Asteroids have appeared in fiction since at least the late 1800s,[a] the first one—Ceres—having been discovered in 1801. They were initially only used infrequently as writers preferred the planets as settings. The once-popular Phaëton hypothesis, which states that the asteroid belt consists of the remnants of the former fifth planet that existed in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter before somehow being destroyed, has been a recurring theme with various explanations for the planet's destruction proposed. This hypothetical former planet is in science fiction often called "Bodia" in reference to Johann Elert Bode, for whom the since-discredited Titius–Bode law that predicts the planet's existence is named.
By the early 1900s, the asteroids started making more regular appearances. The asteroid field has often been depicted as having asteroids so close together as to impede travel, though this became less common later in the century as writers started portraying a more realistic density. Because the asteroids are so small, they are usually not depicted as inhabited—though in some works they are nevertheless habitable. In other works they are made so by human activity, be it terraforming or hollowing out to create habitats on the inside. The latter concept has also been used for turning asteroids into spacecraft. Human activity in the asteroid belt has featured frequently since the pulp era of science fiction, particularly in the form of asteroid mining. Space piracy also debuted as a theme around the same time. In works where the asteroid belt is settled by humans, it is often conceptually similar to the Wild West.
The threat of impact events by asteroids has been a recurring theme. It received successive boosts in popularity following the end of World War II (possibly as a result of nuclear anxiety), the 1980 publication of the Alvarez hypothesis about the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the 1994 impact of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 on Jupiter. Many stories involve attempts to alter asteroid trajectories to avert such collisions, while in some stories they are instead caused intentionally.
How might it be if Ceres and Pallas were just a pair of fragments, or portions of a once greater planet which at one time occupied its proper place between Mars and Jupiter, and was in size more analogous to the other planets, and perhaps millions of years ago, had, either through the impact of a comet, or from an internal explosion, burst into pieces?
The first asteroid—Ceres—was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801.[3][4] For the rest of that century, however, asteroids rarely appeared in fiction—writers preferring the planets as settings.[4][5] When German astronomer Heinrich Olbers discovered a second asteroid—Pallas—in the same orbit in 1802, he theorized that these objects were remnants of a planet predicted by the Titius–Bode law to exist between Mars and Jupiter that had somehow been destroyed.[2][4][6] This became a popular explanation for the existence of the asteroid belt, though it has since been superseded by the notion that the material never coalesced into a planet in the first place.[3][4][5][7] In astronomy, this hypothetical former fifth planet is known as Phaëton;[6] in science fiction, it is often called "Bodia" after Johann Elert Bode.[5][8] An early science fiction work that mentions this explanation for the origin of the asteroids is Robert Cromie's 1895 novel The Crack of Doom, which describes the release of energy stored in atomic nuclei a few thousand years ago as the culprit.[3][5][9]
By the pulp era of science fiction, Bodia was a recurring theme. In these stories it is typically similar to Earth and inhabited by humans, often advanced humans and occasionally the ancestors of humans on Earth.[4][8][10][11] Interplanetary warfare with Mars causes the destruction of Bodia—and indirectly, the end of civilization on Mars—in Harl Vincent's 1930 short story "Before the Asteroids".[5][12] An internal disaster resulting in the explosion of the planetary core is responsible in John Francis Kalland's 1932 short story "The Sages of Eros".[4][13] In Leslie F. Stone's 1934 short story "The Rape of the Solar System", war with Mars over the colonization of then-uninhabited Earth results both in the partial destruction of Bodia, thus creating the asteroids, and the displacement of the largest fragment to a much wider orbit to create Pluto, while the settlers on Earth eventually become humanity.[5][14]
Asteroids started making more frequent appearances in fiction in the early 1900s, and these works tended to depict the asteroid belt as a region that must be navigated carefully lest one's spaceship should collide with one of the asteroids.[3][4][5][16] The space opera subgenre in particular often features this motif.[3] In Isaac Asimov's 1939 short story "Marooned off Vesta", a group of astronauts run into this danger,[3][5][16] and in Williamson's 1949 novel Seetee Shock, a region of space is virtually impassable for this reason.[3][5] The problem is circumvented in Mark Clifton's 1960 novel Eight Keys to Eden by exploiting the third dimension of space, since the asteroids are mostly located in the plane of the ecliptic.[3]
Later works mostly recognize that the individual asteroids are very far apart: the average distance between them is comparable to the Earth–Moon distance.[3][5][23] Accordingly, they pose little danger to spacecraft,[5] though this need not necessarily be the case in asteroid fields outside of our Solar System.[20] Nevertheless, the idea of a thick asteroid field that poses constant danger to any spaceship within it recurs in the 1979 video game Asteroids,[5] and close-quarter dogfights between spacecraft among asteroids appear in the 1980 Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back and the 1995–1996 television series Space: Above and Beyond.[20] A densely packed extrasolar asteroid field in the Alpha Centauri system also appears in the 1981 episode "The Golden Man" of the television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.[23]Piers Anthony's 1984 novel Mercenary goes so far in its adaptation of the 1241 Mongol invasion of Hungary to the asteroid belt that it treats space as two-dimensional and constrains movement accordingly.[3][24]
^ abMurdin, Paul (2016). "Pallas: A Second New Planet". Rock Legends: The Asteroids and Their Discoverers. Springer. p. 42. ISBN978-3-319-31836-3. Within weeks of his discovery, Olbers had an explanation for why there were two planets in the same orbit. [...] Olbers fleshed out the idea in a letter to William Herschel on May 17, 1802
^ abCaryad; Römer, Thomas; Zingsem, Vera (2014). "Steine vom Himmel – und eine Lücke im Sonnensystem" [Rocks from the Sky – and a Gap in the Solar System]. Wanderer am Himmel: Die Welt der Planeten in Astronomie und Mythologie [Wanderers in the Sky: The World of the Planets in Astronomy and Mythology] (in German). Springer-Verlag. pp. 162–164. ISBN978-3-642-55343-1.
^ abcdefghijklmnHampton, Steven (Summer 2000). Lee, Tony (ed.). "Momentos of Creation: Asteroids & Comets in SF". The Planets Project: A Science Fictional Tour of the Solar System. The Zone. No. 9. pp. 6–7. ISSN1351-5217.
^ abcBloom, Steven D. (2016). "Asteroids, Comets, and Impacts". The Physics and Astronomy of Science Fiction: Understanding Interstellar Travel, Teleportation, Time Travel, Alien Life and Other Genre Fixtures. McFarland. pp. 57–60. ISBN978-0-7864-7053-2.
^Booker, M. Keith (2014). "MacLean, Katherine (1925–)". Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 165. ISBN978-0-8108-7884-6. One important series of interrelated stories was the "Hills of Space" sequence, dealing with the colonization of the asteroids by outcasts from earth. This series began with "Incommunicado" (1950) and extended through several stories to "The Gambling Hell and the Sinful Girl" (1975).
^Booker, M. Keith (2014). "Terraforming". Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 301. ISBN978-0-8108-7884-6.
^Booker, M. Keith (2014). "Space Elevator". Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 277. ISBN978-0-8108-7884-6.