Snapchat Planets: Order and Meaning Explained (2025)

By Olivia Harper, Social Media Expert | LinkedIn Profile | Share

Table of Contents

Author Profile Summary

Profile Detail	Information
Name	Olivia Harper
Expertise	Social Media Growth & Strategy
Experience	7+ years in social media marketing
Specialization	Gen Z platforms & engagement trends
Education	M.S. in Digital Marketing, Stanford University
Publications	Social Media Today, TechCrunch, Wired
Contact	LinkedIn Profile

Quick Answer

Snapchat Planets is a special feature available to Snapchat Plus users that shows your best friends as planets orbiting around your profile, which is represented as the Sun. The closer a planet is to your profile, the stronger your friendship connection with that person.

This visual representation helps you see which friends you interact with most frequently on the platform. The feature requires a Snapchat Plus subscription and offers a unique way to view your digital friendships, though it’s important to maintain healthy relationships beyond just app rankings.

What is the Meaning of Snapchat Planets?

• Virtual friendship galaxy: Creates a personalized solar system with your profile as the sun

• Proximity indicator: Closer planets represent stronger friendship connections

• Visual hierarchy: Shows at a glance who your closest Snapchat friends are

• Premium visualization: Available exclusively for Snapchat Plus subscribers

Snapchat Planets is a special feature that only Snapchat Plus users can use. It makes a solar system where your profile is the sun, and your closest friends are shown as planets moving around you.Each planet’s position indicates the strength of your connection with that particular friend.

In this digital universe, your interactions determine how close planets appear to your sun. Regular chats, snaps, and overall engagement push friends closer to your center, while less frequent communication places them in more distant orbits. Some especially close connections might even show moons alongside planets, indicating particularly strong bonds.

The feature uses a visually engaging way to represent your friendship hierarchy on the platform. Rather than a simple list of names, Snapchat Planets lets you see at a glance who your closest connections are, adding depth to your social experience within the app.

What is the Purpose of Snapchat Plus Planets?

• Enhanced engagement: Encourages more interaction with friends to maintain rankings

• Social insights: Provides visual feedback about your most active connections

• Mutual visibility: Shows your position in friends’ systems and vice versa

• Premium differentiation: Adds exclusive value for Plus subscribers

Snapchat Plus Planets serves as an advanced visualization of the traditional “Best Friends” list. The primary purpose is to transform friend rankings into an interactive solar system that represents your social connections in a more engaging way.

This feature helps users understand their social dynamics within the app by showing which friends they interact with most frequently. Your profile appears as the sun at the center, while friends orbit around you at various distances based on your level of communication. For example, if someone appears as Mercury (the closest planet), they’re your top friend, while someone appearing as Mars would be your fourth closest connection.

Snapchat Plus Planets also allows you to check your position in other friends’ solar systems, giving insight into how strong your connections are from both perspectives. This mutual feedback loop creates a more comprehensive picture of your social network within Snapchat.

Benefits of Using Snapchat Planets

• Visual friendship tracking: Transforms abstract friend rankings into an intuitive solar system visualization

• Interaction insights: Clearly shows which friends you communicate with most frequently

• Relationship monitoring: Helps you notice when friendships are strengthening or fading based on planet positions

• Personalized experience: Adds a unique, customized element to your Snapchat profile

• Nostalgic connections: Provides visual reminders of old friendships that may have become less active

• Engagement motivation: Encourages more consistent communication with friends to maintain or improve rankings

• Exclusive feeling: Offers a premium feature that sets Plus subscribers apart from regular users

Using Snapchat Planets offers several advantages that enhance your social media experience:

This feature keeps your Snapchat experience fresh and engaging while providing useful insights about your social connections on the platform. The visual nature of planets makes it easy to understand your friendship dynamics at a glance, without needing to analyze complex data or statistics.

For many users, seeing their friendship rankings displayed as planets adds a gamification element that makes regular communication more rewarding. As you interact more with someone, watching their planet move closer to your sun provides visible confirmation of your strengthening connection.

Snapchat Planets: Order and Meanings

• Astronomical hierarchy: Uses our solar system’s planet order to rank friendships

• Visual indicators: Each planet has unique colors, hearts, and design elements

• Dynamic positioning: Planets move closer or farther based on interaction frequency

• Complete system: Eight planets represent your top eight closest friends

1. Mercury

Mercury represents your absolute best friend on Snapchat. In real space, Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, and in your Snapchat solar system, it shows the friend you talk to the most.

This planet shows your friend’s Bitmoji with red hearts and little stars around it, making the strong bond stand out. Mercury is reserved for someone you likely snap and chat with daily, showing consistent and meaningful engagement.

When a friend appears as Mercury in your solar system, it indicates your strongest digital connection—someone who regularly shares moments, responds to your content, and maintains active conversations with you through the app.

