The fictional portrayal of the Solar System has often included planets, moons, and other celestial objects which do not actually exist in reality. Some of these objects were, at one time, seriously considered as hypothetical planets which were either thought to have been observed, or were hypothesized to be orbiting the Sun in order to explain certain celestial phenomena. Often such objects continued to be used in literature long after the hypotheses upon which they were based had been abandoned.
Other non-existent Solar System objects used in fiction have been proposed or hypothesized by persons with no scientific standing; yet others are purely fictional and were never intended as serious hypotheses about the structure of the Solar System.
Vulcan was a hypothetical planet supposed to revolve around the Sun inside the orbit of Mercury, invoked to explain certain irregularities in Mercury's orbit. The planet was proposed as a hypothesis in 1859, and abandoned not later than 1915.
"At the Center of Gravity" (Astounding Stories, June 1936), short story by Ross Rocklynne: two people are trapped inside a hollow Vulcan.[3]
Vulcan is part of the Solar System in the Captain Future series. Despite being said to be covered in magma, in Outlaw World (1946) it is discovered that it is hollow and inhabited inside.
Mission to Mercury (1965), science fiction novel by Hugh Walters. During the return of the first crewed flight to Mercury, a crew member notices a dark spot moving across the Sun. Since the spot is between them and the Sun and appears to be moving to the naked eye, it can only be the previously-hypothetical Vulcan; it must be moving rapidly and extremely close to the Sun.
Vulcan is visited in the 1882 novel A Thousand Years Hence by Nunsowe Green.[4]
Sailor Moon musicals (1993–2005): A planet called Vulcan along with its moon, Astarte, is said to be on the other side of the Sun.
The name "Vulcan" has been used for various other fictional planets, in and out of the Solar System, that do not correspond to the hypothetical planet Vulcan. The planet Vulcan in the Star Trek franchise, for instance, is specified as orbiting 40 Eridani A.
Counter-Earth was a hypothetical planet sharing an orbit with Earth, but on the opposite side of the Sun (hence Earth and Counter-Earth would always be invisible to each other). The idea of a counter-Earth has never been a serious scientific hypothesis in modern times.
BooksEdit
Korad by Felix Mondejar: A Counter-Earth planet inhabited by an advanced alien race that has (mis)guided humankind through several turning points in history by mistake, miscalculation and underestimation of humankind's ability to see meaning where there isn't any. The planet is used in the Korad trilogy of Science Fiction-comedy books by Cuban writer Felix Móndejar (pen name F. Mond).
Planetoid 127 (1924) by Edgar Wallace: A short novel of communication by radio with another world on the other side of the Sun in Earth's orbit.
Antigeos series of novels including The Other Side of the Sun (1950), The Other Half of the Planet (1952) and Down to Earth (1954) by Paul Capon (also serialised on radio by the BBC): Set on the counter-Earth Antigeos.
La Dixième Planète (1954) by C. H. Badet
Out of this World (1960) by Ben Barzman, also published as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Echo X: The two worlds were exact twins until they diverged in the early 20th century.
The X12 series of books (1975–1980) by Olof Möller prominently features a counter-Earth called Anti-Tellus.
Zillikian is a counter-Earth featured in the Bunduki series (1975–1990) by J. T. Edson.
Rejsen til planeten Droj ["Journey to planet Droj", with droj being jord ("earth") backwards] (1977) by Thorstein Thomsen features the inhabitants of planet Droj inviting humans to visit them. The children who arrive on the planet see almost a mirror image of Earth and learn about the dangers Earth may also face eventually.
Countersolar! (1985) by Richard A. Lupoff, a sequel to Circumpolar!: A parody in which the Earth is a disk rather than a ball, and a lab accident creates a counter-Earth that's initially an exact duplicate of the original.
The King and the Fire Chanter (2007) by Arran Wend: Two children, born and raised on Earth, escape to their planet of origin on the other side of the Sun.
ComicsEdit
Twin Earths (1952–1963), comic strip by Alden McWilliams (art 1952–63, story 1957–63) and Oskar Lebeck (story 1952–57). The counter-Earth Terra orbits opposite Earth. The daily strip featured Vana, a Terran spy living on Earth to keep tabs on our technology, and Garry Verth, an FBI agent. In the Sunday strip, a young Texan named Punch explored Terra with its young prince Torro. This strip mostly consisted of travelogue-like views of Terran life; for example the fact that in their liberated society, women, who constituted 92% of the population, ran things.[5]
Judge Dredd (1977-), comic strip in the 2000 AD comic anthology. Hestia is a planet which orbits the Sun at nearly the same distance as the Earth but at such an angle to the ecliptic plane that it was not discovered until 2009. It is inhabited by a small colony of humans and an intelligent indigenous population who keep their distance from the colonists. The planet is also home of the lethal Dune Sharks (flying shark-like predators which can burrow beneath the ground).
Terra Nova (1960–1966). In the Danish weekly comic 'Willy på eventyr', a continuation of the British 'Rob the Rover', Willy and his crew of spaceship SM-4 journeys to the counter-earth Terra Nova, home of several civilisations.
Non Sequitur (2009). Jeffrey's alien friend Lars is from Mars 3.5, a planet described as "Earth's twin". Jeffrey and Danae visit it, and it is indicated that Captain Eddie has paid a visit to this planet as well.[6]
Tom the Dancing Bug (1990-), a satirical comic strip by Ruben Bolling. The strip occasionally features Counter-Earth, a "strange world that is not quite the opposite of our own...but somewhat dissimilar in certain ways."
Television and radioEdit
The Adventures of Superman radio series, episode 1 (debuting February 12, 1940): the planet Krypton is said to be "situated on the other side of the Sun" from the Earth.
The 2000 Plus episode "Worlds Apart" (broadcast 1950-11-15) involves a planet "exactly opposite the Earth, on the other side of the sun" (but, inexplicably, slightly closer) named Vesta (not to be confused with the real asteroid by that name).[7]
Beyond the Sun/The Hidden Planet, a scripted but unfilmed early story for Doctor Who, was set on a counter-Earth that was almost an exact duplicate of Earth. This idea was reused in the original series (1966) as Mondas, the original home of the Cybermen.
Sport Billy, 1979 television cartoon: the eponymous hero is from the counter-Earth Olympus, populated by athletic god-like beings.
Dinosaucers, 1987 television cartoon: premised on intelligent dinosaurs coming to Earth from a counter-Earth called Reptilon.
Lexx, television series (1997–2002): The twin planets "Fire" and "Water" are on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth.
In a Saturday Night Live skit, Father Guido Sarducci announced a planet on the other side of the Sun, exactly like Earth except that they eat corn on the cob with the corn positioned north–south instead of west–east.[8]
FilmEdit
Warning from Space or Mysterious Satellite (宇宙人東京に現わる, Uchûjin Tokyo ni arawaru, Spacemen Appear in Tokyo), 1956 science fictiontokusatsu film by Daiei. Planet R is on a collision course with Earth. One-eyed, starfish-shaped aliens from the counter-Earth Planet Paira take on human forms to warn the earth about the impending disaster.
Gamera vs. Guiron, 1969 tokusatsukaiju film: Gamera travels to a counter-Earth planet named Terra in order to save a pair of kidnapped children. Terra once had a race similar to humanity, but all but two of the aliens were exterminated by a space-faring species of Gyaos; only the cannibalistic sisters Barbella and Florbella are still alive, protected by their monster, the guard dog-like Guiron. At the end of the film, Gamera manages to defeat Guiron after a long and difficult battle, with both Terrans dying in the crossfire.
Doppelgänger, 1969 film by Gerry Anderson. Counter-Earth is identical to Earth in every respect except that left and right are reversed. Marketed in the US as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun.
The Stranger, 1973 film. Terra, the film's counter-Earth, is culturally and evolutionarily identical to Earth in nearly every respect; the most obvious differences are Terra's three moons and the fact that everyone is left-handed. However, it appears to have diverged significantly from Earth sometime in the last century or two. An astronaut from Earth crashes there, and discovers a strange dictatorship known as the Perfect Order. Technology is about the same, although geared for such purposes as monitoring of the population to assure adherence to the Order
Another Earth, a 2011 film written by and starring Brit Marling about the discovery of an identical Earth.
OtherEdit
Mage: The Ascension (1993), role-playing game: A planetoid called Autochthonia exists in the counter-Earth position in the game's cosmology. This is the location of The Computer which is central to Iteration X, the cybernetic convention of mages.
