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

Run Steam to download Update 27, or buy Universe Sandbox via the Steam Store.

Snow simulation improvements, more detailed temperature maps, better performance, new cloud visuals, and more are rolled up into Update 27.

The featured image shows what would happen if the Earth was tidally locked, where one side of the planet always faces the Sun.

We’re now keeping track of snow so that it falls and melts more realistically. Previously it disappeared immediately if the water vapor got too low. There’s also more accurate snow and ice formations on newly-created random rocky planets!


Temperature maps have gotten a facelift with the addition of temperature calculations adjusted by elevation. Previously temperature maps were only shown at sea level, even if the elevation data was above sea level.


Render Scale has been added as a new graphics setting. This allows you to run the simulation at a lower resolution while keeping the interface looking crisp. The automatic settings have also been updated for improved performance on lower-end hardware.

• More customization for cloud visuals on rocky planets, including adjustable coverage and opacity
  
  
  
• We’ve added new shapes to our Human Scale Objects
  
• ...and Human Scale Objects can now have custom colors
  
  
  
• View > Object Visibility has been added so that you can see all objects that would normally be impossible to see at realistic scales. You can also really blow them up with advanced settings!
  
  
  
• The Add Panel has been restyled to accommodate smaller screens and to prepare the panel for future plans
  
  
  
• Heating from stars and supernovae is now smoother at high simulation speeds for all spinning objects
  
  
  
  Before
  

  
  After
  
  
  
• Our guide system now provides better assistance to new users with Guide Rails
  
  
  
• Curved trails are now more precisely rendered as at high simulation speeds
  
  Before | After
  
  
• Dyslexia-friendly font options have been added under Settings > General > Accessibility
  

This update includes 16+ additions and 38+ fixes and improvements.

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

Check out our full list of Update 27 changes

How long do you think this would take?


Sure, the Sun’s pretty useful, we guess. It feeds Earth’s plant life, keeps us warm, and helps people see where they’re going when they walk around outside. If the Sun suddenly disappeared from the Solar System (which you can do with the click of a button in Universe Sandbox!), we’d be in big trouble.* In fact, right now you’re probably imagining the desolate, frozen landscape that our planet would become without its Sun. But this apocalypse wouldn’t happen quite as fast as you probably think:

If the Sun disappeared, it would take over a century for the Earth’s oceans to completely freeze solid! 

Universe Sandbox lets you perform this kind of catastrophic experiment from the safety and comfort of your own home by simulating three phases of water (solid, liquid, and gas), and how they react to the changing environment. As a planet cools, its surface water will freeze into ice. Heat that planet back up with a laser, and the ice will melt and even vaporize into gas.


Using a laser to melt a hole in the ice on the frozen night side of a tidally locked Earth.


But you might have noticed that some of these phase changes take longer than you expect them to. If you’ve found yourself wondering “Why is it taking so long for the oceans to freeze?” or “I’ve been waiting for ages for the ice caps to melt, what’s going on??”, read on to learn more about the physics (and speed) of phase changes.




In ScienceLog #1, we explained how the flow of energy into and out of a planet will affect that planet’s temperature. In fact, the flow of energy also affects the phase of water.


As you know if you’ve ever boiled a pot of water, you need to add energy to turn water from a liquid to a gas. The opposite phase change— condensing water vapor into a liquid— involves the release of energy into the cooler environment surrounding the water. Similarly, energy needs to flow into a block of ice to melt it into water, but energy must flow out of a pool of water in order to turn it into ice. We can figure out how fast a phase change is occurring based on the speed at which energy is flowing into or out of the water.

The key point here is that phase changes are not instantaneous. You’ve probably already noticed that, if you pay attention to phase changes in your daily life: It can take a few days for snow to melt after a big blizzard, even if the temperature rises above freezing. Even ice doesn’t melt instantly in your drink on a hot day. And of course, we all know that water never boils as fast as we want it to, even if we set it on high heat.

The speed of a phase change of surface water in Universe Sandbox will depend on the temperature of the surface, the freezing or boiling point of water, and the mass of water that you’re trying to change. This last factor, the mass of the water, is probably the source of most of the confusion about this issue in Universe Sandbox. Since we’re all used to seeing phase changes in our everyday lives, we have some intuition for how fast we think they should happen. But the masses of the Earth’s ice caps or oceans are much, much larger than an ice cube or a kettle of water, and this significantly slows down the rate of boiling, melting, and any other phase change.



