Teenager Builds the Known Universe in Minecraft

ign.com:

Eighteen-year-old YouTuber Christopher Slayton recently crafted entire planets, black holes, galaxies, and, well, the entire cosmos. And he used nothing but the blocks within Minecraft.

In the more than a decade since its release, Minecraft has evolved into a creative powerhouse, with its millions strong community working together to build a pantheon of block-based wonders, ranging from the Starship Enterprise to the gothic cityscape of Yharnam from Bloodborne.

Recently, Christopher Slayton — who goes by the handle ChrisDaCow on YouTube — decided to take the sandbox's creative potential to its grandest scale yet, by attempting to recreate the entire cosmos... or at least the elements we know best.

Slayton started off by painstakingly recreating planet Earth. This would end up being a relatively humble beginning compared to what was to follow, however it still took the block artist a grand total of three days to measure out the continents and get the surface colors, clouds, and lighting just right. Illuminating the globe proved to be particularly challenging, but by making the most of a tool that lets you ‘paint with light’, Slayton was able to give his creation immersive lighting gradients and effects.

An image of Slayton's Minecraft universe. (Image credit: Christopher Slayton)

With Earth complete, Slayton went on to create the other planets in the solar system. Some of these worlds orbit with a noticeable tilt, which was recreated in the newly born digital universe by painting the planets at an angle. This added layer of complexity was compounded by the fact that three of the planets — Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — host their own distinctive ring systems.

Finally, Slayton was able to block-build the Sun — complete with an