I Combined EVERYTHING Except Planets & the Sun Into ONE Planet | Universe Sandbox

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]In this video, I'll conduct two unusual experiments in the Universe Sandbox simulator. First, I'll merge objects from the main asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt, and then in the second experiment, I'll add moons and even planetary rings. For the first experiment, I'll merge all objects from the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt into one single planet. To do this, I need to prepare. I'll have to remove the Sun and all the major planets of the solar system. There, the planets are gone, and all we have left is the asteroid belt and objects from the Kuiper belt, the scattered disc, and those asteroids orbiting between the two belts. But I won't forget to add moons to the objects. I'll add moons to Pluto, Haumea, Eris, and Quaoar. Orcus and Makemake also have moons, but unfortunately, those moons aren't in the simulator. Now, I'll select all these objects and in the motion tab, set the distance for all of them to 3,000 km.

[00:00:47]Here's how it looks now. And I'll also reset the velocity for all these objects to zero. I won't forget the rings. I'm adding Haumea's rings, the two rings that Quaoar has, and Chariklo also has its own rings. It also has two layers of them. In this simulation, I'll disable object heating and fragment creation during collisions. Otherwise, I won't be able to merge everything properly. If you leave these parameters on, as you can see, everything overheats, some matter evaporates, and many fragments just fly apart instead of merging. I've opened Eris's parameters. I think she's the one who will win in this simulation.

[00:01:19]Watch how Eris's characteristics change here, and I'm starting the simulation.

[00:01:36]>> [music] >> And as you can see, yes, Eris won.

[00:01:41]Almost everything has already fallen onto her. There's the last object left, and everything has completely collided now. In the end, we have a planet with a mass of 1.34 times the mass of the Moon and a radius of 1,864 km. In diameter, that's 3,728 km. A day on such a planet has sped up to 8 hours. I'll light up the planet from all sides, and let's evaluate its surface. Well, as we can see, it's basically some kind of icy surface. And here, [music] in this spot where Pluto likely collided, we see an ocean like this, though it's unclear what it's made of. And now for the most interesting part, let's compare this planet to the one from my recent video where I gathered the entire Kuiper belt together. Anyway, here's the Pluto from that simulation. I'll use the chart mode tool for comparison. And as you can see, the difference here is quite minimal.

[00:02:26]Yes, Eris is just a little bit larger than the Pluto from that simulation. So, adding objects from the main asteroid belt did not actually make Eris much larger than the Pluto that combined the entire Kuiper belt. Now, I'll save this planet. Here it is, and I'll place it closer to the Sun. I'll just put it in Mars's orbit at its farthest point, at a distance of 1.65 astronomical units. You might ask, "Why did you put Eris right on the edge of the habitable zone right here?" And now you'll find out why.

[00:02:52]And as you can see, this is what this planet has become while in this orbit.

[00:02:56]Let's take a closer look under the clouds and see this kind of picture on the surface. We see there's liquid water, and in this spot, there's a vast and incredibly expansive ocean.

[00:03:04]Apparently, there's a truly massive and deep crater here, where most likely the final collision with Pluto caused a massive crater. It's all flooded with water, and on this side, there's a distinctly unique type of frozen surface. Although, there are no negative temperatures on the planet here. Well, you see, the simulator created such a surface on Eris. In general, on this planet, the average temperature is 57°C with positive values everywhere and an axial tilt of 42°. The atmosphere mainly consists of water vapor, as much as 84 Earth atmospheres. There's a lot of nitrogen in the atmosphere and a little methane. The composition indicates that the ocean consists only of nitrogen, but there's very little of it here. But if you look into the mantle, there's only water, and there's quite a lot of it, 7% of one Earth ocean. So, like, the mantle is on the surface here, or what? And the likelihood of life is listed at almost 2%. But the pressure on such a planet is 59 atmospheres, and you understand for yourselves that life on such a planet is impossible. Here's one more look at how this planet appears in realistic lighting. And now for the craziest part, the next experiment, I'll combine almost everything in the solar system except the Sun and the eight planets, asteroids, dwarf planets, moons, and even rings. And I'll start by adding moons to the planets in this simulation.

[00:04:13]Earth's moon, the Moon, Mars's moons Phobos and Deimos, all the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

[00:04:19]I'm not forgetting the moons of the dwarf planets, and I'm adding moons to Pluto, Haumea, Eris, and Quaoar. Next, I'll remove our star, the Sun, and the main planets of the solar system. The planets were removed, but their moons remained in their places. And now, once again, I'll select all these objects like this. I'll go to the motion tab, and here I'll set the distance for all objects to 5,000 km. Something didn't want to move closer there, so I'll have to manually bring everything closer again. This is how it all looks now. I put Ganymede in the middle, as it's the most massive and largest here. And you see that I added rings to Haumea, then you can see the rings of Quaoar here, and also the rings of the asteroid Chariklo. And now, I'll also add the rings of the planets. I'll be adding them to Ganymede, so to speak, since it's the largest here. Anyway, I'm adding Saturn's rings to it. As you can see, how far away they are positioned from all these objects. I'll also add Jupiter's rings here and Uranus's rings.