Phaëton is a name given to a supposed planet existing in the past between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, which no longer exists, having become the Solar System's asteroid belt. Proposed not long after the discovery of multiple asteroids at the beginning of the 19th century, the idea that the asteroids were fragments of a single planet was gradually abandoned over the course of the middle decades of the 20th century in favor of the conclusion that no planet had ever accreted in the region of the asteroid belt in the first place.
In fiction, various other names were given to the same or similar concepts.
Seola (1878), novel by Ann Eliza Smith: mentions the existence of a Wan Planet, "a great planet between the Red World [Mars] and the Green [Jupiter]; uninhabited, cracked, and fissured, deep-seamed and rent by volcanic fire. Deep, jarring, splitting sounds now issue from the centre of this desolate orb : it is about to fall in pieces. Its disruption will endanger the Earth",[9] leading to the deluge of Genesis.
"Time Wants a Skeleton" (Astounding Science Fiction, June 1941), short story by Ross Rocklynne: characters travel through time to Phaeton, an Earth-like planet, just before it was destroyed in a collision with another (unnamed) planet.
"The Lost World of Time" (Captain Future Magazine, Fall 1941), a Captain Future story by Edmond Hamilton: characters travel through time to the planet Katain and rescue the inhabitants before it was destroyed. Adapted to Japanese anime in 1978, where the planet is named Prometheus.
Et la planète sauta... (1946), novel by B. R. Bruss, tells of a planet that once existed between Mars and Jupiter called Rhama.
Space Cadet (1948), juvenile novel by Robert A. Heinlein. The hero's first assignment after graduation from the Space Patrol's academy is to a ship charting the intractable Asteroid Belt. He has the luck to be involved in a startling discovery: not only is the Belt proven to be what is left of an exploded planet Lucifer, but also remains are found of that planet's inhabitants, who had been responsible for its destruction.
In "Letter to a Phoenix", (1949), a short story by Fredric Brown, it is mentioned that one of the human civilizations which existed before has destroyed the fifth planet, named Skora.
Return to Mars (1955) juvenile novel by W. E. Johns. The fifth planet, called Kraka, was accidentally destroyed in a nuclear experiment carried out by its inhabitants.
Chikyu Boeigun (The Mysterians, 1957). A newly discovered asteroid in the asteroid belt is the Mysterians' home planet, Mysteroid, rendered uninhabitable as the result of a nuclear war.
Rogue in Space (1957), novel by Fredric Brown. A living, intelligent, asteroid collects all the asteroids in the Belt and forms them into a planet with himself at its centre. In this variant, the fifth planet exists not in the past but in the future.
Fallen Star (1959), novel by James Blish. The fifth planet, called Nferetet, may have been destroyed by the Martians because they saw its inhabitants as a threat.
Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), novel by Robert A. Heinlein. An unnamed fifth planet was destroyed by Martians after they deemed its inhabitants too barbaric to be allowed to exist. "[The Martians] encountered the people of the fifth planet ... and had taken action; asteroid ruins were all that remained."[10]
Keith Laumer's Worlds of the Imperium (1962) features, among a great variety of alternative history timelines. several in which Earth was broken up and its fragments scattered to make an asteroid belt.
The protagonist of Poul Anderson's The Corridors of Time (1965), who becomes involved in the war of two mutually-antagonistic factions from the far future, finds that an earlier phase of the war between them caused the planet Mars to break up into an asteroid belt. This cataclysm forced the two contending parties to adopt more subtle methods of warfare, mainly involving time travel.
In Das Zeitauge[11] (1966), a novel by H. G. Ewers,[12] Zeut, the fifth planet of the Sun in the Perry Rhodan Universe,[13][better source needed] was destroyed by aggressive aliens, 50,068 B.C.. Also in the anthology Lemuria.[14]
In "Destination: Saturn", (1967), a novel by Donald Wollheim writing as David Grinnell, and Lin Carter, an ancient spaceship created by the dead occupants of the fifth planet is found to contain many weapons useful to Earth in its war against Saturn. The novel also features a visit to a moon of Jupiter found to have been part of the former planet's core, and a discussion of its destruction.
Brian Lumley's story collection The Caller of the Black (1971), which contains many contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos, references Thyoph, a planet originally orbiting between Mars and Jupiter that was destroyed by an aspect of Azathoth.
Inherit the Stars (1977), first in the Giants series of novels by James P. Hogan. The planet Minerva exploded due to nuclear war 50,000 years ago to form the asteroid belt with the largest remnant thrown out of Minerva's orbit to form Pluto. It was home to two intelligent races: the Giants 25 million years ago, and the Lunarians (nearly identical to modern man) 50,000 years ago. Also mentioned in the novels The Gentle Giants of Ganymede (1978), Giants' Star (1981), Entoverse (1991) and Mission to Minerva (2005).
In L. Neil Smith's The Venus Belt (1980), an alternate history space-faring Libertarian society deliberately blows up the planet Venus, with the reasoning that due to its extreme heat the intact planet is completely useless to humans while if Venus is broken up into a new asteroid belt it could open up great mineral wealth.
In the Doctor Who story Image of the Fendahl (1977) the fifth planet was the home of the Fendahl, a malevolent entity that consumed all life. The Time Lords placed the planet in a time loop in the hope of imprisoning the creature, but it escaped and arrived on Earth 12 million years ago in the form of a human skull.
Andromeda Stories (1980–1982) by Keiko Takemiya & Ryu Mitsuse: a pair of robot characters who hail from Phaeton have been sent to explore the Andromeda galaxy, and find their home planet destroyed upon their return.
Gall Force 2: Destruction (1987), depicts the 5th planet, Damia, is in fact a massive super weapon, the System Destroyer, intended to act as a trap to destroy the two opposing forces. It is sabotaged and destroyed, resulting in the current asteroid field.
In Frank Chadwick's Space: 1889 RPG Steampunk system (introduced 1989), Vulcan is the ancient home to the Vulcan race, and was positioned between Mars and Jupiter. Its destruction (due to being old; increasing distance from the Sun symbolizes evolutionary progress) created the asteroid belt.
Faety (The Destruction of Faena), 1989 novel by Alexander Kazantsev. In this adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the asteroid belt is the debris of Faena, the fifth planet of the Solar System located just between Mars and Jupiter. Faena was destroyed thousands of years before the first civilizations of Earth appeared, following the activation of a doomsday device-like thermonuclear super weapon built by the native sentient species and the few of them who survived the explosion (by launching into space) had to seek refuge on Mars and Earth. The homo sapiens genus is thus assumed to be a mixture of local DNA and the Faetan genes.
Starting with a Swamp Thing story by Doug Wheeler in 1991, stories from DC Comics proposed that a former fifth planet was the original home of all fungal life (and a fungal group mind, The Grey), which migrated to Earth on a meteorite.
Mutineers' Moon (1991), novel by David Weber. The asteroid belt was a planet that was geologically unstable. The Achuultani attacked the planet with kinetic weapons, shattering it, and then attacked Earth, resulting in the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Final Fantasy IV (1991), video game. The fifth planet is populated by a race of highly advanced humanoids who are aware that their planet is unstable. Thus they travel to Earth and craft a second moon to live on as the fifth planet explodes to create the asteroid belt. The character FuSoYa is a member of this race, which is called the Lunarians due to their living on the moon (the true name of their race is not said).
The Werewolf: The Apocalypse roleplaying game (introduced 1992) names the former planet Turog, governed by a planetary incarna (concept spirit) named Rorg the Hunter.
End of an Era (1994), Robert J Sawyer. A time travel novel that explores the idea that Phaeton was not yet destroyed when this story takes place.
Ocean (2004), comic by Warren Ellis: discusses the possibility of an ancient proto-human culture originating on Phaeton.
"The Four-And-A-Halfth Planet" (2006) by Sam Hughes describes a planet, Tjörd, that formed from the current asteroid belt while the Earth is destroyed and becomes a new asteroid belt in an alternate timeline.
Exiles #4 (June 2008): When the super hero group known as Exiles travel to a parallel dimension, they find out there is no asteroid belt, but a planet called Hera, which humans have not terraformed yet, although they have already terraformed Venus and Mars.
The manga series Terra Formars (introduced 2011), regularly mentions a planet named Rahab that once existed between Mars and Jupiter that was shattered following a cometary impact.
Trans-Neptunian planetsEdit
"Persephone (planet)" redirects here. For the asteroid, see 399 Persephone.
This article is about fictional planets beyond Neptune. For historical speculation about hypothesized real planets, see Planets beyond Neptune.
