Entire planets, black holes, and galaxies recreated in Minecraft

Serra Utkum Ikiz
Serra Utkum Ikiz is a city planner, writer, and researcher who previously served as Managing Editor at Parametric Architecture. Her work explores cities through urbanism, politics,...

Christopher Slayton created the “entire known universe” in Minecraft. He replicated the planets, stars, galaxies, and the milky way. He used a globe to “measure the exact location of every continent to perfectly replicate the planet.”

He used mathematical concepts to make sure the universe was made correct scale. So, to fit all of the planets in the universe into the simulation. Every planet is 700.000 times smaller in exact size.

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Even larger structures, such as the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation, elephant trunks of interstellar gas, and dust, took Christopher two days just to get the colors right before painting the stars and their shine in the background.

Building a black hole was one of the most difficult parts of the build, but instead of having Minecraft blocks swallowed up by the object, as would happen in real life, Christopher made three curved structures that blended into each other to create the illusion of a black hole.

The game can also be used to teach geography, history, and even finance.

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Serra Utkum Ikiz is a city planner, writer, and researcher who previously served as Managing Editor at Parametric Architecture. Her work explores cities through urbanism, politics, everyday sociology, and emerging design trends, combining critical research with architectural and urban storytelling.
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