Planetary Systems in Fiction - Overview

Overview

The notion that there might be inhabited extrasolar planets can be traced at least as far back as Giordano Bruno who, in his De l'infinito, universo e mondi (On the Infinite Universe and Worlds, 1584), declared that "There are then innumerable suns, and an infinite number of earths revolve around those suns, ... if not exactly as our own, and if not more nobly, at least no less inhabited and no less nobly." Allusions to inhabitants of other stars' planetary systems remained rare in literature for some centuries thereafter. One of these is found in Voltaire's Micromégas (1752), which features a traveller from Sirius.

As science fiction became established in the early 20th century, destinations such as the Moon, Mars, Venus, and other bodies within the Solar System began to seem stale. Authors invoked a variety of mechanisms for superluminal travel and placed their stories on worlds in planetary systems around other stars, an innovation that gave them the freedom to construct exotic fictional planets and themes. This tendency became predominant once the exploration of the Solar System was complete enough to conclusively demonstrate the unlikelihood of any highly developed form of extraterrestrial life here.

Although some of the stars named in works of science fiction are purely imaginary, many authors and artists have preferred to use the names of real stars that are well known to astronomers, and indeed the lay public, either because they are notably bright in the sky or because they are relatively close to Earth.