Worlds

For a general overview, please see our STEM For All Video Showcase 3-minute project video! We have several worlds for WHIMC server participants to explore and learn.

Table of Contents

Rocket Launch from Earth

What better place to start than home here on earth? Visitors can tour a rocket launch base, modeled after NASA’s launch facilities from eras past, and see everything from mission control to mars rover tests to rocket assembly hangars. It’s a great place to get excited because from here you launch off to the moon!

Moon Base One

Land in a crater on the moon to experience reduced gravity and experience about how habitats and testing could work on the moon. Astronauts go through training to learn how to use our science tools to measure important factors for habitation, like pressure and oxygen levels, and finish off with a VR simulation where they make observations like a scientist and ask wondrous “what if” questions about the universe!

Space Station Hub

After astronauts have completed their basic science training they’re shuttled the deep space station, a hub to all extreme worlds and discoveries of our known solar system and beyond. They’re not done yet, however, as every good cadet knows how to collect data in the field and use their imagination!

Imagine an Earth…

Participants start by first observing a standard earth simulation. After this we have four astronomer-curated simulations imagining what earth would be like with altered conditions, including:

**No Moon** – If Earth had never had a moon, it would be a very different place. There would be no seasons, since the Earth’s rotation axis would still be perpendicular to the plane of our orbit around the Sun. The day would be 3-4 times shorter, which would cause the winds and weather to be very different. There are many other differences, find out more OR watch a History Channel video featuring Neil Comins!

**Titled** – It is likely that when the Earth formed, it was rotating (spinning) much faster than it is today and its rotation axis was perpendicular to the plane of its orbit around the Sun. The impact of a solar body known as Theia altered the angle of the earth’s rotation – but what if it were a more extreme axis, so it were tilted at 90°? Read more about how this world would work.

**Colder Sun** – Our Earth is orbiting Sol at an ideal distance for sustaining life. The Earth’s surface temperature enables water to retain a liquid state consistently. But what if our planet were outside of the sun’s habitable zone? We might have to live on a little strip of greenbelt that’s the only place water can exist in a liquid form. Learn more about what conditions would change.

**Earth as a Moon** – Our Earth and its companion moon, which has about 1/81 as much mass as the Earth, waltz together around the Sun. What would life be like on an “earth-like” world, let’s call in Mynoa, orbiting a larger planet, which we can call Tyran? Check out the explanations behind the most whacky “what-if earth” we’ve looked at yet.

**Earth with Two Moons** – This Earth has captured a second moon that is similar in size and mass to its original and its orbit is twice as close. This has tremendous effects on Earth and the people that will live there. The tides here are around six times greater, making coastal living much more difficult. The pull from a second moon that is so close creates a day that is four times as long as our own. More information can be found in in Neil Comin’s book, What if Earth Had Two Moons (And Nine Other Thought-Provoking Speculations).

Exoplanets

So far we have three simulations of exoplanets with some rather extreme conditions. We’re looking forward to adding more as users contribute their ideas.

Kepler – Kepler 186f orbits a red dwarf star 500 light-years away from Earth. Much is still unknown about this planet other than it is similar to Earth in size and mass and that it is close enough to the star that liquid water could be present. Our world shows what Kepler might look like if it has water and plant life. More from the NASA simulation site.

Trappist – TRAPPIST-1e is one of seven Earth-sized planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. About 40 light-years from Earth, TRAPPIST-1 is unusual both for its number of small rocky planets and the number in the habitable zone. Our simulated world has a narrow band of water near the terminator, the divide between a hot, dry day and an ice-covered night side. See this system and more at NASA’s website.

Gliese – It’s hard to identify exoplanets! This one may not even exist, but some have theorized it could be covered in deep ocean. Our simulation has ice that’s on fire! Find out more on the process of identifying and qualifying this exoplanet on Wikipedia.

Cancri – According to Nasa’s website, 55 Cancri e is a super Earth exoplanet that orbits a G-type star. Its mass is 8.08 Earths, it takes 0.7 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.01544 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2004. The surface is always covered in lava, even on the dark side! You can see a pretty neat 3D version on NASA’s website too.

Brown Dwarf – CWW 89Ab is an astronomical body that needs some confirmation. It is believed to be a brown dwarf, also called “failed stars”, but to be certain we have to test the carbon to oxygen ration in its atmosphere. If the ratio is similar to that of the star it orbits, we know it’s a brown dwarf. If it’s not, we can classify it as a gas giant planet like Jupiter. More information here.

Solar System

There are some pretty neat planets and moons nearby us already, however, and we’re working on adding local planets to explore too.

Galactic-Scale

We’ve been lucky enough to feature the work of Diego García (Sr_Mustard) and Christopher Slayton (ChrisDaCow) to offer learners the opportunity to visit several tremendously large simulations of stellar bodies.

Habitat Construction

We’re planning on adding themed exoplanets where players can test their science data collection and building skills against extreme planetary forces!

World Downloads

The WHIMC server has been constantly updated over 6 years on the basis of improved user experience and client version compatibility. We’ve kept a pretty extensive archive of previous versions in case we need to recreate previous learning conditions.

Make a copy of our server using the resources below! Alternatively play them on your computer locally using our Planet Minecraft releases. Some additional setup, like manually adding resource/datapacks, may be required.

Local server version (1.16, 1.17, 1.18.2, 1.19.x) (1.20.2)
All-worlds download (1.16, 1.17, 1.18.2, 1.19.x) (1.20.2-4)
WHIMC Exoplanet datapack (1.17) (1.18-1.20.2-4)
Plugins and settings (1.16, 1.17, 1.18.2, 1.19.x) (1.20.2)
WHIMC resource packs (for no moon, colder sun, etc)
Client MultiMC downloads here

Citizens, Cartographer 2, HeadDatabase and SurveysPlus must be purchased separately.

We recommend a PaperSpigot server with Aikar’s flags

The (old) 1.16 PaperSpigot server still requires (old) Java 16. All content here is offered under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License