 | The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(September 2025) |
Impact events have been a recurring theme in fiction since the 1800s.
| The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(September 2025) |
Impact events have been a recurring theme in fiction since the 1800s.
Impact events have been a recurring theme in fiction since the 1800s. [1] David Pringle, in The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction , attributes the emergence of the theme at this time to two advancements in astronomy: the discovery that meteors ("shooting stars") are caused by objects from space entering Earth's atmosphere, and a more acute appreciation of just how many objects exist within the Solar System. [1] Brian Stableford, in Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia , similarly points to comets starting to be discovered by telescope (as opposed to the naked eye) following the first such detection by Maria Mitchell in 1835, and the resulting realization that comets were significantly more common than previously thought. [2] The earliest stories tended to depict impacts by comets, [a] though other objects such as asteroids and meteoroids became more common in the 1900s. [2] The theme received successive boosts in popularity in 1980 with the publication of the Alvarez hypothesis, which states that the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was caused by an asteroid impact that created the Chicxulub crater off the coast of Mexico, [1] [4] [5] and in 1994 with the collision of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with Jupiter. [5] [6] : 79–82 The latter in particular is credited with inspiring a large number of disaster films and other on-screen portrayals of impact events or threats thereof in the years that followed. [5] [6] : 79–82
Impact events are a common disaster scenario in fiction; [7] [8] Dorian Lynskey considers "impact fiction" a distinct subgenre within apocalyptic fiction. [9] Science fiction critic Dylan Roth attributes the theme's popularity in part to its simplicity as a plot device, without the need for more elaborate setup. [10] Andrew Sawyer, in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy , gives impact events as an example of a disaster scenario with no antagonistic being behind it. [11] P. Andrew Karam, in Comets: Nature and Culture, comments that stories of cometary impact events have largely focused less on the scientific aspect and more on the societal ramifications, even in works by authors who might be expected to take a greater interest in the science. [3] : 118–119 Lynskey identifies several recurring tropes, including the character archetype of the astronomer whose warnings go unheeded—in Lynskey's view, a kind of equivalent of Cassandra in classical mythology. [9] Stableford writes that by the beginning of the new millennium, asteroidal impact events and climate change were the two most popular scenarios in apocalyptic fiction. [4] Lynskey writes that "comets and asteroids are interchangeable in impact fiction, and with good reason [...] despite their differences, the effect of a significant collision with the Earth would be much the same". [9]
Attempts to avert impending impact events appear in many stories. [4] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] In George Griffith's 1897 short story "The Great Crellin Comet" (later expanded into the 1907 novel The World Peril of 1910 ), humanity constructs cannons to fire at a comet heading for Earth in order to avert disaster. [2] [17] In the 1916–1917 serial "The Moonmaker" by Arthur Cheney Train and Robert W. Wood, an errant asteroid is diverted to enter Earth orbit as an additional natural satellite instead of striking the Earth, [4] [18] a plot point that recurs in Isaac R. Nathanson's 1930 short story "The Falling Planetoid". [14] [19] In Arthur C. Clarke's 1973 novel Rendezvous with Rama , a disastrous impact motivates humanity to keep close track of Solar System objects thereafter to be able to deflect them, and his 1993 novel The Hammer of God revolves around efforts to avert such a disaster. [1] [6] : 78 [9] [14]
Fictional impact events from more massive celestial objects also appear on occasion. [1] One such motif is of rogue planets—planets that do not orbit the Sun nor any other star—entering the Solar System on a collision course with Earth. [20] [21] A pair of rogue planets in Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie's 1933 novel When Worlds Collide (the 1951 film adaptation substitutes a star and its planet) thus leaves evacuation to one of them as the only hope of survival for a small portion of humanity. [8] [9] [21] In the 2011 film Melancholia , the threat is from the titular giant planet and the focus on the psychological impact on a small number of characters. [9] [22] The Moon serves the impactor role in R. C. Sherriff's 1939 novel The Hopkins Manuscript and the 2022 film Moonfall . [1] [10]
Beyond direct collisions, near misses are also common. [7] In Tove Jansson's 1946 Moomin novel Comet in Moominland , a predicted impact instead turns out a close pass, but heat from the comet nevertheless results in a drought. [3] : 117–118
Besides Earth, impact events may also strike other celestial objects. [23] In Robert Duncan Milne's 1882 short story duology "Into the Sun" and "Plucked from the Burning", society collapses when Earth undergoes a global heat wave as a result of a comet striking the Sun. [2] [12] [24] [25] Collisions with the Moon pose threats to humanity in Jack McDevitt's 1998 novel Moonfall , where the impact shatters the Moon and spreads debris towards Earth, [2] [6] : 78 and Susan Beth Pfeffer's 2010 novel This World We Live In , where it alters the Moon's orbit and causes weather patterns on Earth to be disrupted. [12] [26]
Some stories depict impact events being caused by conscious action. [2] [13] Weaponized comets appear in the 1985 Doctor Who serial "Attack of the Cybermen" and the 1998 episode "Little Girl Lost" of Superman: The Animated Series , in both of which the villains redirect comets towards Earth. [3] : 131 Similarly, Earth is targeted with asteroids by aliens as a form of interplanetary warfare in Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 novel Starship Troopers , Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's 1985 novel Footfall , and David Feintuch's 1996 novel Fisherman's Hope . [5] [13] [14] [27] A human redirects asteroids from the distant Oort cloud towards Earth in an act of attempted mass murder in Don Bingle's 2002 short story "Patience", and an asteroid is set on a collision course with one of the moons of Neptune to create an additional planetary ring in Alastair Reynolds's 2012 short story "Vainglory", [28] while another human-caused—but this time unintentional—impact event appears in Stephen Baxter's 1997 novel Titan . [27]
The 1908 Tunguska event—an enormous explosion in a remote region of Siberia—has appeared in many works of fiction. It is generally held to have been caused by a meteor air burst, though several alternative explanations have been proposed both in scientific circles and in fiction. [1] [29] [30] A popular one in fiction is that it was caused by an alien spaceship, possibly first put forth in Ed Earl Repp's 1930 short story "The Second Missile". [29] [31] It gained prominence following the publication of Russian science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev's 1946 short story "Explosion"; [29] [30] [32] inspired by the similarities between the event and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Kazantsev's story posits that a nuclear explosion in the engine of a spacecraft was responsible. [30] [33] [34] An alien spacecraft is also the explanation in Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem's 1951 novel The Astronauts and its 1960 film adaptation The Silent Star , [30] [32] [35] while a human-made one is to blame in Ian Watson's 1983 novel Chekhov's Journey . [1] [29] [30] Additional variations on the spaceship theme appear in Donald R. Bensen's 1978 novel And Having Writ... and Algis Budrys's 1993 novel Hard Landing , among others. [29] Another proposed explanation is that the cause was the impact of a micro black hole, as in Larry Niven's 1975 short story "The Borderland of Sol". [30] Some stories nevertheless accept the conventional meteorite explanation, such as the 1996 The X-Files episode "Tunguska" that instead revolves around the impact possibly having introduced alien microbial life to Earth. [30]
Both sets of objects are the source of impacts onto the Earth and other planets, events that have been used in many science fiction stories (see Apocalypse; Disaster).
Post-World War 2, aerial photos of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were compared with photos of the flattened Siberian taiga. They were stunningly similar. It took less than six months for someone to draw the obvious conclusion. A. Kasantsev, a science-fiction author, published a short story in January 1946 in which he offered serious speculation that an alien spacecraft powered by nuclear motors had blown up above Tunguska.