Fictional representations of Mars have been popular for over a century. Interest in Mars has been stimulated by the planet's dramatic red color, by early scientific speculations that its surface conditions might be capable of supporting life, and by the possibility that Mars could be colonized by humans in the future. Almost as popular as stories about Mars are stories about Martians engaging in activity away from their home planet.
Percival Lawrence Lowell was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death.
The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, the dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—the moons—two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury.
Timeline of Solar System astronomy
The Mars trilogy is a series of science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson that chronicles the settlement and terraforming of the planet Mars through the personal and detailed viewpoints of a wide variety of characters spanning almost two centuries. Ultimately more utopian than dystopian, the story focuses on egalitarian, sociological, and scientific advances made on Mars, while Earth suffers from overpopulation and ecological disaster.
Uncrewed spacecraft or unmanned spacecraft are spacecraft without people on board, used for robotic spaceflight. Uncrewed spacecraft may have varying levels of autonomy from human input; they may be remote controlled, remote guided or even autonomous, meaning they have a pre-programmed list of operations, which they will execute unless otherwise instructed.
The Martian Way is a science fiction novella by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections The Martian Way and Other Stories (1955), The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973), and Robot Dreams (1986). It was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two (1973) after being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965.
Forty Signs of Rain (2004) is the first book in the hard science fiction "Science in the Capital" trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Robinson has been nicknamed the "Master of Disaster" for his description of natural disasters based partly on the contents of this book.
The picturesque planet Saturn is featured in numerous works of science fiction. Early works of science fiction used Saturn itself as a location for stories, but modern science has shown that the planet has no solid surface on which one could land, and that its atmosphere and temperature are hostile to human life. As a result, the Saturnian system as a whole, including its planetary rings and its extensive system of moons, is a more common setting for science fiction.
Several of Saturn's natural satellites have figured prominently in works of science fiction.
Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos. Due to their small size, both moons were discovered only in 1877, by astronomer Asaph Hall. Nevertheless, they frequently feature in works of science fiction.
A space probe or a spaceprobe is a robotic spacecraft that does not orbit around the Earth, but instead, explores further into outer space. A spaceprobe may approach the Moon; travel through interplanetary space; flyby, orbit, or land on other planetary bodies; or enter interstellar space.
The exploration of Saturn has been solely performed by crewless probes. Three missions were flybys, which formed an extended foundation of knowledge about the system. The Cassini–Huygens spacecraft, launched in 1997, was in orbit from 2004 to 2017.
Discovery and exploration of the Solar System is observation, visitation, and increase in knowledge and understanding of Earth's "cosmic neighborhood". This includes the Sun, Earth and the Moon, the major planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, their satellites, as well as smaller bodies including comets, asteroids, and dust.
The Solar System — our Sun’s system of planets, moons, and smaller debris — is humankind’s cosmic backyard. Small by factors of millions compared to interstellar distances, the spaces between the planets are daunting, but technologically surmountable
The Voyager Classics Collection was published by Voyager Books 'to celebrate the greatest works of science fiction and fantasy'. It consists of the following 36 titles :
- The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (1954)
- The Once and Future King by T. H. White (1958)
- Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951)
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
- Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1992)
- The Two Towers by J R R Tolkien (1954)
- Weaveworld by Clive Barker (1987)
- The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke (1986)
- The Game-Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick (1963)
- Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)
- Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1993)
- The Return of the King by J R R Tolkien (1955)
- Out of the Silent Planet/Perelandra by C. S. Lewis (1938)/(1943)
- Shadowland by Peter Straub (1980)
- Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1996)
- That Hideous Strength by C S Lewis (1945)
- I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (1950)
- The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950)
- Magician by Raymond E. Feist (1982)
- The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter (1995)
- The Silmarillion by J R R Tolkien (1977)
- Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen Donaldson (1977)
- Neverness by David Zindell (1988)
- The Illearth War by Stephen Donaldson (1978)
- The Diamond Throne by David Eddings (1989)
- Counter-Clock World by Philip K Dick (1967)
- At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft (1936)
- Cloven Hooves by Megan Lindholm (1991)
- The Power that Preserves by Stephen Donaldson (1979)
- The Ruby Knight by David Eddings (1991)
- The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury (1951)
- Shikasta by Doris Lessing (1979)
- The Sapphire Rose by David Eddings (1992)
- Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith (1994)
- Imajica by Clive Barker (1991)
The exploration of Pluto began with the arrival of the New Horizons probe in July 2015, though proposals for such a mission had been studied for many decades. There are no plans as yet for a follow-up mission, though follow-up concepts have been studied.
The Secret of the Ninth Planet is a science-fiction novel written by Donald A. Wollheim and first published in the United States in 1959 by the John C. Winston Co. Wollheim takes his heroes on a grand tour of the solar system as that team struggles to prevent an alien force from blowing up the sun. This is the last of three juvenile novels that Wollheim wrote for Winston, the other two being The Secret of Saturn's Rings and The Secret of the Martian Moons.
This is a bibliography of American science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson.
"Green Mars" is a science fiction novella by the American writer Kim Stanley Robinson, first published in Asimov's Science Fiction in September 1985, eight years before his novel of the same name.
