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"it slowly dawned on me that the landscape of science is maybe what interests people a great deal in science fiction."
- Gregory Benford
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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
resources:
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?
| JAXA Int Ball 2 Coming Right Along As Star Wars Remote |
| Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now |
| Denmark Joins The 'Zero Debris Charter' To Clean Up Space |
| Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle |
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Science Fiction
Timeline
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