[00:05:09]Unfortunately, Neptune's rings are not in the simulator. Just look at how all of this looks. Here, I'll also turn off the temperature simulation and fragment formation during collisions for the same reason as in the first experiment. If I don't do this, the same situation will occur. You can see for yourselves what's happening. I've opened Ganymede's parameters here. It should win in this simulation. Watch how its characteristics will change. And in the meantime, I'm starting the simulation.

[00:05:45]And yes, Ganymede emerged victorious, and it already looks absolutely fascinating, but our rings haven't collided yet. I've sped up time to 8 hours per second, [music] but the rings are colliding so chaotically here. I don't particularly care for how it looks. Oh, well, let those that are going to collide, collide. Anyway, some were thrown off, and it turned out like this. I won't let them fly away. I'll select all these objects again and reset their speed to zero. And that's it. Now, Ganymede, like a vacuum cleaner, has started just pulling everyone into itself. There. Now, everything has definitely collided with Ganymede. Now, take a look at this planet. Isn't Ganymede a beauty? Don't you agree? In the end, its mass grew to just over 10 lunar masses, and its radius is 4,120 km. In diameter, that's 8,240 km. I'd say it's really a full-fledged planet. A day on this Ganymede is just over 8 hours, so it spun up quite a bit, but not critically enough to flatten it too much. Now, let's compare this new Ganymede with other objects in the solar system. We'll compare it with the original Ganymede, as well as Mars and Earth. I'm using the chart mode tool, and we see this situation. Our new Ganymede is larger than Mars and larger than its original self, but it's significantly smaller than our planet Earth. Now, I'll save this new planet and place it in the solar system, right in the asteroid belt. You'll understand why there later. I'll place it at a distance of 2.46 astronomical units from the star. I waited for the climate to stabilize on this new planet, and you can see for yourselves how its atmosphere looks right here. Now, I'll hide the atmosphere and clouds, and you can see the surface of this new Ganymede. We see a lot of liquid here.

[00:07:13]We'll see what it consists of later.

[00:07:15]There are vast land masses, and there are even frozen polar ice caps located on both the northern and southern hemispheres. And even at the edge of this ice, we can see liquid sulfur dioxide. It's more noticeable in the northern hemisphere, those red bodies of water. We don't see any life here on this planet. In realistic lighting, the planet looks a bit dull, and the thick atmosphere covers everything. So, to make it more interesting for you, I'll hide the atmosphere and brighten it up.

[00:07:38]In this orbit, its average temperature is 25°C, which is why I moved it all the way to the asteroid belt. Because if it were closer to the Sun, you understand, it would be very hot there, because the planet already has nearly 16 atmospheres of pressure, and there's a greenhouse effect of 137° and 11 layers of atmosphere. And here's what the atmosphere actually consists of. There's a little bit of argon. I see a lot of sulfur dioxide, almost three Earth atmospheres. It likely came from Io and Callisto. There's also a fair amount of carbon dioxide, over two Earth atmospheres. But mostly, there's a huge amount of water vapor, 1,427 Earth atmospheres.

[00:08:15]>> [music] >> Incredible. There's also a lot of nitrogen, 14 Earth atmospheres, over two Earth atmospheres of ammonia, and nearly half an Earth atmosphere of methane.

[00:08:23]Wow, what a mix of chemical elements in the atmosphere. And for the ocean, it says there's liquid sulfur dioxide, but we saw it, there's very little and even less liquid carbon dioxide. Well, then, where exactly does this incredibly huge amount of water come from? Is the Earth's mantle here just completely exposed? The mantle actually contains a massive amount of water. That's 111 Earth oceans. Incredible. Life's likelihood on this planet is about 1%.

[00:08:46]Furthermore, this planet's axial tilt is exactly the opposite direction of the other planets in the solar system. So, just like Venus, guys. So, let's bring everything to a conclusion. Combining all this, except the star planet, gives us a fairly substantial planet in size and mass. It successfully maintains its atmosphere, but life hasn't formed on this planet yet. Although, there is, as we've seen, liquid water. These are our final results. If you enjoyed this, leaving a like and a comment helps us out a lot. Thank you very much.