An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Historically, these terms have been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not resolve into a disc in a telescope and was not observed to have characteristics of an active comet such as a tail. As minor planets in the outer Solar System were discovered that were found to have volatile-rich surfaces similar to comets, these came to be distinguished from the objects found in the main asteroid belt. Thus the term "asteroid" now generally refers to the minor planets of the inner Solar System, including those co-orbital with Jupiter. Larger asteroids are often called planetoids.
The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. Of the bodies that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the four gas and ice giants and the four terrestrial planets, followed by an unknown number of dwarf planets and innumerable small Solar System bodies. Of the bodies that orbit the Sun indirectly—the natural satellites—two are larger than Mercury, the smallest terrestrial planet, and one is nearly as large.
Space colonization is the hypothetical permanent settlement and exploitation of natural resources at celestial objects other than Earth. As such it is a form of human presence in space, beyond human spaceflight and operating space outposts.
The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange points: either L4, existing 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, or L5, 60° behind. Jupiter trojans are distributed in two elongated, curved regions around these Lagrangian points with an average semi-major axis of about 5.2 AU.
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called asteroids or minor planets. This asteroid belt is also called the main asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System such as near-Earth asteroids and trojan asteroids.
Asteroid mining is the hypothetical exploitation of materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects.
The Grand Tour is a series of novels written by American science fiction author Ben Bova.
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.
Phaeton was the hypothetical planet hypothesized by the Titius–Bode law to have existed between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, the destruction of which supposedly led to the formation of the asteroid belt. The hypothetical planet was named for Phaethon, the son of the sun god Helios in Greek mythology, who attempted to drive his father's solar chariot for a day with disastrous results and was ultimately destroyed by Zeus. However, his name was used historically for Jupiter itself as well.
Wheelers is a hard science fiction novel written by English mathematician Ian Stewart and reproductive biologist Jack Cohen. The book was originally released in hardcover form in the year 2000, and a more common paperback printing was begun in 2001. It has enjoyed modest commercial success and is perhaps best known for its conceptions of alien zoology and intelligence—hallmarks of Cohen's work as a consultant on exobiology for books, movies, and television.
The Hungaria asteroids, also known as the Hungaria group, is a dynamical group of asteroids in the asteroid belt which orbit the Sun with a semi-major axis between 1.78 and 2.00 astronomical units (AU). They are the innermost dense concentration of asteroids in the Solar System—the near-Earth asteroids are much more sparse—and derive their name from their largest member 434 Hungaria. The Hungaria group includes the Hungaria family, a collisional asteroid family which dominates its population.
The Mark of Athena is an American fantasy-adventure novel written by Rick Riordan, based on Greek and Roman mythology. It was published on October 2, 2012, and is the third book in The Heroes of Olympus series, a sequel of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. It is preceded by The Son of Neptune and followed by The House of Hades. The novel is narrated in third-person.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is a young-adult fantasy book series written by Laini Taylor and published by Hachette Book Group, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. It is a complete trilogy, Daughter of Smoke and Bone being published on 27 September 2011 in the United States; Days of Blood and Starlight on 6 November 2012 in the United States; and the third book Dreams of Gods and Monsters on April 1, 2014. The books have been published in a variety of different languages.
Darcy S. Pattison is an American writer of fiction and nonfiction children’s literature, a blogger, writing teacher and indie publisher. Her books have been translated into nine languages. Although she is best known for her work in children’s literature, she is also a writing teacher traveling across the nation presenting her Novel Revision Retreat. She has been featured as a writer and writing teacher in prestigious publications such as Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies, and 2012 Writer's Market. Pattison is also an independent publisher of ebooks for adults in the educational market.
Elvira Woodruff is an American children's writer known for books that include elements of fantasy and history.
Susane Colasanti is an author of realistic, contemporary teen novels. Before becoming a full-time author in 2007, she was a high school science teacher for ten years, and lives in New York City.
Jinx is the first novel (2013) in a middle-grades children's fantasy trilogy by Sage Blackwood, published by Harper Collins. Set in a sentient primeval forest called The Urwald, the novel follows the adventures of a boy named Jinx who is abandoned in the forest and rescued by the wizard Simon Magus. Jinx grows up in Simon's house. After the wizard does a spell on Jinx that causes him to lose his ability to see others' emotions, Jinx runs away to seek help from the evil Bonemaster.
Seveneves is a hard science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson published in 2015. The story tells of the desperate efforts to preserve Homo sapiens in the wake of apocalyptic events on Earth after the unexplained disintegration of the Moon and the remaking of human society as a space-based civilization after a severe genetic bottleneck.
