Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms these days. You can share your moments and streaks with your friends here. Snapchat has also launched a new feature called “Planets” recently. It is a gesture to mark the best eight friends on your profile with whom you interact the most. If you already use Snapchat, you will find this option in the “best friend badge.”
The eight friends with whom you interact the most represent the eight planets of the solar system and their positioning in your profile. It was just created for fun and should not be taken seriously.Â
There are also various emojis associated with each planet, each having a different meaning. Lucky subscribers were easily able to access this feature before it was disabled. The sudden recall of the Snapchat Planet order has compelled users to wonder: why has Snapchat disabled the Planets feature without any justification or clarity?Â
So to thin the air, this blog is categorically themed to inform you about the Snapchat Planet feature, its order, and reasons for disabling it. Since time again, such companies keep on rolling out some or other feature, it becomes difficult to keep track of a particular update, yet it is equally important to be in sync with the rest of the world. So to begin, let us first have a brief introduction to Snapchat and its Planets update.
Snapchat Planets feature and release date:
Started in 2011, Snapchat is a popular social media platform where you can share multimedia, messages, or streaks with your friends for a short duration. To keep subscribers engaged, Snapchat launches some events or festivals all year. One such feature was launched by the platform in 2022, named “Friend Solar System.” It was intended to give new meaning to the closest friends in your Snapchat profile.
It will enlist 8 of your closest friends and associate a planet with them, which will have a unique meaning. Like the proximity of Mercury to the Sun, it will associate the Mercury icon with the friend whom you talk to the most. Likewise, all the other 8 icons have different meanings that you can explore to find the closest friends in your Snapchat profile. Before we unlock the meaning of each planet, let us first learn to explore the Snapchat Planet Order feature on the application.Â
How do I explore the Snapchat Planet feature?Enable/Disable it
This is a no-brainer task, If you are exploring this feature, I presume that you already have an account on the application and know how to navigate the options on it. Now you have to buy a Snapchat+ subscription to get full access to exclusive features launched by Snapchat.Â
By default, you will see some friends’ profiles, with some Best Friends’ badges and a gold ring around them. This is a clear indication that those friends are the closest ones in your profile with whom you chat, snap, or interact the most.Â
To know exactly what badge and planet are associated with a particular friend, you can simply tap the “badge” icon. After this, the planet associated with that friend will be revealed to you. The positioning of the associated planet with your friend signifies their position in your Best Friends list.Â
The feature was named “Friend Solar System” and was not available to first-time users by default. To enable it, users had to toggle it on from the Snapchat+ feature management page. However, after the withdrawal, it was removed from each profile worldwide. Many reasons are being stated and speculated for the withdrawal, the most prominent being that it negatively affected friendships among the users.Â
Snapchat Friend Solar system: Planets & its orders
It is a well-known fact that the planet order in the Snapchat solar system is by the actual solar system, and the planets are the same as those you studied in school. There are 8 categories of planets named “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune” have been assigned to your top 8 friends with whom you interact the most.
You can consider yourself to be the center of the Solar system, or the Sun. Now if any of your friends are tagged with a “Mercury” badge, he is the closest one to you, followed by Venus, Earth, Mars, and so on. Here is some elaborate information about all 8 badges.
| Planet | Order | Meaning | Emoji |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury | 1st | Closest Friend: Mercury is the little red planet in your Snapchat+ subscription, consisting of five hearts and two stars around it. This badge indicates that you are your best buddy among the top 8 with whom you interact the most. Since Mercury is the first planet in our solar system, it has been assigned this role. |  |
| Venus | 2nd | Second Closest Friend: In Snapchat+, this is represented by a green and yellow planet with winds all around, just like Venus. Outside the planet, there are some heart emojis and a few stars, along with your avatar in the sun and your friend’s avatar on the planet. Likewise, in the solar system, this indicates that you are your second best friend on the platform. |  |
| Earth | 3rd | Third Closest Friend: Your third best friend on the Snapchat profile will be denoted by the Earth badge. Recognizing this badge will be easy for you since you are quite familiar with our planet’s appearance. The blue and green planet, consisting of one moon with a few stars and hearts all around, is our very own Earth. Here also, your avatar will be in the sun while your friend’s avatar will be on Earth. |  |
| Mars | 4th | Fourth Closest Friend: To indicate the fourth best friend, a Mars badge has been allocated. Here, a deep red planet is associated with the badge, resembling the topography of the actual planet, along with purple heart-shaped emojis all around. The avatar placements are also similar to the ones mentioned above. |  |
| Jupiter | 5th | Fifth Closest Friend: Since it is the largest planet among the 8, it can be easily recognized. It is also red, having shades of yellow and deep red. The emoji is surrounded by stars all around. Like the solar system, the Jupiter badge is given to the fifth-best friend in your Snapchat circle. |  |
| Saturn | 6th | Sixth Closest Friend: The sixth closest friend is mentioned here with a Saturn badge on your Instagram+ account. Surprisingly, there aren’t any hearts in the badge, but the planet is unique in itself as a bright color ring and stars surround it. So the most unique friend can also be called Saturn in your Snapchat Solar System. |  |
| Uranus | 7th | Seventh Closest Friend: The rotation of Uranus is different from that of other heavenly bodies. Here, the Uranus badge is associated with the friend who is seventh according to your interaction in the group. The planet is covered in green with diamond-shaped stars. |  |
| Neptune | 8th | Eighth Closest Friend: The blue planet of our solar system, is also the eighth and last one. Similarly, the friend with whom this badge is associated is the eighth but not the last one in your Snapchat friend circle. |  |
So all in all, all the planets have been explained, along with their significance. There is no hard-and-fast rule about the position, as your interaction may change from time to time. Also, friends who are not on the list do not mean that they are not your close ones. Since it is a technology, this feature was developed for casual interaction, but after some repercussions, it was withdrawn and this feature was disabled from the Snapchat+ subscription. On the contrary, users who like this feature tend to miss it.Â
Here are some FAQs regarding Snapchat Solar System planet order:
a). What is the Snapchat Solar System feature?
This feature is no longer in existence but was an integral part of the Snapchat+ subscription. In it, a user could see various badges associated with the top 8 friends in a hierarchical order of the planets in our solar system. The feature was rolled out in 2022 but was disabled by default in 2024.Â
b). How can I enable the solar system feature for Snapchat?
Sadly, this friend has been withdrawn by the team after a few speculations, as it tends to hamper the friend circle. Earlier, only users who had a Snapchat+ subscription were able to access this feature.Â
c). What is a Snapchat+ subscription?
When you subscribe to the Snapchat+ subscription, you get some exclusive pre-release features, announcements, and other features for your profile beforehand. This subscription gives you access to some value-added features of this application. The pricing of the same is nominal but may vary from country to country.Â
d). Why did Snapchat disable Planets’ feature from their platform?
Since it created some kind of seclusion of other friends in the list, this feature was disregarded by the makers. Moreover, there was also a hierarchy of the top 8 friends with whom you interacted the most. So after receiving some feedback, the feature was disabled.
The good news is that the feature has been removed by default, but you can personalize your settings and enable it after subscribing to a Snapchat Plus subscription.Â