2. Venus

Venus represents your second closest friend on Snapchat.The light brown planet with pale orange swirls is surrounded by two yellow hearts, two pink hearts, and one blue heart, showing a deep emotional connection.

The Venus Friendmoji shows your friend with one hand on their heart and the other touching the planet, highlighting how important this friendship is. This positioning indicates someone you interact with very frequently, though slightly less than your Mercury friend.

As the second planet in your Snapchat solar system, Venus represents an important relationship that contributes significantly to your overall Snapchat experience and engagement patterns.

3. Earth

Earth represents your third-best friend on Snapchat. This familiar blue and green planet appears with a moon, stars, and red hearts, indicating a strong but less frequent friendship compared to Mercury and Venus.

The Earth Friendmoji shows your friend smiling on the planet, meaning this friend is very important and special to you in your Snapchat world. This friend likely interacts with you several times a week, maintaining consistent but not daily communication.

Being positioned as Earth in someone’s solar system means you hold an important place in their Snapchat interactions, though you might not be their most frequent contact.

4. Mars

Mars is the fourth closest friend in your Snapchat solar system. This bright red planet has blue and purple hearts with small yellow stars around your friend’s Bitmoji, showing a strong but less frequent connection.

Friends who appear as Mars typically interact with you a few times a week but less consistently than those represented by inner planets. The visual distance from your sun (profile) indicates a greater gap in communication frequency.

While Mars friends are still important connections, they represent relationships that may be more casual or periodic rather than daily interactions that characterize your innermost circle.

5. Jupiter

Jupiter represents your fifth closest friend on Snapchat. This orange planet with dark stripes appears with colorful stars surrounding it, mirroring its position as the fifth planet in our actual solar system.

The Jupiter Friendmoji usually appears orange without a smile, and your profile (the sun) looks farther away from this planet. This distance symbolizes a growing gap in interaction frequency compared to your inner circle friends.

Friends positioned as Jupiter likely communicate with you on a weekly basis rather than daily, indicating a relationship that’s still active but not among your most engaged connections.

6. Saturn

Saturn stands for your sixth closest friend. This orange-yellow planet with a big golden ring and colorful stars shows a friendship where you don’t talk as often anymore.

When a friend appears as Saturn, it suggests you still maintain contact but perhaps most interactions have shifted offline or to other platforms. The relationship remains stable and long-lasting, even if Snapchat isn’t your primary means of communication anymore.

Saturn’s position in the outer region of your solar system reflects a friendship that has history and value but doesn’t currently drive your daily Snapchat engagement.

7. Uranus

Uranus represents your seventh closest friend on Snapchat. The green planet appears with yellow stars but no hearts, showing that the relationship has become more distant. Your Bitmoji appears alone on this cold, far-away planet.

Friends positioned as Uranus typically interact with you only occasionally—perhaps once a month or during special events. These connections often manifest through group chats or rare one-on-one conversations rather than regular engagement.

The significant visual distance from your sun (profile) reflects the infrequent nature of these interactions while still acknowledging a recognized connection within your broader social circle.

8. Neptune

Neptune is your eighth and most distant friend in the Snapchat solar system.This deep blue planet shows your Bitmoji looking sad, symbolizing a connection that has faded significantly over time.

Since it’s the furthest planet, Neptune shows old friendships where you hardly talk anymore on Snapchat. These might be people you once communicated with regularly but now only connect with very occasionally or purely through passive content viewing.

Neptune serves as a nostalgic reminder of connections that have changed over time, reflecting the natural evolution of digital friendships as interaction patterns shift.

Why Was the Order of Snapchat Planets Created?

• Engagement strategy: Designed to increase user interaction and platform usage

• Visual metaphor: Uses familiar solar system concept for intuitive understanding

• Relationship gamification: Makes friendship maintenance feel more rewarding

• Premium value-add: Provides exclusive feature to justify subscription cost

The order of Snapchat Planets is specially designed to make users more active and help build stronger friendships on the app. By using the familiar solar system metaphor, Snapchat offers an intuitive way to visualize friendship rankings based on interaction levels.

This feature encourages users to maintain and strengthen their closest friendships by making relationship dynamics visible. When users can see which friends are positioned as distant planets, they might be motivated to increase interactions to bring those connections closer to their center. This gamification element subtly encourages more frequent use of the app’s core communication features.

Additionally, the planetary system adds a playful, unique element to Snapchat Plus, differentiating it from other social platforms and providing a premium feature that justifies the subscription cost. The visual nature of the solar system makes friendship rankings feel less rigid and more dynamic, enhancing the overall user experience.

How Do Snapchat Planets Work?

• Interaction algorithm: Analyzes communication patterns across various features

• Dynamic positioning: Updates planet positions as friendship activity changes

• Mutual visibility: Shows your ranking in friends’ systems and vice versa

• Exclusive access: Available only to Snapchat Plus subscribers

Snapchat Planets operates through a sophisticated algorithm that tracks and analyzes your interactions with friends on the platform. The system considers factors like chat frequency, snap exchanges, story views, and overall engagement patterns to determine the strength of each connection.

