I’ve always wondered how big the planets in No Man’s Sky are. I already knew they were going to be small, but it turned out that they are tiny.

I placed two save beacons at a distance of 418u from each other, collected the coordinates using the analysis display, obtaining the coordinates A = -32.81 / +54.24 and B = -32.50 / +53.99.

Using the haversine formula and assuming that u = meter, I found that the distance between the two points on the test planet should be 41.67 km (25.89 mi) instead of 418 m (0.26 mi) if the planet had the diameter of the Earth.

The question soon arose of what the size of the planet should be for the result to be 418 m and it turns out that the planet should have a radius of 64 km (39.77 mi) or 2⁶ km (it may have been a coincidence, but I think it is likely that the radius of the planets is 2⁶ km due to how the calculations have to be done within the game). The surface area is 804 km² (310.43 mi²).

For comparative purposes, the test planet would be the size of Weywot, which is a natural satellite of a trans-Neptunian dwarf planet in the solar system. Almost the distance from Boston (Massachusetts) to Providence (Rhode Island), i.e. absolutely minuscule.

Calculation details in the comments.

(there may be grammar mistakes)

Edit: If the average surface area of ​​the planets in the game is 804 km² as originally calculated, then the total explorable surface area in the game is equivalent to 29 trillion Earth planets (29,075,048,491,006.6), which would be 72 times the amount of stars present in the Milky Way.

During Singularity expedition, we are tasked with forging the Seed of Will, which is “unsuppressable will to exist” taken physical form. When we interact/Resonate with it, it sounds like typical Atlas Interface… except it suddenly starts to sound like an alarm, very melodic one at that.

Now for those who don’t know, No Man’s Sky universe is essentially a simulation run by Atlas. Atlas is the name of the supercomputer who was designed to run these simulations by some unknown race of beings. However, these beings have fled the world which was slowly being eaten by the black hole and left Atlas behind, probably too monumental in its size to be transported easily. This has caused Atlas to develop abandonment issues, depression and existential dread. According to his calculations, he has 16 of something of operational time left (this is why you see number 16 being repeated everywhere throughout the game). Also fun fact – canonically your character is the last iteration of Traveller beings, which were made out of brainscans of Atlas’ creators. It creates Travellers in an attempt to find out why was he abandoned.

Now this is my theory, that the sound we hear while resonating with the Seed of Will is actually what Atlas hears in its room or other chamber where its physical body resides in. The melodic tunes we hear might be an emergency alarm sound as the physical world is slowly being torn apart by the black hole with Atlas being able to do nothing as he dies. The fact that the Seed of Will is described as “unsuppressable will to exist” could mean that Atlas wants to survive in whatever way it can. This also ties into another theory that the Construct we are assembling is actually body of the Atlas itself, which wants to traverse the simulation rather than just simulating it. I believe that this might be actually the way for Atlas to depart on its own terms – to wander around the world he has created rather than feel his body being torn to shreds in complete solitude.