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"The permanent government now is the anchorpeople. They don't get elected, and year after year they're responding emotionally to this or that."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Wandering Worlds | ||
| Planets that are attached to no sun, and roam interstellar space. |
This is probably the earliest reference to a planet that is not gravitationally bound to a star.
| Bronson's calculations revealed to him that these wandering spheres would pass very close to the earth, make a circuit of our sun, and turn back toward space and infinity. The larger of the two wandering worlds would strike and annihilate the earth. Finer and more delicate calculations tended to show that the smaller body, which was of the same magnitude as the earth, would be "caught" by the sun and held in an orbit between the courses of Mars and Venus.
It would be an end of the world preceded by the close passage of two mighty planets from some sun lost in the void - two planets which had been pulled from their pathways ages ago by a passing star... |
| Technovelgy from When Worlds Collide,
by Edwin Balmer (w/P. Wylie). Published by University of Nebraska Press in 1932 Additional resources -
|
See also Xenephrene Interstellar World from A Brand New World (1942) by Ray Cummings, rogue planet from Poul Anderson's 1967 novel Satan's World and rogue world from George R.R. Martin's 1977 novel Dying of the Light.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from When Worlds Collide
More Ideas
and Technology by Edwin Balmer (w/P. Wylie)
Tech news articles related to When Worlds Collide
Tech news articles related to works by Edwin Balmer (w/P. Wylie)
Wandering Worlds-related
news articles:
- More Nomad Planets Than Stars?
- Free-Floating Planet Capture Not Rare, Says Paper
- Earth A Rogue Planet? A Wandering World?
| The United States Space Academy Is Official |
| Beautiful Visualization of Dawn Spacecraft |
| Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars |
| Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris |
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'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
'Our planes are going to start bringing in bales of discarded plastics...'
'... completely forgetting the ship at sight of the awesome figure and great head of the giant Gaut...'
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
