Update

Run Steam to download Update 22.3, or buy Universe Sandbox via our website or the Steam Store.

This update officially switches over to our new physics system that is faster, more stable, and more accurate. This new system will be turned on by default, so there’s nothing you need to do to enjoy the improvement.

This update also includes a simulation commemorating an important historical date for physics: the 100-year anniversary of the total solar eclipse that was used to test and validate Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Home > Open > The 100 Year Anniversary of the Eclipse That Validated General Relativity

General relativity is not simulated in Universe Sandbox, but even if it was, its effect would be hard to see. The difference in observed star position between Newton’s model and Einstein’s model is extremely small: about 1/2000th the width of the full moon.

Highlights from this update’s list of improvements and fixes:

• New Delete tool
• Reduced performance stuttering
• Smoother trails for fast-moving objects
• Fixes to updating Workshop sims

Please report any issues on our forums (local forum | Steam forum) or via Home > Send Feedback.

Check our a full list of What’s New in Update 22.3

We’re hiring a Graphics Developer! Learn more and apply

We’re hiring a Spaceship Physics Developer! Learn more and apply

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April 18: 22.2.1 & 22.2.2 address a Mac-specific issue that caused crashes while using the Add panel. Known Mac issue: loading “Solar System Planets, Moons, and Large Objects” simulation sometimes results in a crash.

Run Steam to download Update 22.2, or buy Universe Sandbox via our website or the Steam Store.

This update adds improved vaporization effects that are more accurate and colorful. It also introduces an experimental version of our new physics system that makes gravity simulation faster, more stable, and more accurate. We’d love it if you tried it out and helped us test it!

Home > Try New Physics

Please remember this system is still experimental. If you experience any problems, let us know! You can report any issues on our forums (local forum | Steam forum) or via Home > Send Feedback.

There are also dozens of smaller improvements and fixes. Here are some of the highlights:

• Added Fahrenheit as a temperature unit
• Added Filipino to available languages
• Improved Search in Open panel
• Trails & orbits work on older hardware again
• Object lighting on Linux works again
• New simulation with all planets, moons, and large Solar System objects

Check out a full list of What’s New in Update 22.2

We’re excited for the upcoming official release of this new physics system so that everyone can enjoy the improvements to performance and accuracy. We’re also working on brand new galaxies and, while we had a setback with Surface Grids & Lasers, we are now making good progress again. Learn more about our progress on these features

We’re hiring a Graphics Developer! Learn more and apply

We’re hiring a Spaceship Physics Developer! Learn more and apply

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The orbit stretching to the bottom left is 2018 VG18, the most distant known object in the Solar System. The orbit shown here is a preliminary estimate; more accurate data will be available only after years of observation.

Run Steam to download Update 22.1, or buy Universe Sandbox via our website or the Steam Store.

This is a small update that adds a few new sims in addition to dozens of improvements and bug fixes.

Check out these sims featuring incredibly distant Solar System objects, including the recently announced 2018 VG18, nicknamed “Farout”:
Home > Open > 2018 VG18: The Most Distant Object in the Solar System
Home > Open > 2015 TG387: A Goblin at the Edge of the Solar System
Home > Open > Voyagers 1 & 2 Start 2019 Outside the Solar System

Don’t forget to check out New Horizons’ upcoming flyby of the most distant Solar System object ever visited, scheduled for January 1, 2019:
Home > Open > New Horizons Ultima Thule Encounter in 2019

And here are some highlights from the long list of improvements and fixes:

• Smarter autosaves
• Improvements & fixes for opening, saving, & sharing sims
• Better randomized properties for randomly created objects
• Fixes for issues with frozen fragments & missing orbit previews
• Restored visuals for explosions & fragments

Happy holidays! Stay tuned after the New Year for a recap of this past year and a look at what we’ve got in store for 2019.

Check out a full list of What’s New in Update 22.1

Please report any issues on our forums (local forum | Steam forum) or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.
 
 
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Run Steam to download Update 22, or buy Universe Sandbox ² via our website or the Steam Store.

Create and share your simulations and explore the creativity of the Universe Sandbox community!

Home > Workshop
Home > Save > Share to Steam Workshop

Use the new custom sim descriptions to detail the lore of your sci-fi worlds. Or discuss the reality behind the scientific phenomena in your simulations.

This update also includes changes to the interface with new tools for manipulating Property values plus styling improvements throughout. There’s a new autosave system to prevent accidental loss of work, and as always, there are lots of smaller improvements and bug fixes. See the full list of What’s New

Please report any issues on our forums (local forum | Steam forum) or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

Notes:
1) Workshop only supports simulations at this time. In the future, we hope to add support for custom textures and models.
2) Workshop is only available for the Steam version of Universe Sandbox. We’d love to use our own system in the future for sharing and exploring community sims on any platform, but we don’t have a timeline for this yet.
3) As of this update, Universe Sandbox no longer supports DirectX 9 or 32-bit operating systems. Users can run the last compatible version by selecting “*directx9-32bit” via Steam Betas (learn how). For more information on our decision to end support for DirectX 9 & 32-bit systems, please see our announcement from earlier this year.

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August 13: Update 21.2.1 is a small update that includes a few minor improvements, bug fixes, and updated translations.

Update 21.2 introduces official VR support for Windows Mixed Reality devices. If you own WMR, just launch Universe Sandbox from Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR and start throwing planets.