This Earth is orbiting closer to the Sun than Mercury.


The heat from the too-close Sun is melting the Earth’s ice quickly, as you can see in the Total Ice Mass graph on the left, but not instantly.

That’s why you might have to wait a while for your simulated planet’s oceans to freeze or boil (depending on what you’ve done to that poor planet). Of course, if you get impatient, you can always use the new Stabilize Phases button in the Surface tab to instantly change the surface water to the correct phase based on the local temperature. What a convenient apocalypse!


…

…What’s that? You still don’t believe us that it would take a century to freeze the Earth’s oceans?

…

…You want some proof in the form of equations and hard numbers?

…

…All right, you asked for it. If you’re still with us, read on for the juicy, math-y details:




We’re going to put our money where our math is and walk through an example. Suppose we want to freeze all the water on Earth into ice. We could do this by deleting the Sun in the Solar System, although then we’d have to wait for the Earth to slowly cool down. If we’re impatient, we can skip ahead by just setting the Earth’s Average Surface Temperature to the lowest possible temperature: -273°C, or zero Kelvin (also known as “absolute zero”).

If you try this in Universe Sandbox, you’ll notice that after you change the temperature, the oceans are still made of liquid water. How long should we expect it to take to freeze all that water into ice: Days? Weeks? Months?



We’ve just made the Earth as cold as it can be, but its oceans are still liquid!


Let’s start by asking how much water we’re trying to freeze. Earth’s oceans have a mass of roughly 1.4 thousand billion billion kilograms. In scientific notation, that’s 1.4 x 10^21 kg of water. To turn the liquid water into a solid, we need to remove energy from it. Since the water hasn’t frozen yet, its temperature is sitting at the freezing point, around 273 Kelvin. Since the Earth itself is at zero Kelvin, the heat energy in the water will flow into the Earth (and then out into space). 

Our next question is: How much energy needs to flow out of the water in order to freeze it? To answer this question, we use a property of water called the Heat of Fusion. This property represents how much energy, in Joules, is required to melt one kilogram of ice into water, or, conversely, how much energy must be removed to freeze one kilogram of water into ice. You can look up the Heat of Fusion for many different materials online— For water, it’s about 3.3 x 10^5 Joules per kilogram.

This means that the amount of energy that must be removed from Earth’s oceans to freeze them entirely into water is:



That’s roughly the amount of energy that would be released by two billion Tsar Bomba hydrogen bombs, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created.

Now we need to know the speed at which energy is flowing out of the water, and into its zero Kelvin environment. For this, we can use the Stefan-Boltzman law, which says that an object with temperature T will lose energy through its surface at a rate of 



where σ, the Greek letter “sigma”, represents the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, and the A is the surface area of the object. 

The surface area of the Earth is about 5.1 x 10^14 m2, so the rate at which the oceans are losing energy is roughly



We can actually double-check this number in the game: First, put the Earth in an empty simulation. Then set Earth’s Average Surface Temperature to 273 Kelvin and look at the Energy Radiation Rate property. As expected, it shows that this Earth is losing energy at a rate of 1.61 x 10^17 W (the Watts unit is equivalent to Joules per second). 



This Earth’s temperature is set to the freezing point of water, and the Energy Radiation Rate is exactly what we just calculated it should be with the Stefan-Boltzmann law.


Back to our zero-Kelvin Earth: you probably know that only about 70% of our planet’s surface is covered in water. Since we’re only interested in how fast the oceans are losing heat, we should use a reduced rate of



We now know how much energy we need the oceans to lose in order to freeze them all, and how fast they are losing energy to their surroundings. Now we can easily calculate the time it will take for the oceans to lose the required amount of energy:



There are about 3.15 x 10^7 seconds in a year, so that’s



In other words, we estimate that it would take over 100 years(!) for the Earth’s oceans to completely freeze if the Earth’s temperature suddenly dropped to absolute zero. In real life, it would likely take even longer: The layer of ice that would form on top of the oceans would insulate the liquid water underneath, keeping it from freezing from much longer. Geothermal vents at the bottom of the oceans could also keep temperatures cozy for the microorganisms that live down there, possibly for billions of years.