This article is about fictional planets beyond Neptune created for various works of fiction. For discussion of the portrayal in fiction of real and fictional sub-planetary objects beyond Neptune, see Trans-Neptunian objects in fiction.
This article is about fictional planets in the Solar System named "Planet X". For fictional extrasolar planets named "Planet X", see Planets in science fiction § P.
Fictional planets in the Solar Systembeyond the orbit of Neptune have been employed many times as settings or references in science fiction. Following the general reception of Pluto as the ninth planet of the Solar System in 1930, a hypothetical additional planet was sometimes called a "tenth planet". Since 1992, a very large number of objects have been found beyond Neptune; all the objects in the following list, however, are purely fictional. Common names for trans-Neptunian planets in fiction include Planet X, after a planet once believed to lie beyond Neptune, Persephone (or Proserpina), after the wife of Pluto, and Minerva, after the Roman goddess of wisdom and education (which would fit with a planet discovered through mathematical predictions rather than direct observation).
LiteratureEdit
In the Year 2889 (1889) short story by Jules Verne: Olympus is a massive planet beyond Neptune. It has a mean distance of 11,400,799,642 miles from the Sun (about 4 times the distance of Neptune), and orbits the Sun in 1311 years, 294 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes, and 9 seconds.
Their Winged Destiny (1912) by Donald W. Horner: Astronauts travelling to Alpha Centauri pass a planet beyond Neptune as they leave the Solar System.
The Whisperer in Darkness (1930), short story by H. P. Lovecraft, and other stories of the Cthulhu mythos by various writers: Lovecraft identifies Yuggoth (or Iukkoth) with Pluto, but other writers in the mythos claim that it is actually an enormous, trans-Neptunian world that orbits perpendicularly to the ecliptic of the Solar System, accompanied by three moons: Nithon, Thog and Thok. Italian astronomer Albino Carbognani has suggested that any real-life planet discovered beyond Pluto might be named Yuggoth.[15]
Rescue Party (1946), a short story by Arthur C. Clarke. A reference is made to a starship "passing the orbit of Persephone"; from context, it is clearly a trans-Neptunian planet, and not the asteroid 399 Persephone (the story also states that there are ten planets in the Solar System). Earthlight (1951) and Rendezvous with Rama (1973) (see below), also by Clarke, again make reference to Persephone.
Known Space books (1964-) by Larry Niven: Persephone is a small gas giant with a single moon, Kobold. In The Borderland of Sol (1975), which takes place ca. 2640, Pluto is dismissed as an escaped moon of Neptune, while the solar system's outer planets are listed as Neptune, Persephone, Caïna, Antenora, and Ptolemea, after the rounds of Cocytus in Dante's Inferno, with Judecca reserved for the next discovery.
Rendezvous with Rama (1973) postulates a tenth planet named Persephone which is represented by the Ambassador of Triton.
The Tenth Planet (1973), a novel set upon the rocky planet Minerva, beyond the orbit of Pluto. Minervans, human colonists who escaped ecological disaster on Earth and Mars, live in underground cities; above ground, the planet is so cold as to have lakes of liquid helium.
The Forever War (1974) by Joe Haldeman. The first part of the novel is set on a trans-Plutonian planet called Charon. (This is not Pluto's moon, as the story was written before Charon's discovery in 1978.)
Mostly Harmless (1992) by Douglas Adams. The tenth planet is officially called Persephone, but nicknamed Rupert (after "some astronomer's parrot"), and is inhabited by the crew of a spaceship who have forgotten almost everything about their mission, except that they are supposed to be "monitoring" something.
The Tenth Planet trilogy (1999–2000) by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch: A tenth planet, roughly twice the size of the Moon, circles the Sun and its alien inhabitants periodically harvest Earth's resources. The periodicity of these raids is a consequence of the tenth planet's highly elliptical 2,006-year orbit, which closely approaches Earth only on two occasions near the tenth planet's perihelion. The tenth planet, known as Malmur to its inhabitants, is in fact a captured rogue planet, ejected from its original solar system.
Galileo's Dream (2009) by Kim Stanley Robinson There are several outer gas giants named, some of which are described as having been converted into energy for time travel. The tenth planet is named Hades.
Take Back the Sky (2016), the third book of the War Dogs trilogy reveals that numerous trans-Neptunian planets exist in the distant outer reaches of the Solar System. The homeworld of the alien Antags (Antagonists) is one such planet. Called the Sun-Planet, it is an artificial world consisting of a thin solid surface wrapped around a low-density gaseous interior, five times the mass of Jupiter and nearly the diameter of the Sun. The Sun-Planet is kept at a habitable temperature by artificial fusion at its core.
Included in the Ad Astra Per Aspera canon (2019-present) on the SCP Foundation website is the entry SCP-4774 - The Ninth Planet [citation needed] (2018). SCP-4774 is an ontological anomaly concerning the hypothetical "Planet Nine", a trans-Neptunian gas giant potentially orbiting the sun at a distance of around 700 AU. Anyone considering SCP-4774's existence will universally arrive at the same hypotheses, regardless of their prior astronomical knowledge. A research spacecraft sent to confirm SCP-4774 went missing, and was recovered 34 days later than their mission's intended end. The crew had no memory of their mission's events, but had new hypotheses; if it existed, SCP-4774 would be incapable of supporting intelligent life; if such life could exist, proving or disproving the possibility of their existence would threaten their continued existence/inexistence.[17]
In the 1975 TV series Star Maidens, the planet ruled by women is known as Medusa. Described by one of the Medusans as being "on the outer limits of your solar system", the opening titles of the premiere episode indicates that a comet pulled Medusa out of orbit around Proxima Centauri—forcing its people underground—and it eventually slipped into orbit around the Earth's Sun. No longer in the heat of Proxima Centauri, Medusa is small, rocky and cold, though the Medusans have the technology to conduct industrial operations on the surface.
Star Trek Maps, a 1970s publication by Bantam Books, indicates that the Star Trek universe includes a tenth planet in the Solar System called Persephone that orbits at a great distance from the Sun. This statement is not supported by any Star Trek film or TV episode (the original series episode "The Changeling" mentions only nine planets exist in the Solar System), and a later, similar work, Star Trek Star Charts by Pocket Books, makes no mention of this world.
ALF (1986–1990): In one episode, ALF reveals to Brian that two planets exist beyond Pluto. When Willie sarcastically asks if they are named "Mickey" and "Donald," ALF matter-of-factly tells him no; they are named "Dave" and "Alvin." Later Willie explains that "Dave" could be Chiron, a minor planet once labeled the "tenth planet" by the press.
K-PAX (2001 film): An alien character played by Kevin Spacey tells the character played by Jeff Bridges that there are ten planets in Bridges's Solar System.
In the anime series The Vision of Escaflowne (1996), there exists an invisible (from Earth) third member of the Earth-Moon system, called Gaea, on which the majority of the story takes place. The Earth, which is visible in the Gaean sky along with the Moon, is referred to as the "Mystic Moon".
In the anime series Space Battleship Yamato (1974) there are eleven planets in the Solar System. In the English dub, the first season names the tenth planet Minerva (destroyed by the Gamilons, it's not clear if it became an entire asteroid belt or just a large asteroid field), and the second season names the eleventh planet Brumus (attacked by the Comet Empire).
In the Dragon Ball series (1989–1996), there's a tenth Planet or a brown dwarf called the Makyo Star. Every 12,000 years, it passes close to Earth which powers all the Makyo demons inhabiting Earth.
In the Sailor Moon series (1992–1997), there exists a tenth Planet called Nemesis which is controlled by the villains of the Black Moon Clan. The planet is said to be radiating negative energy and can disappear from sight, only trackable via X-rays.
In the animated television series Exosquad (1993), the Solar System contains an invisible tenth planet composed of dark matter. It was discovered by the Pirate Clans who named it Chaos and later offered it as safe haven to the Exofleet.
In the Mutant Chronicles universe (1993), the 10th Planet, Nero, is the home of portals used by The Dark Legion to gain access into our galaxy through which they plan to enslave or destroy mankind. The planet is named after the Imperial Cardinal who had prophetic visions of the black planet, visions which also warned him of death.
In the animated series The Fairly OddParents (2001), the character Mark Chang is from the planet Yugopotamia (which bears an uncanny resemblance to Yuggoth; see above) which is stated in the episode "Totally Spaced Out" to be "one million, one million" miles away from Earth (almost 10,760 astronomical units; within the bounds of the Oort cloud).