Factor	Impact on Planet Positioning	Examples
Direct messages	High influence	Daily conversations keep planets close
Snap exchanges	High influence	Regular photo/video sharing strengthens bonds
Story interactions	Medium influence	Viewing and reacting to stories matters
Comment activity	Medium influence	Engaging with content improves positioning
Voice/video calls	High influence	Real-time communication creates closeness
Group interactions	Low to medium	Shared chats contribute to ranking
Overall time spent	Low to medium	Time spent viewing profile/content counts
Streak maintenance	Medium to high	Consistent streaks improve positioning

Friends you engage with most frequently appear as inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth) orbiting close to your profile sun, while less frequent connections are positioned as outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). These positions aren’t static—they adjust automatically as your interaction patterns evolve over time.

Only Snapchat Plus subscribers can access and view these planetary positions and their associated badges. The system includes special indicators like the best friend badge (a golden ring) that signifies mutual presence in each other’s top eight planets. Alternatively, seeing only a friend badge indicates you’re in their solar system, but they don’t appear in yours.

How to Check Your Position in Your Friend’s Profile Using the Snapchat Friend Solar System Feature?

• Subscription required: Must be a Snapchat Plus member to access

• Profile navigation: Check friend profiles to see your planetary status

• Badge recognition: Look for specific indicators of relationship status

• Mutual verification: Confirm if friendships are reciprocal in the system

To discover where you rank in your friend’s Snapchat solar system, follow these simple steps:

Subscribe to Snapchat+ if you haven’t already (this feature is exclusive to paying members)
Open the Snapchat app on your mobile device
Navigate to your friends list
Tap on your friend’s profile
Look for badges next to their name:
- If you see a Best Friend badge with a golden ring, it means you both are in each other’s top eight planets.
- If you see a Friend badge with a gold ring, it means you are in their top eight, but they are not in yours.
Click on the badge to reveal a window showing your exact planetary position
Check your planet (Mercury through Neptune) to understand your ranking in their system

This feature provides valuable insight into the reciprocity of your Snapchat friendships, showing whether your perception of closeness aligns with how your friends interact with you.

How to Improve Your Best Friend’s Ranking on Snapchat Using Snapchat Planets?

• Consistent communication: Regular interaction is the key to higher rankings

• Quality engagement: Meaningful exchanges matter more than superficial ones

• Multiple interaction types: Use varied features for more comprehensive connection

• Streak maintenance: Keep daily streaks alive for improved positioning

Improving your position in someone’s Snapchat Planets system requires consistent engagement and quality interactions. Here are effective strategies to boost your ranking:

• Send daily snaps to maintain regular communication

• Initiate conversations frequently rather than just responding

• Maintain Snapstreaks with close friends to build interaction history

• Respond quickly to messages to keep conversations flowing

• Use voice and video calls for deeper connection (these count heavily)

• Comment on and react to their stories consistently

• Share personalized content directed specifically to them

• Tag friends in relevant stories and memories

• Create group chats with mutual friends to increase interaction points

• Send Bitmoji stickers and reactions throughout conversations

Remember that genuine engagement is more effective than shallow interaction. Quality conversations and meaningful exchanges will improve your planetary position more effectively than brief, repetitive messages that lack substance.

Focus on developing authentic connections rather than just trying to game the system—the best planetary positions come from natural, consistent friendship activity.

Conclusion

• Digital relationship visualization: Planets create an intuitive way to understand friendship dynamics

• Balanced perspective: Remember real connections exist beyond app rankings

• Premium value: Feature enhances the Snapchat Plus subscription offering

• Social insight tool: Use planets as one factor in understanding your digital social life

Snapchat Planets offers a creative and engaging way to visualize your friendships within the platform’s ecosystem. By transforming your closest connections into a personal solar system, with your profile as the sun, Snapchat provides a unique perspective on your digital social life. This feature helps you understand which relationships are most active and which might need more attention.

While the planetary system provides interesting insights, it’s important to remember that digital rankings shouldn’t define your real-world relationships. Your position in someone’s solar system reflects app usage patterns rather than true emotional connection. Many valuable friendships exist primarily offline or across multiple platforms, not just within Snapchat’s ecosystem.

For Snapchat Plus subscribers, this feature adds value by making social dynamics more transparent and visually appealing. Used thoughtfully, Snapchat Planets can help you maintain connections with friends you value most while offering a playful new dimension to your social media experience.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the order of planets in Snapchat Plus?

The order follows our solar system: Mercury (closest friend), Venus (second), Earth (third), Mars (fourth), Jupiter (fifth), Saturn (sixth), Uranus (seventh), and Neptune (eighth).

Are there privacy issues with Snapchat’s Planets feature?

No serious privacy concerns exist as the feature only shows friendship rankings, not message content, and is only visible to Snapchat Plus subscribers.