If you’d rather go in the opposite direction and try to boil away Earth’s oceans by heating up the planet, you might find that it takes even more energy! That’s because the energy needed to change water from a liquid to a gas, known as the Heat of Vaporization, is almost ten times its Heat of Fusion. You can explore exactly this scenario in our Welcome | Part 2 guide, which you can find in Home > Guides > Tutorials. You can also learn more about how Universe Sandbox simulates the surface temperatures of objects in the Surface Simulation or the Energy & Heating tutorials.


Based on some comments we’ve received about the assumptions we made for this calculation, we wanted to go into a bit more depth about what they are, and why they may (or may not) be important. You’ll notice that because of these assumptions, the 132 years that we come up with really represents a minimum amount of time it would take for the oceans to freeze solid.

• Space is actually 3°K, not 0°K:
  
  Yes, that’s true, the ambient temperature of empty space is around 2.7°K due to the cosmic microwave background. However, after the Sun disappears, the Earth is still much hotter than the temperature of space, and the difference between 0°K and 2.7°K is small, so this would not notably affect the speed of cooling.
  
  
• We didn’t consider atmospheric heating (the greenhouse effect):
  
  No we didn’t, though it is included in the Energy Absorption Rate in Universe Sandbox, so you can go see how large an effect this is by running the simulation for yourself! This effect actually makes the largest difference in the time it would take for the oceans to freeze. This Atmosphere Power is actually based on the infrared emissivity, ε, of Earth, a measure of how efficiently it emits infrared radiation. For Earth this is about 0.78 on a scale of 0-1 (1 being very efficient). The energy radiated back at Earth by the atmosphere is then calculated as:
  
  
  
  where again σ, the Greek letter “sigma”, represents the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, and the A is the surface area of the object, and T is the temperature. Which works out to be 39% of the Energy Radiation Rate of Earth. So this means that the cooling rate is significantly slower when you take atmospheric heating into effect, adding another 83 years or so to the time it would take for Earth’s oceans to freeze solid.
  
  
  
• We didn’t discuss tidal forces:
  
  True, we did not discuss tidal forces, but they are also computed in Universe Sandbox as part of the Energy Absorption Rate. However, once you get rid of the Sun, the additional heating from tidal forces is over a million times smaller than the Energy Radiation Rate. The main source of tidal heating once the Sun is gone is the Moon, which adds about 2 terawatts of constant power (though it varies very slightly). This additional energy would only delay Earth’s oceans from freezing over for another day or so.
  
  
  
• We didn’t consider geothermal (internal) heating:
  
  Geothermal vents are mentioned in the last sentence of the second-to-last paragraph, but you’re right that we did not include them in our calculations. In fact, that property is not simulated in Universe Sandbox. However, assuming this rate is constant at providing 47 terawatts of power, this is still about 1000 times smaller than the Energy Radiation Rate, and would only add about 20 more days to the total time that it would take to freeze the Oceans.
  
  
• Earth is not a perfect blackbody:
  
  That’s also true. In many astronomical fields, celestial objects are approximated as blackbodies not only because it makes the math much easier, but also because we don’t know their exact emission and absorption properties, and it tends to be a pretty accurate approximation. This is why we approximate all of our objects as blackbodies to compute the Energy Radiation Rate in Universe Sandbox. Even though Earth is not a perfect blackbody, the difference between it’s blackbody temperature and measured temperature is only a few degrees Celsius (not including the greenhouse effect).

Another assumption we made was that the surface temperature of the Earth would be starting at 0°K. As we mentioned, if we don’t start Earth at 0°K, then we need to wait for it to cool off enough that it’s oceans would start to freeze, making it take even longer for Earth’s oceans to freeze solid. We dynamically compute the temperature of an object and its subsequent Energy Absorption and Radiation Rates in Universe Sandbox each second, so you can actually watch it cool in real time. Computing the exact amount of additional time this cooling would add is quite complicated. But we can run the simulation in Universe Sandbox and find that this will add another 100 years or so to the total time that it will take Earth’s oceans to freeze solid.

Since we do include atmospheric and tidal heating in Universe Sandbox, I encourage you to go and delete the Sun yourselves and see how long it takes for the oceans to freeze solid!