2001 Nights (1984), manga by Yukinobu Hoshino, Night 7, "Lucifer Rising": A tenth planet dubbed Lucifer and its three moons Cassius, Brutus, and Judas (named after the souls gnawed on by the heads of Dante's Satan in Dante's Inferno) are discovered. The expedition to Lucifer becomes a perilous and tragic one when it is discovered that Lucifer is composed of antimatter.
Godzilla: Monster of Monsters (1989), video game: Planet X is said to initially exist between Neptune and Pluto and causes the two planets to switch positions in the solar system while Planet X itself becomes the literal tenth planet in the system and is shown to be artificial, though mountains and jungles exist on it.
Galaxy 5000 (1991), videogame: Planet X the last stage, after finishing Pluto, which suggests it to be the next planet in the series.
Elite: Dangerous (2014), video game: At some point before the 3300s, a ninth planet named Persephone (based on the hypothetical Planet Nine) was charted in the Solar System, and can be traveled to and explored. The planet is depicted as an airless ice planet with active geysers; it has a semi-major axis of 700 AU, a radius of 14,427 km, a gravity of 1.95G, a surface temperature of 20K, a mass 9.9997 times the mass of the Earth, and an orbital period of 15,000 years.
Gemini Home Entertainment (2019-present), analog horror series: A sentient tenth planet named The Iris serves as the series main antagonist. Having arrived in the solar system as a rogue planet at an unknown point prior to the series, it is masterminding an ongoing assault on it, and is directly responsible for the existence of several alien creatures which serve as part of its plans to subjugate Earth and humanity. The Iris has five moons - Vitreous, Macula, Umbilic, Cyst and Yucous - and through unknown means is capable of 'mutating' other planets; among the planets that have been manipulated by The Iris in this way are Neptune - which has been successfully converted into The Iris's 'lens', and is observed firing an intense beam of light towards the inner solar system - and Jupiter, which was attacked but unsuccessfully mutated, as its Great Red Spot is described in the series as 'an open wound'.
Magnus, Robot Fighter: 4,000 A.D. (1963), comic book: Planet X, presumably a tenth planet beyond Pluto, serves as the original hideout for Xyrkol, and is referred to by Magnus (in a thought balloon) as "the planet that is supposed to be uninhabitable".
Elsewhere in the Solar SystemEdit
Monster Zero (怪獣大戦争, Kaijū Daisensō {{literal translation|The Giant Monster War[18]) (1965), the 6th Godzilla film: Aliens from Planet X (located between Jupiter and Saturn) try to conquer the Earth using Godzilla, Rodan, and King Ghidorah to take its water supply because water is scarce on their planet.
The Lost Planet (1953) describes journeys to "Hesikos", a fictional asteroid with highly eccentric orbit whose humanoid inhabitants renounced nuclear power after a meltdown, but have meanwhile developed broadcast telepathy. A happy ending ensues when Earthmen provide safe nuclear technology in return for thought projections from Hesikos to reduce fear and aggression here.
Twin Earth: a hypothetical duplicate of the Earth and everything on it (in an unspecified location), as a thought experiment by philosopher Saul Kripke about names: the fact that everything you could say about someone or something on the Earth would be equally true of its counterpart on Twin Earth shows that names can't merely be shorthand for descriptions, as they may not uniquely identify a person/object.
The short story "The Mysterious Finding" ("Загадочная находка") by Vladimir Obruchev (1947) features the discovery of an artificial meteorite containing the last message of a race living on a planet similar to Phaeton, though it used to be located between Earth and Mars. By the time the log is written, it is months away from being destroyed by a critical destabilization caused by nuclear bombardment of an extinct volcano.
Rogue planets in fiction usually originate outside the Solar System, but their erratic paths lead them to within detectable range of Earth. In reality, no rogue planet has ever been detected transiting the Solar System.
When Worlds Collide (1933), novel by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer: Extrasolar planets Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta enter the Solar System: Bronson Alpha destroys the Earth, Bronson Beta assumes its orbit.
Super-Neutron (1941) short story by Isaac Asimov, where it is claimed that a rogue planet could cause the Sun to explode.
The Man from Planet X (1951) is an early space-alien film. In the film, the orbit of the hitherto unknown extrasolar Planet X brings it close to Earth.
Warning from Space (1956), sci-fi film by Daiei: The rogue planet Planet R enters the solar system on a collision course with Earth. Fortunately, its arrival is detected by the Pairans, residents of a Counter-Earth planet who send an envoy to inform humanity of the threat. At the last minute, a nuclear device is developed and deployed, destroying Planet R and saving the Earth.
Fifth Planet (1963), sci-fi novel by Fred Hoyle and his son Geoffrey Hoyle: Another star is due to pass close to the Sun, close enough for conventional spacecraft to reach it. The first planets observed are four gas-giants, but then an inner 'Fifth Planet' is found. It shows signs of life, and rival Russian and US expeditions are launched to visit it.
The Tenth Planet (1966), serial of the Doctor Who TV series: An extrasolar planet, Mondas, enters the Solar System beyond Pluto, making it temporarily the tenth planet. It originated in the Solar System with an orbit near that of Counter-Earth before the native Cybermen powered it with an engine and moved it out of the Solar System.
Breakaway, the first episode of the mid-1970s sci-fi series Space: 1999, involved an exploration of a rogue planet named Meta.[19]
Transformers (1984) toys and spinoffs: Cybertron is a robot-inhabited rogue planet that comes close to Earth. In the Generation One cartoon timeline, this only occurs after the events of the three part episode The Ultimate Doom, in which Cybertron is brought into Earth's solar system (and specifically into Earth's actual orbit) by the use of a space bridge big enough to transport the entire planet. Afterwards, it is shown to exist somewhere reasonably close to Earth's Solar System after it is pushed out of Earth's orbit. Characters such as Starscream, Omega Supreme, and Astrotrain are later shown to be able to travel from Earth to Cybertron and back with relative ease depending on the plot of the story. Later incarnations of Cybertron are either rogue planets or else have a method of near instant transportation to and from Earth.
Sunstorm (2005), an alien race from a planet in orbit around Altair sends a rogue Jovian planet into the Sun, setting the stage for a solar storm intended to wipe out humanity in the year 2042.
Melancholia (2011), a planet emerges from behind the Sun and approaches Earth, initially passing by, before coming back on a collision course. It was written and directed by Lars von Trier.
See alsoEdit
Clicking on a planet leads to the article about its depiction in fiction.
^Actors: William Griffis, Ralph Bell, and Gregory Morton; Producers: Sherman H. Dreyer and Robert Weenolsen (1950-11-15). "Worlds Apart". 2000 Plus. Episode 37. New York, NY, U.S.A. 26:23 minutes in. MBS.
