Why Your Snapchat Planet Changed: What Moves You Up or Down a Friend’s List

ByBNW TEAM

Your Bitmoji sat on Venus last week, and today it’s on Saturn. Snaporbit Lab tested Snapchat Planets with eight friends to find out what really moves you between planets.

You tap a friend’s Best Friends badge, expecting to see your Bitmoji on Venus again, and it’s now on Saturn. No message, no warning. For a lot of Snapchat users, that small move feels personal.

Snapchat Planets, which Snap officially calls the Friend Solar System, is one of the most talked-about Snapchat+ features. It shows where you rank on a friend’s Best Friends list, and the ranking changes more often than most people expect. Snaporbit Lab, an independent site that tests Snapchat features on real accounts, checked what actually makes a planet change and what doesn’t.

How Snapchat Planets Work

When you open a friend’s profile and tap their Best Friends badge, your friend becomes the Sun. Your Bitmoji sits on the planet that matches your spot on their list. The order never changes:

  • Mercury: you’re their #1
  • Venus: #2
  • Earth: #3
  • Mars: #4
  • Jupiter: #5
  • Saturn: #6
  • Uranus: #7
  • Neptune: #8

So if your Bitmoji lands on Earth, you’re your friend’s third closest friend on Snapchat. Only the person checking needs Snapchat+, and the feature is turned off by default, so subscribers switch it on once in their Snapchat+ settings.

Your Planet Comes From Their List

This is the part that confuses people most. Your planet comes from your friend’s ranking. It says nothing about how you rank them.

In an October 2026 test with eight friends, the Snaporbit Lab team found that friendship on Snapchat often isn’t equal. Their own #1 friend had them at #5 on his list. Another friend wasn’t in their Top 8 at all, yet his badge still showed them on a planet, because they were in his.

That’s why two people can see two very different planets. If you show up as Mars on her profile, it simply means she Snaps three other people more than she Snaps you.

What Makes Your Planet Change

Snapchat says Friend Emojis are “based on the way you and your friends use Snapchat, and can change regularly.” It doesn’t publish the exact formula for the Best Friends list, but the tests point to a few clear drivers.

  1. Your friend started Snapping someone else more. You don’t have to change anything for your planet to move. If a new person in their life gets more of their Snaps and Chats, that person climbs and you slide down one planet.
  2. You and your friend talked less. A quiet week can drop you a spot or two, especially if the people around you on their list stayed active.
  3. You’re close to someone else’s spot. Rankings in the middle of a list can be tight. In the team’s test, one friend had them at #7, and just eight days later they had dropped to #9, just outside the Top 8.
  4. The list simply refreshed. Snapchat doesn’t say how often the list updates, so a planet can look stuck for a while and then jump.

What Doesn’t Move Your Planet

Some popular beliefs didn’t hold up in testing.

A long streak doesn’t guarantee a close planet. The team had a 56-day streak with one friend and still wasn’t in that friend’s Top 8. A streak only needs one Snap a day from each person, while someone who also chats with your friend all day can rank above you. Snaporbit Lab’s guide to Snapchat streak rules explains exactly what counts toward a streak and what doesn’t.

A high Snap Score doesn’t help either. Your score grows with your activity across all your friends, so it doesn’t decide your spot on one friend’s list.

Gold Ring but No Planet

One of the most common questions online is about a gold ring with no planet inside it. When the team tapped a friend’s badge that showed a gold ring, they saw only a starry sky. That friend’s list had them at #9.

The gold ring with stars and no planet means you’re on that person’s Upcoming Best Friends list, just outside their Top 8. One more step up, and you’ll land on Neptune.

If you see the regular “Best Friends” badge with no gold ring, the friend is in your Top 8, but you aren’t in theirs.

When the Planet Disappears

A planet can also vanish for reasons that have nothing to do with your friendship. The team asked a friend to turn off his own Solar System setting. On his phone, the gold ring disappeared, and tapping the badge showed only a 😊 note. On the team’s phone, his badge still showed their planet as before.

So a missing planet can mean a few things:

  • Your Snapchat+ subscription ended, or the Solar System setting is off on your side.
  • You’ve moved below their Top 8 and aren’t on their Upcoming list.
  • The app hasn’t refreshed yet. Updating Snapchat or reopening the profile often fixes this.

How to Move Up to a Closer Planet

There’s no shortcut, and that’s by design. The ranking follows real activity. If you want to climb a friend’s list:

  • Send photo and video Snaps regularly, and reply to theirs.
  • Chat with them, since the Best Friends list counts both Snaps and Chats.
  • Keep it two-way. Snapping someone who rarely replies won’t move you far on their list.

The team’s advice is simple: don’t read too much into one bad week. A planet is a snapshot of recent activity, and it can move back just as fast as it moved away.

Why It Matters

Small symbols on Snapchat carry real weight for many users, especially teens and couples. A drop from Venus to Saturn can start an argument when it only means a friend has been busy with someone else. Clear, tested answers help people understand what the app is actually counting.

You can see every planet, its meaning, and the full eight-friend test with screenshots in Snaporbit Lab’s guide to Snapchat Planets.

About Snaporbit Lab

Snaporbit Lab is an independent guide to Snapchat features. The team tests features on real accounts and phones and explains the results in plain English. Snaporbit Lab isn’t affiliated with Snap Inc.

Contact: [email protected]