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 Ceres, Pluto, Eris, and the other dwarf planets are missing from the game, but that is due to the fact that Pluto's status was downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet and the rest are dwarf planets. The Asteroid belt found in the Sol system was added in a patch, but did not initially exist in the game. However, some objects in our actual Solar System such as the Kuiper Belt are still missing from the game.

The Sol system is an in-game representation of the real Solar system in the Milky Way. The co-ordinates of it are Angle 225.06, Distance:﻿ 7,295.43. 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. However, red spice is impossible. 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) intact.

Finding the Sol System
Sol can be found at coordinates Angle 225.06, Distance: 7,295.43. (You can find where you are by hovering over the spaceship icon above the progress bar. This location is measured in polar coordinates from the center of the galaxy.) This is in the first break of the arm two arms left of the one that breaks early. It is 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 (If you go through these black holes they take you close to the galactic center). When floating over the black hole closest to the galactic core, the Sol system will be along the max range line of the SETI device (IF you have Interplanetary Drive 5, which increases your range line to its max). The black hole locations are constant across all games, though the names and pairings are not.



Trivia

 * Steve says he has an almost sold out, wonderful timeshare on the third rock from Sol and to come there for a free breakfast and a presentation. This probably refers to Earth. There is, however, neither.


 * Jupiter and Ganymede, strangely, have green orbits. Perhaps this is a reference to 2010: Odyssey Two where Jupiter becomes a brown dwarf, 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 plain, having only a few recognizable features.


 * 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. In fact, scientists call our solar system "Sol" when treating it as a regular object.


 * 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, which is an area of space beyond the orbit of Neptune, which is similar to the asteroid belt, with the exception of comets in the belt. By extension, there no Kuiper Belt objects such as the dwarf planet Pluto.


 * 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 or pink spice.


 * It is possible (though unlikely) to start in the Sol System as your home system, but the game's glitches makes it impossible to do anything.


 * Many players have reported near the Sol system that empires that have the name human in it or look like humans existing here. It is unknown if this is programming placed in by Maxis, or just by pure coincidence.  This points to the theory that humans left Earth to colonize the nearby star systems, since Earth is uninhabited when the player finds it.


 * You may find a small saucer trying to sell you Earth.