^"SNL Transcripts: Michael Palin: 05/12/79: Weekend Update with Jane Curtin & Bill Murray". snltranscripts.jt.org. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
fictional, planets, solar, system, this, article, multiple, issues, please, help, improve, discuss, these, issues, talk, page, learn, when, remove, these, template, messages, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, thi. This article has multiple issues Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page Learn how and when to remove these template messages This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Fictional planets of the Solar System news newspapers books scholar JSTOR July 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message This article appears to contain trivial minor or unrelated references to popular culture Please reorganize this content to explain the subject s impact on popular culture providing citations to reliable secondary sources rather than simply listing appearances Unsourced material may be challenged and removed December 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message See also Planets in science fiction The fictional portrayal of the Solar System has often included planets moons and other celestial objects which do not actually exist in reality Some of these objects were at one time seriously considered as hypothetical planets which were either thought to have been observed or were hypothesized to be orbiting the Sun in order to explain certain celestial phenomena Often such objects continued to be used in literature long after the hypotheses upon which they were based had been abandoned Other non existent Solar System objects used in fiction have been proposed or hypothesized by persons with no scientific standing yet others are purely fictional and were never intended as serious hypotheses about the structure of the Solar System Contents 1 Vulcan 2 Counter Earth 2 1 Books 2 2 Comics 2 3 Television and radio 2 4 Film 2 5 Other 3 Phaeton 4 Trans Neptunian planets 4 1 Literature 4 2 Film TV and radio 4 3 Animation 4 4 Other 5 Elsewhere in the Solar System 6 Rogue planets 7 See also 8 ReferencesVulcan EditMain article Vulcan hypothetical planet Vulcan was a hypothetical planet supposed to revolve around the Sun inside the orbit of Mercury invoked to explain certain irregularities in Mercury s orbit The planet was proposed as a hypothesis in 1859 and abandoned not later than 1915 Vulcan s Workshop Astounding Stories June 1932 short story by Harl Vincent a penal colony is located on Vulcan 1 2 At the Center of Gravity Astounding Stories June 1936 short story by Ross Rocklynne two people are trapped inside a hollow Vulcan 3 Vulcan is part of the Solar System in the Captain Future series Despite being said to be covered in magma in Outlaw World 1946 it is discovered that it is hollow and inhabited inside Mission to Mercury 1965 science fiction novel by Hugh Walters During the return of the first crewed flight to Mercury a crew member notices a dark spot moving across the Sun Since the spot is between them and the Sun and appears to be moving to the naked eye it can only be the previously hypothetical Vulcan it must be moving rapidly and extremely close to the Sun Vulcan is visited in the 1882 novel A Thousand Years Hence by Nunsowe Green 4 Sailor Moon musicals 1993 2005 A planet called Vulcan along with its moon Astarte is said to be on the other side of the Sun The name Vulcan has been used for various other fictional planets in and out of the Solar System that do not correspond to the hypothetical planet Vulcan The planet Vulcan in the Star Trek franchise for instance is specified as orbiting 40 Eridani A Counter Earth EditMain article Counter Earth Counter Earth was a hypothetical planet sharing an orbit with Earth but on the opposite side of the Sun hence Earth and Counter Earth would always be invisible to each other The idea of a counter Earth has never been a serious scientific hypothesis in modern times Books Edit Korad by Felix Mondejar A Counter Earth planet inhabited by an advanced alien race that has mis guided humankind through several turning points in history by mistake miscalculation and underestimation of humankind s ability to see meaning where there isn t any The planet is used in the Korad trilogy of Science Fiction comedy books by Cuban writer Felix Mondejar pen name F Mond Planetoid 127 1924 by Edgar Wallace A short novel of communication by radio with another world on the other side of the Sun in Earth s orbit Antigeos series of novels including The Other Side of the Sun 1950 The Other Half of the Planet 1952 and Down to Earth 1954 by Paul Capon also serialised on radio by the BBC Set on the counter Earth Antigeos La Dixieme Planete 1954 by C H Badet Out of this World 1960 by Ben Barzman also published as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Echo X The two worlds were exact twins until they diverged in the early 20th century La Planete ignoree 1963 by Rene Guillot Gor novels 1967 by John Norman Sword and planet adventure on a counter Earth called Gor Aio terre invisible 1973 by Christian Grenier The Illuminatus Trilogy 1975 by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson The leaders of the Illuminati may have originated on a counter Earth named Vulcan and come to Earth on flying saucers from Mars via Saturn The X12 series of books 1975 1980 by Olof Moller prominently features a counter Earth called Anti Tellus Zillikian is a counter Earth featured in the Bunduki series 1975 1990 by J T Edson Rejsen til planeten Droj Journey to planet Droj with droj being jord earth backwards 1977 by Thorstein Thomsen features the inhabitants of planet Droj inviting humans to visit them The children who arrive on the planet see almost a mirror image of Earth and learn about the dangers Earth may also face eventually Countersolar 1985 by Richard A Lupoff a sequel to Circumpolar A parody in which the Earth is a disk rather than a ball and a lab accident creates a counter Earth that s initially an exact duplicate of the original The King and the Fire Chanter 2007 by Arran Wend Two children born and raised on Earth escape to their planet of origin on the other side of the Sun Comics Edit Twin Earths 1952 1963 comic strip by Alden McWilliams art 1952 63 story 1957 63 and Oskar Lebeck story 1952 57 The counter Earth Terra orbits opposite Earth The daily strip featured Vana a Terran spy living on Earth to keep tabs on our technology and Garry Verth an FBI agent In the Sunday strip a young Texan named Punch explored Terra with its young prince Torro This strip mostly consisted of travelogue like views of Terran life for example the fact that in their liberated society women who constituted 92 of the population ran things 5 Since 1972 Marvel Comics has published stories featuring three versions of a counter Earth Judge Dredd 1977 comic strip in the 2000 AD comic anthology Hestia is a planet which orbits the Sun at nearly the same distance as the Earth but at such an angle to the ecliptic plane that it was not discovered until 2009 It is inhabited by a small colony of humans and an intelligent indigenous population who keep their distance from the colonists The planet is also home of the lethal Dune Sharks flying shark like predators which can burrow beneath the ground New Krypton 2008 2009 and Superman World of New Krypton story arcs in the DC Comics Superman series New Krypton is a counter Earth created by Kryptonian scientists using Brainiac s technology Terra Nova 1960 1966 In the Danish weekly comic Willy pa eventyr a continuation of the British Rob the Rover Willy and his crew of spaceship SM 4 journeys to the counter earth Terra Nova home of several civilisations Non Sequitur 2009 Jeffrey s alien friend Lars is from Mars 3 5 a planet described as Earth s twin Jeffrey and Danae visit it and it is indicated that Captain Eddie has paid a visit to this planet as well 6 Tom the Dancing Bug 1990 a satirical comic strip by Ruben Bolling The strip occasionally features Counter Earth a strange world that is not quite the opposite of our own but somewhat dissimilar in certain ways Television and radio Edit The Adventures of Superman radio series episode 1 debuting February 12 1940 the planet Krypton is said to be situated on the other side of the Sun from the Earth The 2000 Plus episode Worlds Apart broadcast 1950 11 15 involves a planet exactly opposite the Earth on the other side of the sun but inexplicably slightly closer named Vesta not to be confused with the real asteroid by that name 7 Beyond the Sun The Hidden Planet a scripted but unfilmed early story for Doctor Who was set on a counter Earth that was almost an exact duplicate of Earth This idea was reused in the original series 1966 as Mondas the original home of the Cybermen Sport Billy 1979 television cartoon the eponymous hero is from the counter Earth Olympus populated by athletic god like beings Dinosaucers 1987 television cartoon premised on intelligent dinosaurs coming to Earth from a counter Earth called Reptilon Lexx television series 1997 2002 The twin planets Fire and Water are on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth Spider Man Unlimited 1999 animated series Spider Man tries to rescue John Jameson on a counter Earth In a Saturday Night Live skit Father Guido Sarducci announced a planet on the other side of the Sun exactly like Earth except that they eat corn on the cob with the corn positioned north south instead of west east 8 Film Edit Warning from Space or Mysterious Satellite 宇宙人東京に現わる Uchujin Tokyo ni arawaru Spacemen Appear in Tokyo 1956 science fiction tokusatsu film by Daiei Planet R is on a collision course with Earth One eyed starfish shaped aliens from the counter Earth Planet Paira take on human forms to warn the earth about the impending disaster Gamera vs Guiron 1969 tokusatsu kaiju film Gamera travels to a counter Earth planet named Terra in order to save a pair of kidnapped children Terra once had a race similar to humanity but all but two of the aliens were exterminated by a space faring species of Gyaos only the cannibalistic sisters Barbella and Florbella are still alive protected by their monster the guard dog like Guiron At the end of the film Gamera manages