Lately I've been catching up on The Weekly Space Hangout podcast. A few weeks ago, they featured an interview with Dan Dixon, a developer of Universe Sandbox. This is an incredibly cool, scientifically accurate, interactive space and gravity game/simulator.
"Create and destroy on an unimaginable scale... with a space simulator that merges real-time gravity, climate, collision, and material interactions to reveal the beauty of our universe and the fragility of our planet."
Want to add a moon or two to a solar system and see how those moons will be ripped apart by a planet? How about seeing what happens when you fling planets into or out of a solar system? What about modeling Earth's climate, watching sea ice grow and recede based on the planets tilt? Oh! And go ahead and terraform Mars while you are tinkering with climates. The scenarios of creation and destruction you can do are endless!
Perhaps most importantly, it uses real science, real physics. And it runs on your home computer. The latest version even has VR mode. It only costs $24.99 (USD), which, for a video game of this complexity is pretty good.
Check it out:
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| A moon colliding with Earth. |
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| Orbiting bodies and their trails colored by their velocity. |
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| A supernova within our solar system. |
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| Neptune pulling apart Saturn's rings. |
All images from Universe Sandbox.
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