*So how long would you survive after the Sun disappeared? It would depend a lot on where you live and how much food you have on hand. The crops we depend on for food need sunlight to grow, although larger plants like trees can have enough energy stored to last for years without the Sun. Many people would probably freeze to death before they starved. Some people might last for a few months, especially those living in places like Yellowstone or Iceland with a lot of geothermal activity. After a few years, though, the Earth’s surface would grow so cold that the atmosphere would condense, and there’d be nothing left to breathe. It really makes you appreciate our nearest star, doesn’t it?


This blog post is part of our ongoing series of ScienceLog articles, intended to share the science behind some of Universe Sandbox’s most interesting features. If you would love to learn about the real-life science powering our simulator, please stay tuned and let us know what you would like to read about next.

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

Updated April 30, 2021

Drastically increased collision fragments and framerates, overhauled planetary water distribution, plus dozens of improvements come together in Update 26.3.

Water fills a tub from its lowest point - why not on a planet? Oceans now start at the lowest elevations and fill valleys like you would a bathtub, creating more realistic-looking continents and oceans. (Previously liquid water would “precipitate” evenly across the surface.)

Major performance improvements have resulted in epic collisions with double the particles. Fragment generation is substantially more consistent across various simulation speeds. Collisions now perform much more smoothly: in many cases we’re seeing as much as triple framerate increases.

• Fixed the “annoying bug” that darkened customized planet surfaces
  
• Ice & Snow, which are simulated separately, now have color options
  
• Avast, Matey! Change an object’s Sea Level in the properties panel
  
• Cleaned up the object property panel and added new action buttons

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

• “Stabilize Temperature” and “Stabilize Phase” are two new surface simulation functions in an object’s Property panel. Instantly set the temperature of the surface or the phase of the water (gas, liquid, or solid ice) to their steady state. This is useful to see how a planet will settle over time, rather than needing to speed up time.
  
• Added an editable “Sea Level” property to an object’s Surface tab. Use this to raise or lower the water level on an object’s surface by “filling up” the oceans from the bottom up. This is a much more intuitive and engaging way to add water to an object’s surface than was previously possible. Previously, water was added as a uniform sheet across the entire surface.
  
• Added a toggleable “Fusion Power” to the Simulation Settings

• Major performance and optimization improvements to surface simulation, collision heating, n-body calculations, and fragmentation. Collisions in particular perform much more smoothly than before.
  
• Improved the consistency of fragment generation during collisions at a variety of simulation speeds.
  
• Light energy is now correctly conserved when scattering off the surface of objects, resulting in more realistic, less shiny surfaces.
  
• Improved the simulation of light absorption in water, yielding darker deep water and greener shallow water
  
• Revised default water color to be a more saturated blue, reflecting how satellite photos of Earth are often represented
  
• Improved the water generation on random rocky planets, resulting in more planets with defined continents and oceans
  
• Added relativistic kinetic energy to collision calculations. Only relevant at speeds near the speed of light
  
• Revised the initial size of Earth’s ice caps

• Fixed an issue where many fragments created during a collision would immediately re-collide with the colliding object. This now results in much higher particle count in the aftermath of collisions.
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing a error in momentum transfer during collisions
  
• Fixed in issue where newly created objects could adopt surface elevation information from other objects
  
• Laser previously affected an area slightly larger than the intended size. Now the laser affects the correct area size, as designated by the visual laser tool reticle.
  
• Venus will no longer produce volatiles after opening "Planets Between Earth & Moon" sim
  
• Fixed an issue where objects could be heated prior to being added to the simulation
  
• Fixed an issue where objects could still lose mass to fragmentation with “Create Fragments” turned off
  
• Fixed an issue where the heated area on an object’s surface after a collision would jump to a different size
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing exoplanets to generate with too much water
  
• Fragments that were spawning slightly oversized are now corrected

• New styling of many action buttons in an object’s Property panel

• Major improvements to saving. This should reduce the occurrence of corrupted save data, and overall improve the stability of saving and loading simulations.
  
• Zooming on surface data maps now zooms at the cursor’s position
  
• Snow is now correctly visually represented on top of ice
  
• The distance at which Surface Lock enables when moving close to an object has been revised
  
• Improved object selection logic, preventing the selection of mostly-invisible gas clouds when they are too close to the camera
  
• Improved the colorization of objects when using non-realistic Color modes
  
• Improved the visibility of the Laser tool reticle, and added a missing reticle on gas giants
  
• Improved color rendering of heated gas giants
  
• Revised styling of expanders in the Property panel
  
• Revised styling of the scrollbar on surface data views
  
• Reorganization of the Property panel Overview and Surface tab
  
• Reorganization of tabs in the Open panel, notably moving My Sims to the front
  
• Habitable zone visibility can now be toggled by the hotkey H, which is editable in the keybinds.
  
