Setting
Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn is set mostly within the Saturnian system, depicted as accurately as the knowledge of the late 1950s allowed. At that time, only nine satellites had been discovered, the innermost known satellite being Mimas. Asimov describes Mimas as being 340 miles in diameter, but its diameter is now known to be 240 miles. Several of the novel's chapters are set on Titan, which was then thought to be the third largest satellite in the Solar System, after Ganymede and Triton. Its atmosphere is described as "almost as thick as Earth's" and composed mostly of methane. It is now known that Titan is the second largest satellite in the Solar System after Ganymede, and that its atmosphere is denser than Earth's and is 98.4% nitrogen and only 1.6% methane.
The final chapters take place on the asteroid Vesta, which Asimov notes is the brightest of the asteroids. At the time, it was believed that Vesta was 215 miles in diameter, although its mean diameter is now known to be closer to 330 miles.
Read more about this topic: Lucky Starr And The Rings Of Saturn
Famous quotes containing the word setting:
“Love is at the root of all healthy discipline. The desire to be loved is a powerful motivation for children to behave in ways that give their parents pleasure rather than displeasure. it may even be our own long-ago fear of losing our parents’ love that now sometimes makes us uneasy about setting and maintaining limits. We’re afraid we’ll lose the love of our children when we don’t let them have their way.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“Dandyism is the last flicker of heroism in decadent ages.... Dandyism is a setting sun; like the declining star, it is magnificent, without heat and full of melancholy. But alas! the rising tide of democracy, which spreads everywhere and reduces everything to the same level, is daily carrying away these last champions of human pride, and submerging, in the waters of oblivion, the last traces of these remarkable myrmidons.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“One of my playmates, who was apprenticed to a printer, and was somewhat of a wag, asked his master one afternoon if he might go a-fishing, and his master consented. He was gone three months. When he came back, he said that he had been to the Grand Banks, and went to setting type again as if only an afternoon had intervened.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)