 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti [1] is a novel series by Malka Older set in a human colony in the atmosphere of Jupiter. The stories are detective fiction in a setting both extraordinary and familiar.
Earth has suffered ecological catastrophe and become uninhabitable. An attempt to colonize Mars also made it uninhabitable. Centuries later, people live in artificial habitats, one particular set of habitats being in the atmosphere of Jupiter, which the colonists refer to as "Giant". A ring around the entire planet supports the habitats and links them via a rail system. One habitat hosts Valdegeld University, working to rediscover Earth's ecology so it can be reconstructed. Plants and animals from Earth are preserved and nurtured in another institution popularly known as the "mauzooleum". People live under an "atmoshield" and sometimes brave cold and winds wearing warm clothing and an "atmoscarf". Night and day are governed by Jupiter's 9 hour rotation, called a "diurnal". People choose which parts of a diurnal to use as their "day".
The main characters in the novels are two women, Pleiti and Mossa, who were lovers when younger but separated after quarreling. Pleiti is an academic in the Classics discipline, which tries to discover the relationships between species by studying old literature. Mossa has become an Investigator, an independent police agent. Most of her cases, and of the Guild of Investigators, are disappearances. These are a common occurrence on Giant, as people can simply step off into the atmosphere and fall into the planet.
Pleiti leads a cloistered life, doing her work and mentoring students. All her needs are taken care of in her rooms, very much like those of an Oxford don. Mossa is adept at gathering data and analyzing it, but Pleiti will see relationships that Mossa cannot.
Through the series, it becomes apparent that some factions are unhappy with the lack of progress made in reconstructing Earth's ecology, and are looking for ways to accelerate the effort. Others are threatened by such efforts, which may disrupt their comfortable lives.
The titles are quotes from one of the protagonists. After an chapter introducing the crime, the narrative continues in the first person from Pleiti's viewpoint.
A man has arrived at a rail terminus, but never taken a rail car back from there. There is no evidence that he left the terminus by any means. His reported state of mind made it unlikely he committed suicide by jumping off. Mossa asks for Pleiti's help, since the man was a colleague at Valdegeld. Soon there is a murder, the victim seeming to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Continuing the investigation may put Pleiti and Mossa themselves in danger.
Investigating another disappearance from Valdegeld, Mossa discovers that no fewer than 17 people of different backgrounds have disappeared. Mossa tries to find connections between them, and she and Pleiti go to the moon Io, where Mossa was born, to connect them through their families and political affiliations.
A giant planet, sometimes referred to as a jovian planet, is a diverse type of planet much larger than Earth. Giant planets are usually primarily composed of low-boiling point materials (volatiles), rather than rock or other solid matter, but massive solid planets can also exist. There are four such planets in the Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Many extrasolar giant planets have been identified.
Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable for humans to live on.
2010: Odyssey Two is a 1982 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. It is the sequel to his 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, though Clarke changed some elements of the story to align with the film version of 2001.
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun. A gas giant, it is the largest in the Solar System. Jupiter's mass is more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined and slightly less than one one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Jupiter orbits the Sun at a distance of 5.20 AU (778.5 Gm), with an orbital period of 11.86 years. It is the third brightest natural object in the Earth's night sky, after the Moon and Venus, and has been observed since prehistoric times. Its name derives from that of Jupiter, the chief deity of ancient Roman religion.
In planetary astronomy and astrobiology, the Rare Earth hypothesis argues that the origin of life and the evolution of biological complexity, such as sexually reproducing, multicellular organisms on Earth, and subsequently human intelligence, required an improbable combination of astrophysical and geological events and circumstances. According to the hypothesis, complex extraterrestrial life is an improbable phenomenon and likely to be rare throughout the universe as a whole. The term "Rare Earth" originates from Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe (2000), a book by Peter Ward, a geologist and paleontologist, and Donald E. Brownlee, an astronomer and astrobiologist, both faculty members at the University of Washington.
Inconstant Moon is a science fiction short story collection by American author Larry Niven that was published in 1973. "Inconstant Moon" is also a 1971 short story that is included in the collection. The title refers to "O, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon", a quote from the balcony scene in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The collection was assembled from the US collections The Shape of Space and All the Myriad Ways.
Planetary habitability is the measure of a planet's or a natural satellite's potential to develop and maintain environments hospitable to life. Life may be generated directly on a planet or satellite endogenously or be transferred to it from another body, through a hypothetical process known as panspermia. Environments do not need to contain life to be considered habitable nor are accepted habitable zones (HZ) the only areas in which life might arise.
In science fiction and fantasy, floating cities and islands are a common trope, ranging from cities and islands that float on water to ones that float in the atmosphere of a planet by purported scientific technologies or by magical means. While very large floating structures have been constructed or proposed in real life, aerial cities and islands remain in the realm of fiction.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, has appeared in works of fiction across several centuries. The way the planet has been depicted has evolved as more has become known about its composition; it was initially portrayed as being entirely solid, later as having a high-pressure atmosphere with a solid surface underneath, and finally as being entirely gaseous. It was a popular setting during the pulp era of science fiction. Life on the planet has variously been depicted as identical to humans, larger versions of humans, and non-human. Non-human life on Jupiter has been portrayed as primitive in some works and more advanced than humans in others.
Saturn has made appearances in fiction since the 1752 novel Micromégas by Voltaire. In the earliest depictions, it was portrayed as having a solid surface rather than its actual gaseous composition. In many of these works, the planet is inhabited by aliens that are usually portrayed as being more advanced than humans. In modern science fiction, the Saturnian atmosphere sometimes hosts floating settlements. The planet is occasionally visited by humans and its rings are sometimes mined for resources.
The Grand Tour is a series of novels written by American science fiction author Ben Bova.
"Founding Father" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the October 1965 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, and reprinted in the 1975 collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories. It was inspired by a cover painting of a space-helmeted face backed by several crosses, provided by the magazine's editor, Frederik Pohl.
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 habitability of natural satellites is the potential of moons to provide habitats for life, though it is not an indicator that they harbor it. Natural satellites are expected to outnumber planets by a large margin and the study of their habitability is therefore important to astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life. There are, nevertheless, significant environmental variables specific to moons.
WASP-17b is an exoplanet in the constellation Scorpius that is orbiting the star WASP-17. Its discovery was announced on 11 August 2009. It is the first planet discovered to have a retrograde orbit, meaning it orbits in a direction counter to the rotation of its host star. This discovery challenged traditional planetary formation theory. In terms of diameter, WASP-17b is one of the largest exoplanets discovered and at half Jupiter's mass, this made it the most puffy planet known in 2010. On 3 December 2013, scientists working with the Hubble Space Telescope reported detecting water in the exoplanet's atmosphere.
A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" was originally synonymous with "giant planet". However, in the 1990s, it became known that Uranus and Neptune are really a distinct class of giant planets, being composed mainly of heavier volatile substances. For this reason, Uranus and Neptune are now often classified in the separate category of ice giants.
Seveneves is a 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.
Malka Ann Older is an American author, academic, and humanitarian aid worker. She was named the 2015 Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and has more than eight years' experience in humanitarian aid and development.
The Murderbot Diaries is a science fiction series by American author Martha Wells, published by Tor Books. The series is about a cyborg-like construct designed as a Security Unit (SecUnit). The SecUnit manages to override its governor module, thus enabling it to develop independence, which it primarily uses to watch media. As it spends more time with a series of caring people, it starts developing friendships and emotional connections, which it finds inconvenient.
 | This article needs additional or more specific categories .(July 2024) |