to defeat Guiron after a long and difficult battle with both Terrans dying in the crossfire Doppelganger 1969 film by Gerry Anderson Counter Earth is identical to Earth in every respect except that left and right are reversed Marketed in the US as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun The Stranger 1973 film Terra the film s counter Earth is culturally and evolutionarily identical to Earth in nearly every respect the most obvious differences are Terra s three moons and the fact that everyone is left handed However it appears to have diverged significantly from Earth sometime in the last century or two An astronaut from Earth crashes there and discovers a strange dictatorship known as the Perfect Order Technology is about the same although geared for such purposes as monitoring of the population to assure adherence to the Order Another Earth a 2011 film written by and starring Brit Marling about the discovery of an identical Earth Other Edit Mage The Ascension 1993 role playing game A planetoid called Autochthonia exists in the counter Earth position in the game s cosmology This is the location of The Computer which is central to Iteration X the cybernetic convention of mages Antikhthon Greek for Counter Earth a piece of music by Iannis XenakisPhaeton EditMain article Phaeton hypothetical planet See also Asteroids in fiction Phaeton is a name given to a supposed planet existing in the past between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter which no longer exists having become the Solar System s asteroid belt Proposed not long after the discovery of multiple asteroids at the beginning of the 19th century the idea that the asteroids were fragments of a single planet was gradually abandoned over the course of the middle decades of the 20th century in favor of the conclusion that no planet had ever accreted in the region of the asteroid belt in the first place In fiction various other names were given to the same or similar concepts Seola 1878 novel by Ann Eliza Smith mentions the existence of a Wan Planet a great planet between the Red World Mars and the Green Jupiter uninhabited cracked and fissured deep seamed and rent by volcanic fire Deep jarring splitting sounds now issue from the centre of this desolate orb it is about to fall in pieces Its disruption will endanger the Earth 9 leading to the deluge of Genesis Time Wants a Skeleton Astounding Science Fiction June 1941 short story by Ross Rocklynne characters travel through time to Phaeton an Earth like planet just before it was destroyed in a collision with another unnamed planet The Lost World of Time Captain Future Magazine Fall 1941 a Captain Future story by Edmond Hamilton characters travel through time to the planet Katain and rescue the inhabitants before it was destroyed Adapted to Japanese anime in 1978 where the planet is named Prometheus Et la planete sauta 1946 novel by B R Bruss tells of a planet that once existed between Mars and Jupiter called Rhama Space Cadet 1948 juvenile novel by Robert A Heinlein The hero s first assignment after graduation from the Space Patrol s academy is to a ship charting the intractable Asteroid Belt He has the luck to be involved in a startling discovery not only is the Belt proven to be what is left of an exploded planet Lucifer but also remains are found of that planet s inhabitants who had been responsible for its destruction In Letter to a Phoenix 1949 a short story by Fredric Brown it is mentioned that one of the human civilizations which existed before has destroyed the fifth planet named Skora Return to Mars 1955 juvenile novel by W E Johns The fifth planet called Kraka was accidentally destroyed in a nuclear experiment carried out by its inhabitants Chikyu Boeigun The Mysterians 1957 A newly discovered asteroid in the asteroid belt is the Mysterians home planet Mysteroid rendered uninhabitable as the result of a nuclear war Rogue in Space 1957 novel by Fredric Brown A living intelligent asteroid collects all the asteroids in the Belt and forms them into a planet with himself at its centre In this variant the fifth planet exists not in the past but in the future Fallen Star 1959 novel by James Blish The fifth planet called Nferetet may have been destroyed by the Martians because they saw its inhabitants as a threat Stranger in a Strange Land 1961 novel by Robert A Heinlein An unnamed fifth planet was destroyed by Martians after they deemed its inhabitants too barbaric to be allowed to exist The Martians encountered the people of the fifth planet and had taken action asteroid ruins were all that remained 10 Keith Laumer s Worlds of the Imperium 1962 features among a great variety of alternative history timelines several in which Earth was broken up and its fragments scattered to make an asteroid belt The protagonist of Poul Anderson s The Corridors of Time 1965 who becomes involved in the war of two mutually antagonistic factions from the far future finds that an earlier phase of the war between them caused the planet Mars to break up into an asteroid belt This cataclysm forced the two contending parties to adopt more subtle methods of warfare mainly involving time travel In Das Zeitauge 11 1966 a novel by H G Ewers 12 Zeut the fifth planet of the Sun in the Perry Rhodan Universe 13 better source needed was destroyed by aggressive aliens 50 068 B C Also in the anthology Lemuria 14 In Destination Saturn 1967 a novel by Donald Wollheim writing as David Grinnell and Lin Carter an ancient spaceship created by the dead occupants of the fifth planet is found to contain many weapons useful to Earth in its war against Saturn The novel also features a visit to a moon of Jupiter found to have been part of the former planet s core and a discussion of its destruction Brian Lumley s story collection The Caller of the Black 1971 which contains many contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos references Thyoph a planet originally orbiting between Mars and Jupiter that was destroyed by an aspect of Azathoth The Ultimate Crime 1976 a short story by Isaac Asimov was actually based on the author s essay to qualify for entry into the Baker Street Irregulars a group of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts In it he speculates that Professor Moriarty s The Dynamics of an Asteroid was a scholarly work that attempted to compute how the hypothetical fifth planet had exploded and how to repeat the effect on Earth Inherit the Stars 1977 first in the Giants series of novels by James P Hogan The planet Minerva exploded due to nuclear war 50 000 years ago to form the asteroid belt with the largest remnant thrown out of Minerva s orbit to form Pluto It was home to two intelligent races the Giants 25 million years ago and the Lunarians nearly identical to modern man 50 000 years ago Also mentioned in the novels The Gentle Giants of Ganymede 1978 Giants Star 1981 Entoverse 1991 and Mission to Minerva 2005 In L Neil Smith s The Venus Belt 1980 an alternate history space faring Libertarian society deliberately blows up the planet Venus with the reasoning that due to its extreme heat the intact planet is completely useless to humans while if Venus is broken up into a new asteroid belt it could open up great mineral wealth In the Doctor Who story Image of the Fendahl 1977 the fifth planet was the home of the Fendahl a malevolent entity that consumed all life The Time Lords placed the planet in a time loop in the hope of imprisoning the creature but it escaped and arrived on Earth 12 million years ago in the form of a human skull Andromeda Stories 1980 1982 by Keiko Takemiya amp Ryu Mitsuse a pair of robot characters who hail from Phaeton have been sent to explore the Andromeda galaxy and find their home planet destroyed upon their return Gall Force 2 Destruction 1987 depicts the 5th planet Damia is in fact a massive super weapon the System Destroyer intended to act as a trap to destroy the two opposing forces It is sabotaged and destroyed resulting in the current asteroid field In Frank Chadwick s Space 1889 RPG Steampunk system introduced 1989 Vulcan is the ancient home to the Vulcan race and was positioned between Mars and Jupiter Its destruction due to being old increasing distance from the Sun symbolizes evolutionary progress created the asteroid belt Faety The Destruction of Faena 1989 novel by Alexander Kazantsev In this adaptation of Shakespeare s Romeo and Juliet the asteroid belt is the debris of Faena the fifth planet of the Solar System located just between Mars and Jupiter Faena was destroyed thousands of years before the first civilizations of Earth appeared following the activation of a doomsday device like thermonuclear super weapon built by the native sentient species and the few of them who survived the explosion by launching into space had to seek refuge on Mars and Earth The homo sapiens genus is thus assumed to be a mixture of local DNA and the Faetan genes Starting with a Swamp Thing story by Doug Wheeler in 1991 stories from DC Comics proposed that a former fifth planet was the original home of all fungal life and a fungal group mind The Grey which migrated to Earth on a meteorite Mutineers Moon 1991 novel by David Weber The asteroid belt was a planet that was geologically unstable The Achuultani attacked the planet with kinetic weapons shattering it and then attacked Earth resulting in the extinction of the dinosaurs Final Fantasy IV 1991 video game The fifth planet is populated by a race of highly advanced humanoids who are aware that their planet is unstable Thus they travel to Earth and craft a second moon to live on as the fifth planet explodes to create the asteroid belt The character FuSoYa is a member of this race which is called the Lunarians due to their living on the moon the true name of their race is not said The Werewolf The Apocalypse roleplaying game introduced 1992 names the former planet Turog governed by a planetary incarna concept spirit named Rorg the Hunter End of an Era 1994 Robert J Sawyer A time travel novel that explores the idea that Phaeton was not yet destroyed when this story takes place Ocean 2004 comic by Warren Ellis discusses the possibility of an ancient proto human culture originating on Phaeton The Four And A Halfth Planet 2006 