Fictional planets of the Solar System

Anomalies in Mercury's orbit around the Sun led Urbain Le Verrier to propose the existence of an unseen planet with an orbit interior to Mercury's exerting gravitational influence in 1859, similar to how irregularities in Uranus' orbit had led to his mathematical prediction of Neptune and its subsequent discovery in 1846. This hypothesized planet was dubbed "Vulcan", and it subsequently made several appearances in works of fiction. Mercury's orbital anomalies are now understood to be caused by the effects of general relativity, and Vulcan was thus conclusively dismissed as a serious scientific theory in 1915, having by then already largely fallen out of favour as a result of extensive search failing to result in direct observation of the planet to confirm its existence. Vulcan nevertheless remained popular in pulp science fiction. It was often depicted as small and dense, explaining how it could have gone undetected telescopically despite being massive enough to alter Mercury's orbit. in Leigh Brackett's 1942 short story "Child of the Sun", the interior is inhabited by an intelligent lifeform; The name "Vulcan" has continued to be used in science fiction to refer to other celestial objects as in the 1966 Doctor Who serial "The Power of the Daleks", and has come to be most associated with the extrasolar planet Vulcan in the Star Trek franchise. == Counter-Earth ==

and the fictional Counter-Earth (Gor). The two planets are always hidden from each other's view by the Sun. In reality, this orbital arrangement would not be stable. The position of Counter-Earth on the other side of the Sun corresponds to the Sun–Earth L3 Lagrange point. Counter-Earth is variously depicted as very similar to Earth or very different, and often employed as a vehicle for satire. Variations on the concept have also appeared. and 's 1981 novel A Gift of Mirrorvax. A planet hidden on the other side of the Moon, rather than Sun, appears in Paul Ernst's 1931 short story "The World Behind the Moon" and W. J. Passingham's 1938 short story likewise titled "The World Behind the Moon". The Mars equivalent, Counter-Mars, also appears occasionally. == Phaëton ==

A now-superseded theory to explain the existence of the asteroid belt that was popular in the 1800s was that it consists of the remnants of a planet predicted by the Titius–Bode law to exist between Mars and Jupiter that had somehow been destroyed. in science fiction, it is often called "Bodia" after Johann Elert Bode. 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. 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". 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". 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. Following the invention of the atomic bomb in 1945, stories of this planetary destruction became increasingly common, encouraged by the advent of a plausible-seeming means of disintegration. Robert A. Heinlein's 1948 novel Space Cadet thus states that the fifth planet was destroyed as a result of nuclear war, and in Ray Bradbury's 1948 short story "Asleep in Armageddon" ( "Perchance to Dream"), the ghosts of the former warring factions infect the mind of an astronaut stranded on an asteroid. Several works of the 1950s reused the idea to warn of the dangers of nuclear weapons, including Lord Dunsany's 1954 Joseph Jorkens short story "The Gods of Clay" and James Blish's 1957 novel The Frozen Year ( Fallen Star). and in Harry Harrison's 1969 novel Plague Ship, an ancient virus is found in the asteroid remnants. Paul Preuss's 1985 short story "Small Bodies", where fossils are found on an asteroid, is a late example of the destroyed planet theme; it has otherwise largely been relegated to deliberately retro works such as the 1989 tabletop role-playing game Space: 1889. A variation on the theme appears in Clifford D. Simak's 1973 short story "Construction Shack", where the asteroids are leftover material originally intended for the construction of a fifth planet. == Trans-Neptunian planets ==

Planets beyond the orbit of Neptune, or even Pluto, appear in several works of science fiction. Pluto was held to be the ninth and outermost planet of the Solar System from its 1930 discovery until its reclassification from planet to dwarf planet in 2006; The most common name for this hypothetical outermost planet is "Persephone", as in Jack Williamson's 1937 short story "The Blue Spot" and several works by Arthur C. Clarke such as the 1946 short story "Rescue Party" and the 1973 novel Rendezvous with Rama, though many other names appear as well. Two 1931 short stories by Victor Rousseau Emanuel feature such planets: "Outlaws of the Sun", where the planet Circe has low gravity and is inhabited by primitive giants, and "Revolt on Inferno", where the planet Inferno has a hostile environment and is used as a remote penal colony. In Henry Kuttner's 1942 short story "We Guard the Black Planet!", the titular tenth planet is inhabited by winged humanoids identified with the Valkyries of Norse mythology. It becomes the destination for those fleeing Earth in Philip K. Dick's 1955 novel Solar Lottery ( World of Chance) and Edmund Cooper's 1973 novel The Tenth Planet. Larry Niven's 1975 short story "The Borderland of Sol" describes four additional planets in the outer reaches of the Solar System. A very distant gas giant appears in Niven and Jerry Pournelle's 1977 novel ''Lucifer's Hammer'', where its gravitational influence alters the trajectory of a comet and puts it on a collision course with Earth, and another appears in Peter Watts' 2006 novel Blindsight. == Elsewhere in the Solar System ==

Science fiction bibliographers E. F. Bleiler and Richard Bleiler, in the 1998 reference work Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years, list various imaginary constituents of the pre-modern "science-fiction Solar System". Among these are planets between Venus and Earth, planets on the inside of a hollow Earth, and a planet "behind the Earth". ==Rogue planets==

So-called rogue planets, those that do not orbit the Sun nor any other star, occasionally turn up in the Solar System in works of fiction. Such a planet colliding with Earth, or threatening to do so, is a recurring motif in apocalyptic fiction. A rogue planet that enters the Solar System without threatening impact with other celestial objects appears in Ross Rocklynne's 1938 short story "The Men and the Mirror". Similarly, some stories depict additional stars entering the Solar System from without, as in Isaac Asimov's 1989 novel Nemesis, where the errant star is orbited by planets of its own. Another variation on the rogue planet motif involves planets in the Solar System leaving their orbit around the Sun and becoming rogue planets drifting through space, as happens to the Earth by chance in Fritz Leiber's 1951 short story "A Pail of Air" and by design in Liu Cixin's 2000 short story "The Wandering Earth" and its 2019 film adaptation; the same fate befalls the Moon in the 1975–1977 television series Space: 1999 and all of the planets in Edmond Hamilton's 1934 short story "Thundering Worlds". ==See also==