Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Latest By
Category:


Armor
Artificial Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work

"Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn't often, on their own, the hard way."
- Robert Heinlein

Twilight Belt  
  The narrow zone of livable territory on a tidally-locked planet.  

This is a unique term, but not a new idea.

It was a mining station situated on the twilight-belt of the planet, in the borderline between that face of Mercury which presented always to the sun, baked in a terrifying furnace heat of 300°C., and the other face which, presented always to starlit space, frozen in the intense cold of minus 273°C.


(Twilight Belt from 'The Mystery of the Twilight Belt' by JNT Lintott)

...He was Franz Arnheim. chief surveyor, returned but an hour ago from one of his perilous journeys along the twilight belt between a fiery desert on one side and a frost-tortured wilderness on the other.

Technovelgy from The Mystery of the Twilight Belt, by J.N.T. Lintott.
Published by Scoops in 1934
Additional resources -

Not an easy planet for walking around on...

The two men were a hundred yards from the station and disappearing behind a ridge of rock.

The sun, a huge ball of white fire hanging low on the horizon, heal pitilessly down on Hewat's left side as he started off on their track. They went along the sunny side of the twilight belt, threading their way between huge boulders that lay half buried in the white and yellow sand. Further out on the hot side of the planet were lakes and rivers of molten metal and swamps of molten lava bubbling eternally in the frightful blasts of heat.

Hewat knew that it was safer for him to keep in the darkness night ridden fringes of the twilight belt. Here were bitter cold and eternal blackness that became ever more intense away from the twilight belt, terrifying expanses of icy desolation where the last vestiges of the Mercurian air lay chained forever as solid oxygen and nitrogen.

See ribbon world from Foundation and Empire (1952) by Isaac Asimov for a detailed discussion.

Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |

Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Mystery of the Twilight Belt
  More Ideas and Technology by J.N.T. Lintott
  Tech news articles related to The Mystery of the Twilight Belt
  Tech news articles related to works by J.N.T. Lintott

Articles related to Space Tech
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space

Want to Contribute an Item? It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add it here.

<Previous
Next>

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

 

 

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Science Fiction in the News

Health Kiosk Has No Human Doctor
'The electronic body analyzer had been developed...'

Meta's Horizon Studio's Unique Avatars From Text Prompts
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'

VaMEx Biomimetic Mars Robot Inspired By Skink
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'

NEO Brain Computer Interface (BCI)
'The remains of the lace took on the rough shape of a brain...'

Did Frank Herbert Predict Bistable Displays Like E-Ink?
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'

Monolith One Giant Industrial Metal 3D-printer
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'

'Mooncrete' Lunar Regolith Concrete (LRC)
'And here they began to build...'

China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'

MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'

Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'

More SF in the News

More Beyond Technovelgy

Home | Glossary | Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.