by Sam Hughes describes a planet Tjord that formed from the current asteroid belt while the Earth is destroyed and becomes a new asteroid belt in an alternate timeline Exiles 4 June 2008 When the super hero group known as Exiles travel to a parallel dimension they find out there is no asteroid belt but a planet called Hera which humans have not terraformed yet although they have already terraformed Venus and Mars The manga series Terra Formars introduced 2011 regularly mentions a planet named Rahab that once existed between Mars and Jupiter that was shattered following a cometary impact Trans Neptunian planets Edit Persephone planet redirects here For the asteroid see 399 Persephone This article is about fictional planets beyond Neptune For historical speculation about hypothesized real planets see Planets beyond Neptune This article is about fictional planets beyond Neptune created for various works of fiction For discussion of the portrayal in fiction of real and fictional sub planetary objects beyond Neptune see Trans Neptunian objects in fiction This article is about fictional planets in the Solar System named Planet X For fictional extrasolar planets named Planet X see Planets in science fiction P Fictional planets in the Solar System beyond the orbit of Neptune have been employed many times as settings or references in science fiction Following the general reception of Pluto as the ninth planet of the Solar System in 1930 a hypothetical additional planet was sometimes called a tenth planet Since 1992 a very large number of objects have been found beyond Neptune all the objects in the following list however are purely fictional Common names for trans Neptunian planets in fiction include Planet X after a planet once believed to lie beyond Neptune Persephone or Proserpina after the wife of Pluto and Minerva after the Roman goddess of wisdom and education which would fit with a planet discovered through mathematical predictions rather than direct observation Literature Edit In the Year 2889 1889 short story by Jules Verne Olympus is a massive planet beyond Neptune It has a mean distance of 11 400 799 642 miles from the Sun about 4 times the distance of Neptune and orbits the Sun in 1311 years 294 days 12 hours 43 minutes and 9 seconds A Journey in Other Worlds 1894 by John Jacob Astor IV has an icy trans Neptunian planet named Cassandra that houses the souls of unworthy Earthlings Their Winged Destiny 1912 by Donald W Horner Astronauts travelling to Alpha Centauri pass a planet beyond Neptune as they leave the Solar System The Whisperer in Darkness 1930 short story by H P Lovecraft and other stories of the Cthulhu mythos by various writers Lovecraft identifies Yuggoth or Iukkoth with Pluto but other writers in the mythos claim that it is actually an enormous trans Neptunian world that orbits perpendicularly to the ecliptic of the Solar System accompanied by three moons Nithon Thog and Thok Italian astronomer Albino Carbognani has suggested that any real life planet discovered beyond Pluto might be named Yuggoth 15 Rescue Party 1946 a short story by Arthur C Clarke A reference is made to a starship passing the orbit of Persephone from context it is clearly a trans Neptunian planet and not the asteroid 399 Persephone the story also states that there are ten planets in the Solar System Earthlight 1951 and Rendezvous with Rama 1973 see below also by Clarke again make reference to Persephone The Puppet Masters 1951 novel by Robert A Heinlein The next planet after Pluto is called Kalki A Life for the Stars 1962 by James Blish collected in Cities in Flight 1970 has a trans Plutonian planet called Proserpina 16 Known Space books 1964 by Larry Niven Persephone is a small gas giant with a single moon Kobold In The Borderland of Sol 1975 which takes place ca 2640 Pluto is dismissed as an escaped moon of Neptune while the solar system s outer planets are listed as Neptune Persephone Caina Antenora and Ptolemea after the rounds of Cocytus in Dante s Inferno with Judecca reserved for the next discovery Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator 1972 children s story by Roald Dahl The Vermicious knids are said to be from Vermes a planet 18 427 000 000 miles from Earth about 5 times the distance of Pluto Rendezvous with Rama 1973 postulates a tenth planet named Persephone which is represented by the Ambassador of Triton The Tenth Planet 1973 a novel set upon the rocky planet Minerva beyond the orbit of Pluto Minervans human colonists who escaped ecological disaster on Earth and Mars live in underground cities above ground the planet is so cold as to have lakes of liquid helium The Forever War 1974 by Joe Haldeman The first part of the novel is set on a trans Plutonian planet called Charon This is not Pluto s moon as the story was written before Charon s discovery in 1978 Schrodinger s Cat trilogy 1980 by Robert Anton Wilson The tenth planet is named Mickey and the eleventh Goofy after characters in Disney cartoons Mostly Harmless 1992 by Douglas Adams The tenth planet is officially called Persephone but nicknamed Rupert after some astronomer s parrot and is inhabited by the crew of a spaceship who have forgotten almost everything about their mission except that they are supposed to be monitoring something The Tenth Planet trilogy 1999 2000 by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch A tenth planet roughly twice the size of the Moon circles the Sun and its alien inhabitants periodically harvest Earth s resources The periodicity of these raids is a consequence of the tenth planet s highly elliptical 2 006 year orbit which closely approaches Earth only on two occasions near the tenth planet s perihelion The tenth planet known as Malmur to its inhabitants is in fact a captured rogue planet ejected from its original solar system Galileo s Dream 2009 by Kim Stanley Robinson There are several outer gas giants named some of which are described as having been converted into energy for time travel The tenth planet is named Hades Take Back the Sky 2016 the third book of the War Dogs trilogy reveals that numerous trans Neptunian planets exist in the distant outer reaches of the Solar System The homeworld of the alien Antags Antagonists is one such planet Called the Sun Planet it is an artificial world consisting of a thin solid surface wrapped around a low density gaseous interior five times the mass of Jupiter and nearly the diameter of the Sun The Sun Planet is kept at a habitable temperature by artificial fusion at its core Included in the Ad Astra Per Aspera canon 2019 present on the SCP Foundation website is the entry SCP 4774 The Ninth Planet citation needed 2018 SCP 4774 is an ontological anomaly concerning the hypothetical Planet Nine a trans Neptunian gas giant potentially orbiting the sun at a distance of around 700 AU Anyone considering SCP 4774 s existence will universally arrive at the same hypotheses regardless of their prior astronomical knowledge A research spacecraft sent to confirm SCP 4774 went missing and was recovered 34 days later than their mission s intended end The crew had no memory of their mission s events but had new hypotheses if it existed SCP 4774 would be incapable of supporting intelligent life if such life could exist proving or disproving the possibility of their existence would threaten their continued existence inexistence 17 Film TV and radio Edit The Tenth Planet radio play broadcast Sept 7 1952 on Hollywood Star Playhouse It starred Joseph Cotten Hans Conreid and Joan Banks Lovejoy Cotten is kidnapped by aliens inhabiting a planet beyond Pluto In the 1975 TV series Star Maidens the planet ruled by women is known as Medusa Described by one of the Medusans as being on the outer limits of your solar system the opening titles of the premiere episode indicates that a comet pulled Medusa out of orbit around Proxima Centauri forcing its people underground and it eventually slipped into orbit around the Earth s Sun No longer in the heat of Proxima Centauri Medusa is small rocky and cold though the Medusans have the technology to conduct industrial operations on the surface Star Trek Maps a 1970s publication by Bantam Books indicates that the Star Trek universe includes a tenth planet in the Solar System called Persephone that orbits at a great distance from the Sun This statement is not supported by any Star Trek film or TV episode the original series episode The Changeling mentions only nine planets exist in the Solar System and a later similar work Star Trek Star Charts by Pocket Books makes no mention of this world ALF 1986 1990 In one episode ALF reveals to Brian that two planets exist beyond Pluto When Willie sarcastically asks if they are named Mickey and Donald ALF matter of factly tells him no they are named Dave and Alvin Later Willie explains that Dave could be Chiron a minor planet once labeled the tenth planet by the press K PAX 2001 film An alien character played by Kevin Spacey tells the character played by Jeff Bridges that there are ten planets in Bridges s Solar System The cartoon Duck Dodgers in the 24 1 2 Century features astronauts Daffy Duck and Porky Pig looking for Planet X and then having to battle Marvin the Martian for it Animation Edit In the anime series The Vision of Escaflowne 1996 there exists an invisible from Earth third member of the Earth Moon system called Gaea on which the majority of the story takes place The Earth which is visible in the Gaean sky along with the Moon is referred to as the Mystic Moon In the anime series Space Battleship Yamato 1974 there are eleven planets in the Solar System In the English dub the first season names the tenth planet Minerva destroyed by the Gamilons it s not clear if it became an entire asteroid belt or just a large asteroid field and the second season names the eleventh planet Brumus attacked by the Comet Empire In the Dragon Ball series 1989 1996 there s a tenth Planet or a brown dwarf called the Makyo Star Every 12 000 years it passes close to Earth which powers all the Makyo demons inhabiting Earth In the Sailor Moon series 1992 1997 there exists a tenth Planet called Nemesis which is controlled by the villains of the Black Moon Clan The planet is said to be radiating negative energy and can disappear