• Removed the English-only abbreviations from non-English languages that could sometimes cause awkward translations. Cleaned up the abbreviations used in English.

• Fixed the behavior of “Auto” selection in dropdown menus with auto-selecting options. “Auto” can now be correctly toggled on and off.
  
• Fixed an issue where atmospheres and clouds would be incorrectly tinted darker when customizing the underlying surface colors
  
• Fixed the sorting behavior for simulations in the Open panel
  
• Toggle buttons added to the hotbar will no longer incorrectly switch state when loading a new simulation
  
• Particles now move smoothly when exiting Chart mode
  
• Fixed an issue where an unplaced object hologram could be selectable
  
• Atlas Resolution now correctly resets to default when all settings are reset
  
• Fixed an issue where an empty sim would report having 1 object in the Stats panel
  
• Fixed an issue where Slowest Body wouldn’t be reported correctly in Simulation Settings
  
• Fixed an issue where it would be possible for the mouse wheel to zoom in Universe Sandbox while using the mouse in a different application
  
• Fixed an issue preventing Surface Lock from working during a guide
  
• Fixed an issue where the strongest attractor in a simulation could be given an orbit parent (26.3.1)

• The color of ice and snow can now be customized in an object’s Appearance tab

• Revision to Collision simulations to ensure the impact collision consistency across various simulation speeds

Craters from impacts, lasting surface damage, and voluminous explosions all come together in Update 26.2 to close out the year!

Molten and heated areas on an object’s surface will appear scorched after cooling, with visible craters in the aftermath of collisions.

Rocky objects more accurately vaporize into hot, dense gas clouds when exploded. The simulation of gas particles, which slowly expand over time, is more realistic, and results in dramatic debris clouds after impacts. We’ve also added a Detonation Delay setting to the Explode tool.

Move, scale, and rotate the universe using intuitive gestures with both hands and the grip buttons.


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

Check out our full list of Update 26.2 changes.

Brown Dwarf Transitions
We’ve made significant improvements to the simulated transitions of gas giants into brown dwarfs and stars, driven by a newly simulated Fusion Power energy property. Learn more about fusion power and brown dwarfs in our new guide: Guides > Science > Are Gas Giants Failed Stars?

More Color Customization
The color of water on all planets, and the color of vegetation on Earth, are now customizable via Properties > Appearance.

Laser Improvements
Laser presets have been reorganized, and we’ve added a new Push Water setting in the Laser panel. While not entirely realistic, this is a fun way to play with the water simulation on an object’s surface. Try out the “Wave Maker” laser preset to create massive waves in a planet’s oceans.

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

Check out our full list of Update 26.1 changes.

Update 26 brings the full Universe Sandbox desktop experience to virtual reality (VR). We redesigned the bottom bar and made visual improvements to collision fragments, rocky planets, and liquid water.

Full Desktop Experience in VR
Universe Sandbox VR now matches the desktop experience and will maintain feature parity moving forward. You can now use virtual hands to manipulate planets, edit properties, or use separate tools in each hand.

Reimagined User Interface
Featuring a customizable bottom bar, our improved user interface makes Universe Sandbox easier to use, more discoverable, and improves support for extra small screens.

Improved Visuals
Collision fragments have new, high-definition graphics and lighting. Elevation maps for rocky planets have more detail. Water graphics now show waves and better light reflection. Asteroids and collision fragments have new highly-detailed dynamic models with better lighting.

This update includes 20+ additions and 50+ fixes and improvements.

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

Check out our full list of Update 26 changes

Our first ScienceLog explained how the flow of energy into and out of an object is responsible for heating or cooling the object. If you look at the sources of energy in a simulation, listed in the Energy Flow section of the object’s Surface tab, you’ll see Tidal Power listed. Unlike some of the other heat sources, like stars or impacts, tidal heating originates inside the object itself.

Tidal heating has been a part of Universe Sandbox for some time, but after the release of our new Surface Grids feature in Update 24, we noticed that tidal heating wasn’t changing the temperature of planets the way we expected. We traced this unusual behavior back to some errors in our tidal heating calculations, and then we fixed those bugs while we prepared the energy flow tools for Update 25.

