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"I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Xenephrene Interstellar World | ||
| A planet not attached to a solar system. |
| By mid-December, at a convention of
astronomers held in London, the new
world was named Xenephrene. Father
went over in one of the mail planes and
read his afterward famous paper, suggesting
the name, and giving his calculation
of the elements of the orbit of this
new heavenly body. It, was the most
startling announcement which had yet
been made, and for one newspaper
edition it got the first page. And I was
ordered to give nine minutes of broadcasting
time to it. "Xenephrene" was a globe not quite, but very nearly as large as the earth. It had come whirling in like a comet from the star-filled regions of outer space; presumably like a comet to encircle our sun and then, with a hyperbolic orbit, to depart from us forever. , It had come visually into our northern heavens, and crossed the earth's orbit on the opposite side of the sun from us. It encircled the sun - this was in December—made its turn between the orbits of Mercury and Venus, and now was supposedly departing. |
| Technovelgy from A Brand New World,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Famous Fantastic Mysteries in 1942 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the first use of the term rogue planet from Satan's World (1967) by Poul Anderson, rogue world from George R.R. Martin's 1977 novel Dying of the Light and wandering worlds from When Worlds Collide (1932) by Edwin Balmer (w/P. Wylie).
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More Ideas
and Technology from A Brand New World
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Tech news articles related to works by Ray Cummings
| Crystalline Structures In Space, You Say? |
| Amazing Photonic Crystal Light Sail |
| The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds |
| Will Space Stations Have Large Interior Spaces Again? |
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