from sight only trackable via X rays In the animated television series Exosquad 1993 the Solar System contains an invisible tenth planet composed of dark matter It was discovered by the Pirate Clans who named it Chaos and later offered it as safe haven to the Exofleet In the Mutant Chronicles universe 1993 the 10th Planet Nero is the home of portals used by The Dark Legion to gain access into our galaxy through which they plan to enslave or destroy mankind The planet is named after the Imperial Cardinal who had prophetic visions of the black planet visions which also warned him of death In the animated series The Fairly OddParents 2001 the character Mark Chang is from the planet Yugopotamia which bears an uncanny resemblance to Yuggoth see above which is stated in the episode Totally Spaced Out to be one million one million miles away from Earth almost 10 760 astronomical units within the bounds of the Oort cloud Other Edit Camelot 3000 1982 comic book Scientists discover a tenth planet in 3000 AD It is later revealed to be the homeworld whence the aliens led by Morgana LeFay attack Earth Eventually King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table are teleported there with the help of the Lady of the Lake 2001 Nights 1984 manga by Yukinobu Hoshino Night 7 Lucifer Rising A tenth planet dubbed Lucifer and its three moons Cassius Brutus and Judas named after the souls gnawed on by the heads of Dante s Satan in Dante s Inferno are discovered The expedition to Lucifer becomes a perilous and tragic one when it is discovered that Lucifer is composed of antimatter Godzilla Monster of Monsters 1989 video game Planet X is said to initially exist between Neptune and Pluto and causes the two planets to switch positions in the solar system while Planet X itself becomes the literal tenth planet in the system and is shown to be artificial though mountains and jungles exist on it Galaxy 5000 1991 videogame Planet X the last stage after finishing Pluto which suggests it to be the next planet in the series Battlezone II Combat Commander 1999 computer game A tenth planet called Dark Planet is not discovered for some time because it was obscured by the Kuiper belt Elite Dangerous 2014 video game At some point before the 3300s a ninth planet named Persephone based on the hypothetical Planet Nine was charted in the Solar System and can be traveled to and explored The planet is depicted as an airless ice planet with active geysers it has a semi major axis of 700 AU a radius of 14 427 km a gravity of 1 95G a surface temperature of 20K a mass 9 9997 times the mass of the Earth and an orbital period of 15 000 years Gemini Home Entertainment 2019 present analog horror series A sentient tenth planet named The Iris serves as the series main antagonist Having arrived in the solar system as a rogue planet at an unknown point prior to the series it is masterminding an ongoing assault on it and is directly responsible for the existence of several alien creatures which serve as part of its plans to subjugate Earth and humanity The Iris has five moons Vitreous Macula Umbilic Cyst and Yucous and through unknown means is capable of mutating other planets among the planets that have been manipulated by The Iris in this way are Neptune which has been successfully converted into The Iris s lens and is observed firing an intense beam of light towards the inner solar system and Jupiter which was attacked but unsuccessfully mutated as its Great Red Spot is described in the series as an open wound Magnus Robot Fighter 4 000 A D 1963 comic book Planet X presumably a tenth planet beyond Pluto serves as the original hideout for Xyrkol and is referred to by Magnus in a thought balloon as the planet that is supposed to be uninhabitable Elsewhere in the Solar System EditMonster Zero 怪獣大戦争 Kaiju Daisensō literal translation The Giant Monster War 18 1965 the 6th Godzilla film Aliens from Planet X located between Jupiter and Saturn try to conquer the Earth using Godzilla Rodan and King Ghidorah to take its water supply because water is scarce on their planet The Lost Planet 1953 describes journeys to Hesikos a fictional asteroid with highly eccentric orbit whose humanoid inhabitants renounced nuclear power after a meltdown but have meanwhile developed broadcast telepathy A happy ending ensues when Earthmen provide safe nuclear technology in return for thought projections from Hesikos to reduce fear and aggression here Twin Earth a hypothetical duplicate of the Earth and everything on it in an unspecified location as a thought experiment by philosopher Saul Kripke about names the fact that everything you could say about someone or something on the Earth would be equally true of its counterpart on Twin Earth shows that names can t merely be shorthand for descriptions as they may not uniquely identify a person object The short story The Mysterious Finding Zagadochnaya nahodka by Vladimir Obruchev 1947 features the discovery of an artificial meteorite containing the last message of a race living on a planet similar to Phaeton though it used to be located between Earth and Mars By the time the log is written it is months away from being destroyed by a critical destabilization caused by nuclear bombardment of an extinct volcano Rogue planets EditMain article Rogue planet Rogue planets in fiction usually originate outside the Solar System but their erratic paths lead them to within detectable range of Earth In reality no rogue planet has ever been detected transiting the Solar System When Worlds Collide 1933 novel by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer Extrasolar planets Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta enter the Solar System Bronson Alpha destroys the Earth Bronson Beta assumes its orbit Flash Gordon 1934 comic by Alex Raymond Rogue planet Mongo threatens to collide with Earth Super Neutron 1941 short story by Isaac Asimov where it is claimed that a rogue planet could cause the Sun to explode The Man from Planet X 1951 is an early space alien film In the film the orbit of the hitherto unknown extrasolar Planet X brings it close to Earth Warning from Space 1956 sci fi film by Daiei The rogue planet Planet R enters the solar system on a collision course with Earth Fortunately its arrival is detected by the Pairans residents of a Counter Earth planet who send an envoy to inform humanity of the threat At the last minute a nuclear device is developed and deployed destroying Planet R and saving the Earth Fifth Planet 1963 sci fi novel by Fred Hoyle and his son Geoffrey Hoyle Another star is due to pass close to the Sun close enough for conventional spacecraft to reach it The first planets observed are four gas giants but then an inner Fifth Planet is found It shows signs of life and rival Russian and US expeditions are launched to visit it The Tenth Planet 1966 serial of the Doctor Who TV series An extrasolar planet Mondas enters the Solar System beyond Pluto making it temporarily the tenth planet It originated in the Solar System with an orbit near that of Counter Earth before the native Cybermen powered it with an engine and moved it out of the Solar System Breakaway the first episode of the mid 1970s sci fi series Space 1999 involved an exploration of a rogue planet named Meta 19 Transformers 1984 toys and spinoffs Cybertron is a robot inhabited rogue planet that comes close to Earth In the Generation One cartoon timeline this only occurs after the events of the three part episode The Ultimate Doom in which Cybertron is brought into Earth s solar system and specifically into Earth s actual orbit by the use of a space bridge big enough to transport the entire planet Afterwards it is shown to exist somewhere reasonably close to Earth s Solar System after it is pushed out of Earth s orbit Characters such as Starscream Omega Supreme and Astrotrain are later shown to be able to travel from Earth to Cybertron and back with relative ease depending on the plot of the story Later incarnations of Cybertron are either rogue planets or else have a method of near instant transportation to and from Earth Sunstorm 2005 an alien race from a planet in orbit around Altair sends a rogue Jovian planet into the Sun setting the stage for a solar storm intended to wipe out humanity in the year 2042 Melancholia 2011 a planet emerges from behind the Sun and approaches Earth initially passing by before coming back on a collision course It was written and directed by Lars von Trier See also Edit nbsp Clicking on a planet leads to the article about its depiction in fiction Discovery and exploration of the Solar SystemReferences Edit Uploaded to Project Gutenberg on 5 July 2009 Vulcan s Workshop by Harl Vincent Free Ebook Gutenberg org 2009 07 05 Retrieved 2013 11 16 Republished in the 1963 anthology Exploring Other Worlds ISBN 0 02 023110 5 and the 1973 collection The Men and the Mirror ISBN 0 441 52460 5 Green Nunsowe 1882 A Thousand Years Hence Retrieved 16 September 2009 Don Markstein s Toonopedia Twin Earths Toonopedia com 1952 06 16 Archived from the original on 2014 04 13 Retrieved 2013 11 16 Non Sequitur Comic Strip July 15 2009 on Gocomics com Retrieved 2013 11 16 Actors William Griffis Ralph Bell and Gregory Morton Producers Sherman H Dreyer and Robert Weenolsen 1950 11 15 Worlds Apart 2000 Plus Episode 37 New York NY U S A 26 23 minutes in MBS SNL Transcripts Michael Palin 05 12 79 Weekend Update with Jane Curtin amp Bill Murray snltranscripts jt org Retrieved 2016 10 05 page 130 Heinlein Society Updates Das Zeitauge H G Ewers Perry Rhodan Universe Lemuria Silberband 28 1987 ISBN 3 8118 2043 5 Albino Carbognani Pluto and the astronomy of H P Lovecraft Urania 30 June 2012 Cities in Flight Avon 1970 p 151 MaliceAforethought 27 August 2018 SCP 4774 The Ninth Planet citation needed SCP Foundation Retrieved 22 December 2021 Galbraith IV Stuart 1996 The Japanese Filmography 1900 through 1994 McFarland p 292 ISBN 0 7864 0032 3 Tubb E C 1975 Space 1999 Breakaway USA Pocket Books ISBN 9780671801847 Portals nbsp Astronomy nbsp Stars nbsp Spaceflight nbsp Outer space nbsp Solar System Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Fictional planets of the Solar System amp oldid 1180691555, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