Now that we’re more confident in our tidal heating simulation, we thought that for this ScienceLog, we’d dive a little deeper into tidal heating, where it comes from, and how it works in Universe Sandbox. It may not be as flashy as other heating sources, like supernovas or lasers, but tidal heating can create some unexpected and interesting effects, and even determine the habitability of a planet or moon!



As usual, it all comes back to gravity. The force of gravity depends on the distance between objects. For example, the strength of Earth’s gravitational pull on the Moon is stronger on the side of the Moon that’s facing the Earth than on the far side of the Moon. This difference, called the tidal force, can stretch the Moon out of its normally spherical shape. If the tidal forces are strong enough, they can even rip an object apart through a process called Roche fragmentation.


Caption: Jupiter’s moon Io orbiting the gas giant in a simulation with just Jupiter and its moons. Io’s eccentric orbit creates tidal friction inside the moon, and the graph of Tidal Power on the left shows how the incoming rate of tidal energy changed over time. In real life, astronomers believe this tidal heating is the source of energy for Io’s many volcanoes.

Smaller tidal forces will leave the object intact, and the “squishing” of the object’s spherical shape is usually too small to see. But if the tidal forces change over time— say, because the object is spinning, or its orbit is non-circular (elliptical)— all this squishing and un-squishing will create friction inside the object, which will add heat energy.



As the simulation runs, Universe Sandbox is constantly calculating the gravitational forces pulling on every object. We use these calculations to determine where each object will move next, and how fast, but we can also use them to calculate the strength of the tidal forces inside the object. If these forces are strong enough, the simulation produces fragments to simulate Roche fragmentation tearing the object apart. It also calculates how much heating is produced by tidal friction, and sends that information into the energy flow calculations that control the object’s temperature.

With the improvements in Update 25, we’re now much more confident in our tidal heating model. We even made a new simulation to show it off: A Tidally Heated Habitable Moon. This sim demonstrates a scenario predicted by some astronomers: a moon orbiting a gas giant outside of its star’s habitable zone. Normally this distance would make the moon’s surface too cold to support liquid water, but tidal forces from the gas giant heat the moon’s surface to a balmy, habitable 14.9°C.



Caption: A tidally heated habitable moon located outside of the habitable zone. The warmer surface temperature, due to tidal heating, allows liquid water to flow on this moon.

Try creating your own tidal heating simulations, and experiment with the masses and orbits of objects (especially the orbital eccentricity) to see how these properties affect the amount of tidal power added to an object. Can you make a habitable moon or planet outside the habitable zone?

Note: You may have noticed the odd looking spike in the “Jupiter’s moon Io orbiting the gas giant” graph. One of the challenges that comes with simulating complex features like tidal heating in Universe Sandbox is that when you increase the speed of the simulation, accuracy in the calculations can decrease. These abnormalities occur because there are less points of data to reference. The graph could be smoothed out by estimating data points in between, but that would introduce inaccurate data, and we’re all about accuracy here.


This blog post is part of our ongoing series of ScienceLog articles, intended to share the science behind some of Universe Sandbox’s most interesting features. If you would love to learn about the real-life science powering our simulator, please stay tuned and let us know what you would like to read about next.

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

An all-new VR experience, new desktop user interface, and collision fragments makeover. We are so excited to share our work-in-progress build and get your feedback!

1. If it’s open, exit Universe Sandbox
   
2. Right-click on the game title in your Steam Library
   
3. Click on ‘Properties’
   
4. Select the ‘Betas’ tab
   
5. Set the dropdown menu to ‘*community-test’
   
6. Close the Properties window
   
7. Steam will now update Universe Sandbox to the experimental build
   
8. Once updated, launch Universe Sandbox

• A completely new, fully-featured VR experience
  
• A brand new user interface, and a customizable bottom bar
  
• High definition object fragments, collisions got a makeover
  
• Countless smaller experience improvements and bug fixes

Leave your comments here in the thread, or come join our Discord server. We would love to see you there!

The purpose of a Community Test build is to help us learn what our users are most excited about, what’s working, what isn’t working, and gather valuable feedback about our new changes for Update 26 before we make it official. Find a bug? Let us know! We’ve also set up a survey for your feedback, if you would prefer that.

This is a work in progress, and features may be changed before we officially release Update 26.

Check out the full details of What's New