There are also a handful of small bug fixes and improvements to the core Universe Sandbox experience. Check out the full list of What’s New in Update 21.2

Issues? Feedback? Let us know on our forums (local forum | Steam forum) or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

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July 27: Update 21.1 includes a new History of Jupiter’s Moons tutorial (Home > Tutorials > Science), updated translations from the community, the addition of Indonesian, and a few other small improvements and bug fixes.

20 Earth Languages

Universe Sandbox now supports 20+ languages, with support for adding even more in the future (see below for a current list of supported languages and let us know if there’s a language you’d like to see). We are proud to make Universe Sandbox more accessible to people from all over the world.

Change language:
Home > Settings > General > Selected Language

While most of the text has been translated via Google Translate, we’ve had significant contributions from our amazing community over the past month that have made improvements to many of the languages. We hope our community continues to help translate as Universe Sandbox grows and evolves.

Translate:
Home > Help Translate (learn more)

Currently supported languages (as of 21.1):

• Chinese, Simplified
• Chinese, Traditional
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• Finnish
• French
• German
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Thai
• Turkish

Is there a language you want to see? Do you have feedback on the translation process? Let us know through our forums (local | Steam) or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

12 Jovian Moons

This update also includes the 12 recently discovered moons of Jupiter. Initially discovered in March 2017, they have now all been observed several times and their orbits are confirmed. Jupiter now has a total of 79 known moons.

See Jupiter’s new moons:
Home > Open > Core > Jupiter’s New Moons

They are all very small, around 1 to 2 miles wide. One of the moons is unique, as it orbits in the opposite direction of all of the other moons it is near. “It’s basically driving down the highway in the wrong direction,” said Scott Sheppard, one of the astronomers who made the discovery.

Check out a full list of What’s New in Update 21

Also: We’re still testing sharing simulations on Steam Workshop. Learn how you can try it out and help us test
 
 
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May 31: Update 20.7.2 is a small update with a few bug fixes, including fixes for issues with tutorials and the TRAPPIST-1 simulations.

Run Steam to download Update 20.7, or buy Universe Sandbox ² via our website or the Steam Store.

This update features improvements to orbits & motion:

• Improved Support for Hyperbolic Trajectories
• More Precise Control of Orbital Elements
• Reorganized Motion Tab in Properties Panel

A hyperbolic trajectory is the path of an object that is affected by the gravity of a parent object, but not enough to be pulled into an orbit. Instead, it escapes the gravitational influence and continues toward infinity.  
Learn more about hyperbolic trajectories:

• Home > Open > An Interstellar Object with a Hyperbolic Trajectory

There is also a new sim of Jupiter’s co-orbital retrograde asteroid 2015 BZ509:

• Home > Open > Historical > Retrograde Asteroid 2015 BZ509

Update 20.7 also has many smaller improvements, including autosaves and a revamped What’s New panel, along with a bunch of bug fixes.

Note: the name of this update may be hyperbolic.  

 
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This is another small update, but we want to highlight how awesome our new supernovae look now. Thanks to our graphics developer, Georg, for all of his wizardry involved in making these look even cooler, all the while making them perform better, too.

This update also includes a number of smaller improvements, including improved trails in the Roadster sims.

Check out the full list of What’s New in Update 20.6

Now back to our work on lasers and Planet Grids for Update 21! Learn more about what we’re working on for our next big update

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March 14: Update 20.5.2 is a small update that fixes a few bugs, including problems with volume settings and camera control.

Update 20.5 features:

• A Tesla Roadster in Space
• The Ultimate Engineered System
• An Upgrade of Our Game Engine to Unity 2017.2

This is a small update in terms of content, but there have been some significant under-the-hood changes with the upgrade of our game engine to Unity 2017.2. As with past under-the-hood changes, it’s a sign we’ve transitioned well if you can’t see any differences.

But also: there’s a car in space! (And conversely, this car doesn’t even have an engine under its hood.) On February 6, 2018, SpaceX performed a successful test launch of their Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful rocket currently in use. The launch was intended as a demonstration of the Falcon Heavy’s ability to launch a payload into an orbit that could reach Mars. SpaceX also successfully landed two of the Falcon Heavy’s reusable booster engines, although the central core crashed during its attempted landing.

As part of the test, the Falcon Heavy rocket carried a dummy payload to demonstrate that it could launch a large mass onto the required orbit. For this launch, SpaceX chose an unusual dummy payload: a Tesla Roadster electric car belonging to SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. In a press statement released before the launch, SpaceX explained that it wanted a payload that was “fun and without irreplaceable sentimental value.” While the Roadster will not land on or orbit Mars, its current elliptic orbit around the Sun will take it beyond the orbit of Mars at its farthest point.
 
Check out the Roadster sims in Universe Sandbox ²:

• Home > Open > Tesla Roadster in Space
• Home > Open > Where in Space is the Tesla Roadster

 
Update 20.5 also includes a database refresh for objects in our Solar System, a few other new sims (including the Ultimate Engineered System), improved supernova visuals, and a number of smaller improvements and bug fixes.

Check out the full list of What’s New in Update 20.5

We are making great progress on Update 21, but we unfortunately can’t provide a release date yet. Update 20.5 is just a step on the way to make sure everything is running smoothly. Thank you for your patience while we continue to work on Planet Grids and Lasers.

The Ultimate Engineered System, as described by astronomer Sean Raymond

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