When I first booted up No Man’s Sky after one of its big content updates a few years back, I fixed my busted starter ship, gathered enough warp fuel for my first jump, and immediately wondered one thing: how many solar systems in no man's sky are there actually? I’d heard the vague “infinite universe” marketing lines for years, but I wanted a concrete number, not just hype. I dug through developer interviews, tested the game’s warp mechanics, and talked to other long-time explorers in the community to get the full picture of just how massive this procedurally generated world really is.
The Exact Number of Solar Systems in No Man’s Sky
Hello Games, the studio behind No Man’s Sky, has confirmed the total number of procedurally generated solar systems in the game is 18,446,744,073,709,551,616. That’s 18 quintillion, if you don’t feel like counting all those digits. It’s a number so large it’s almost impossible to wrap your head around at first. For context, if you visited one new solar system every single second without stopping, it would take you more than 585 billion years to see every single one. That’s more than 40 times the age of the actual universe we live in.
You will never run out of new star systems to explore in No Man’s Sky, no matter how many hours you put into the game. Even if every single person who has ever bought the game spent all their free time exploring new systems, we’d still only have scratched a tiny fraction of the total available. The number hasn’t changed since the game’s original launch either, even with all the massive free updates that added new biomes, creatures, and gameplay features. The core procedural seed that generates every system is fixed, so a system you found 5 years ago will still exist exactly as you left it if you go back today.
It’s easy to write that number off as a meaningless marketing gimmick, but it’s fully functional in the game. You can warp to any random coordinate you type into your navigation console, and the game will generate a full, unique solar system for you to explore, even if no one else has ever been there before.
How No Man’s Sky Generates Unique Solar Systems
You might be wondering how a game that only takes up around 15 GB of storage space can hold 18 quintillion solar systems. The answer is procedural generation, a system that uses a fixed mathematical algorithm and a single master seed to create every part of the universe on demand, instead of storing every planet and system on a server. When you warp to a new set of coordinates, your game runs those numbers through the algorithm to generate the star type, planets, creatures, resources, and even the alien NPCs that live there in seconds.
Every solar system you discover is completely unique unless another player has already found and named it. The only time you’ll see a system that someone else has already visited is if you warp to coordinates they shared, or if you’re exploring the popular core regions of the starting Euclid galaxy, where most new players spend their first few dozen hours. I once spent an entire weekend warping outward from the Euclid core, jumping 20 times into random uncharted systems, and I didn’t find a single one that had been tagged by another player.
So don’t worry about running out of new places to go. Even if you only play for an hour a week, you can spend the rest of your life exploring the outer edges of any of the game’s 255 galaxies and never see the same system twice. The generation rules are consistent too, so if you find a system with a perfect lush planet that you want to bring a friend to, you can just send them the coordinates and they’ll land in the exact same system you did.
What You Can Find in a Typical No Man’s Sky Solar System
Not every solar system is the same, of course. The generation algorithm creates wildly different systems based on their position in the galaxy, star type, and conflict level, but most systems share a few core features you can expect to find every time you make a warp jump. Here’s what you’ll usually run into:
- 1 to 6 planets or moons, ranging from frozen ice worlds with constant blizzards to scorched lava planets, toxic acid rain biomes, or rare lush, habitable worlds perfect for building a permanent base
- A dominant alien race (Gek, Korvax, Vy'keen, or no dominant race for uncharted systems) that dictates the type of space station, mission rewards, and NPC dialogue you’ll get when you arrive
- Unique resource pools that make certain systems ideal for farming high-value materials like Activated Indium or Storm Crystals that you can sell for millions of units at nearby space stations
- Hidden optional content like abandoned freighters full of rare upgrades, pirate-controlled systems with high risk and high reward trading runs, or ancient alien ruins that unlock secret lore and exclusive nanite rewards
If you’re looking for specific types of systems, you can filter your galaxy map by star type, economy level, and conflict level before you make a warp jump. O-type blue stars, for example, almost always have planets with activated resources that sell for top dollar, while G-type yellow stars are the most likely to have habitable lush planets. Stick to systems with a 3-star economy rating and low conflict if you want to avoid pirate ambushes when you’re hauling valuable cargo.
I usually keep a list of my favorite systems saved in my discovery log: one for activated indium farming, one with three lush planets that I built bases on, and one pirate system I go to when I want to make quick units by raiding trade fleets. Having a handful of go-to systems cuts down on travel time when you need specific materials for upgrades or building projects.
How to Track Your Explored Solar Systems Progress
You don’t have to explore blindly, either. No Man’s Sky has a built-in discovery log that tracks every solar system, planet, creature, and plant you’ve ever scanned, so you can easily keep track of how much of the universe you’ve seen. You can rename any system or planet you find, and upload your discoveries to the game’s server for a nice unit bonus, plus bragging rights if you’re the first person to ever find that system.
You can share coordinates of your favorite solar systems with other players so they can visit the exact same system you found, which is huge if you’re playing with friends or want to share a perfect base location with the wider community. A lot of players even run dedicated online threads where they post coordinates for rare systems, like ones with multiple lush planets or huge deposits of rare resources.
Many long-time players set personal exploration goals to keep things fun, instead of trying to see every single system (which we already established is impossible). Common goals include visiting 100 uncharted systems, finding a system with every possible biome type, or making the trip to the core of every one of the game’s 255 available galaxies. You can also earn special exploration badges and rewards for uploading a certain number of discoveries, so it’s worth taking 30 seconds to upload everything you find when you visit a new system.
If you want to 100% explore a single solar system, you’ll need to scan every planet and moon, scan all unique flora and fauna on each of those planets, and upload all of those discoveries to the server. Doing that gives you a big nanite reward, plus a special “discovered by” tag on that system for every other player who visits it later.
At the end of the day, knowing exactly how many solar systems in no man's sky there are doesn’t change how fun the game is to explore. The 18 quintillion number isn’t just a silly stat to put on a box art, it’s a promise that you’ll always have something new to find every time you boot up the game. Whether you’re a casual player who just warps to random systems once a week, or a hardcore explorer who’s working their way to the center of the 10th galaxy, there’s always a new weird, wonderful world waiting for you just one warp jump away. Next time you log in, try typing a random set of coordinates into your navigation console and warping there. You might just find a system that no other human has ever seen before, and you can name it whatever you want.
