Sol

Sol is the Latin name for the Sun. In the game, it is Earth's planetary system that contains the Sun itself (the planetary system's star), the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and the natural satellites The Moon, Ganymede and Titan. Notably Pluto is missing from the game, but that is due to the fact that its status was downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet. The Asteroid belt found in the Sol system was added in a patch, but did not initially exist in the game.

The Sol system is an in-game representation of the real Solar system in the Milky Way. It was first discovered to be in the game when, during a demonstration at NASA, Will Wright used a console command to warp his spaceship to Earth. The full demonstration can be viewed on YouTube. All planets have a high chance of getting yellow spice, but they can have other colors of spice as well. For example, Mercury or Ganymede may have Purple spice.

There are two Achievements associated with Earth: Manifest Destiny for simply finding it, and Oh the Humanity! for destroying it with a Planet Buster. Fortunately, players can destroy Earth and quit without saving, and still get the Achievement while keeping the Earth (and the Moon).

Finding the Sol System
Sol can be found at "Angle 225.06, Distance: 7,295.43." Note: This information can be found when you hover your mouse over the spaceship icon near the bar. Note the angle/distance display on the UFO at the bottom of the screen correlates to the core of the galaxy, not the Sol System, the information provided is its "co-ordinates". A vague location is two arms left of the one that breaks early, and on the end of the first break of that. It is seen to be in a patch of space that is blue-colored and shaped like a thumbprint when seen zoomed out at around 50-75%.

Another tip for finding the Sol system is to find the two Black Holes near the part of the arm after the break. When floating over the black hole farthest from the galactic core, the Sol system will be along the max range line of the SETI device. The black holes are constant all games, though the names are not.



Trivia

 * Jupiter and Ganymede, strangely, have green orbits. Perhaps this is a reference to 2010: Odyssey Two where Jupiter becomes a brown dwarf, and Mars is colonized by humans and the moon of Ganymede is terraformed. Another theory about Jupiter's green orbit is possibly also a reference to Europa, a moon of Jupiter that possibly has life, or a reference to Carl Sagan's hypothesis that ammonia-based airship-like lifeforms could evolve in Jupiter's upper atmosphere.


 * Unlike their real counterparts, Mercury and Mars are totally plain, having only few craters.


 * Olympus Mons and the three Tharsis Montes can be found on Mars along with the Valles Marineris.


 * The Moon is a rare Crater Planet.


 * Uranus and Neptune don't have a moon like Jupiter and Saturn.


 * "Sol" means "Sun" in Latin, as well as in a few other languages.


 * All the gas giants are the same save for their color and Saturn's rings.


 * None of the gas giants in this system can have White Spice, due to programming that forces Sol to be uncolonized.


 * There is no Kuiper Belt.


 * Mercury's spice color differs from game to game. Sometimes it will have Yellow Spice, but it can also have Purple Spice.


 * The spice color for Earth also varies. Typically it has Yellow Spice but can occasionally have Purple Spice. Earth can also have green spice.


 * It is possible to start in the sol system as your home planet, but the game just glitches and makes it impossible to do anything.