Questions tagged [planets]
Planets are large celestial bodies in orbit around a star. Sometimes, large moons are also called planets - especially if they are able to support some kind of life. A typically habitable planet is about 6,000 kilometres in diameter, while large gas giants can be much bigger. Planets can be host to millions of sentient inhabitants, or barren wastelands, or anywhere in between.
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Sol Ⅲ = Earth: What is the origin of this planetary naming scheme?
It appears to be a fairly common planetary naming scheme in science fiction: Take the common name (or its bayer designation) of star and append the planetary ordinal in the form of a Roman or Arabic ...
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Why the "Class M" label?
I've never understood the significance behind labeling habitable planets in the Star Trek universe as "Class M".
Does the "M" stand for something?
Or are there classes A-Z and the habitable class ...
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Does the Disney canon of Star Wars include any multiple-biome planets?
Star Wars is quite famous for fitting the Single Biome Planet trope to a T (warning: TVTropes link). You have the desert worlds of Tatooine and Jakku, the Forest Moon of Endor, the woodland planet of ...
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Why had humanity not visited this planet?
I've been thinking about this since I saw the movie a few weeks ago and I haven't been able to put my finger on a definitive answer so I figured I'd ask here.
At the end of Interstellar
Why hadn't ...
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Two men are guests on a planet terraformed some generations ago. All earth livestock died. Local animals cannot be eaten. Served meat in a meal
After having being treated to a huge banquet by their hosts, the two visitors remember being told that all the animals they brought with them, in the ship that founded the settlement, died.
None of ...
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Anthology: underwater aliens / an impassable wall / a moon with an incredibly low orbit
I am looking for the names of these three short stories that I read long back in an anthology of sci-fi stories.
First Story: It's about a planet mostly water that has been seeded by some ...
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Was Tatooine part of the Galactic Republic before the Clone Wars?
This question seems to assume that Tatooine allowed slavery because it wasn't part of the Galactic Republic. I'm not sure about that. Wookieepedia doesn't address the issue, merely reinforcing the ...
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What is the first work to feature a planet that is one city?
Many sci-fi works have planets which are just one big city. (e.g. Trantor in Foundation and Coruscant in Star Wars)
What was the first work to do so?
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Short science fiction story. Human worker in peril on a planet. Surface is covered in shallow water. If he becomes exhausted and lies down, will drown
Science fiction short story by Heinlein.
Many humans are working on the surface of an alien planet (possibly Venus.) They are dropped off individually to work. They insist on proof they will be picked ...
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How deep was Coruscant's surface buried?
I knew that Coruscant's undercity received no light, but I didn't realize how big it was. In the trailer for the upcoming game Star Wars 1313, a panoramic shot of level 1313 is shown:
You can easily ...
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Which (non-Earth) planet appears in the most Star Trek episodes?
Which planet, other than Earth, appears in the most episodes of Star Trek?
Clarifications:
"appears" means a scene in the episode is actually set there (mention of a planet is not sufficient)
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How do all the planets in the Star Wars universe contain breathable atmosphere and Earth gravity?
All sorts of different species inhabit the Star Wars universe. How is it that their biological function is compatible with the same atmospheric gases, and that the gravity is the same on all the ...
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Which celestial bodies in the Sol system have been colonised by TNG era?
In Star Trek: First Contact, Riker comments how strange the moon looks and that in his time you can see the city of New Berlin. In TNG 'The Naked Now', Data begins reciting a limerick about a girl ...
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Tourist on alien planet. Has human guide. Worries intelligent aliens will eat him..Shocked guide explains they would never eat a human during the day
I am not 100% sure it is a short story. It might be part of a novel.
The man being given the tour explains to his human guide that he is worried the aliens might eat them.
The guide is shocked at the ...
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What planets or moons in the Solar system are Class M?
A friend of mine has listed as her twitter location that she lives on a Class M planet.
Not everyone tweets from Earth, but I assume she tweets from within the Solar System.
Which planets or moons ...
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Planet with no star. Human society descended from two people trapped there. A female cop and the criminal she was chasing
I read it in about 2015. It seemed to have been written fairly recently.
The story starts some generations after the initial two people were trapped on the planet. About a hundred people are descended ...
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Planet where humans fight for access to algae
Set out on another planet where a human spaceship lands for a research and they observer a huge mass moving below them. On closer look this mass appears to be humans, and the density of the population ...
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Trying to find a book about an extraordinary elevator [duplicate]
I don't know when I read this, probably a long time since I can't remember most of the plot scenes.
Plot details I can remember:
There's an engineer who, I think, wants to create an elevator. I
don'...
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Is the fact that Coruscant is a city-planet impressive?
In The Phantom Menace, while arriving at Coruscant, a crew member tells Anakin the following:
Coruscant, the capital of the Republic. The entire planet is
one big city.
The way it's phrased ...
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Short story about exobiology during human exploration of an alien planet
I have read a story long ago, where some explorers of an alien planet take an animal and use it like a boat (with a description similar to a very large Victoria).
Eventually, they have serious ...
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1960's-1970's (possibly older) sci-fi story about a man stuck on an inhabited planet with a twist [duplicate]
The story was about a man who crashed on an uninhabited planet and was wandering around for a few years looking for another crashed spaceship to use its parts to repair his spaceship. He had a small ...
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Planet farthest from Coruscant?
What is the planet farthest from Coruscant in the Star Wars Galaxy? I understand that this information might not be available. If it isn't, please tell me.
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YA book. Planet in our solar system. Two teenagers sealed in a plant with flashlight. Oxygen from photosynthesis saves their lives [duplicate]
The two teenagers are walking across the planet to warn their parents of an evil plan by a major company.
They are wearing pressure suits. They are running out of oxygen. The boys spend the night ...
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Old short SF story in which people are sent to live in secret within societies on other planets, in order to maintain good interplanetary relations [duplicate]
At least 30 years ago, I read a short SF story about friendship between different planets.
In order to maintain good relationships between planets, it was the rule that one person from a planet would ...
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What was the first work of science fiction to feature a counter-Earth?
A counter-Earth is a planet always opposite the Earth in its orbit around the Sun - or, as first conceived by Greek philosopher Philolaus, in its orbit around the central fire, around which the Sun ...
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What planet was the Doctor really from?
Which planet is the Doctor from Doctor Who really from? In "The Timeless Child" it was revealed that he's not from Gallifrey (which had been given as his origin for decades of episodes). Is ...
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Long isolated human colony. People live in trees and have changed a lot. A 'pursemaker' is in danger, he is on trial for heresy
The 'purses' the accused man makes are large sealable tents for safely spending the night in. The pursemakers wonders how many of the people who do not speak a word in his defence had spent the night ...
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Sci-Fi novel where explorers from Earth visited 3 planets
What is the title of a Sci-Fi novel where explorers from Earth visited 3 planets? I remember that these planets were occupied by certain groups of people and evolved over the years. The first planet ...
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Identify this sci-fi book - young man, teleporters, alien planet survival? [duplicate]
I read this book probably 25 or more years ago. - Maybe 1988 or so. I keep thinking it was Heinlein (or really any classic sci-fi authors) but I haven't found it yet. I think it was a short book, not ...
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Novel or short story. A planet is settled by Irish Catholics. Snakes are important part of ecosystem here. Change StPatrick and snakes story
The story is set sometime after the planet has been settled. The settlers found snakes to be important to the ecosystem. Also directly important for the well-being of humans on the planet as they eat ...
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Name of a book where humans land on a planet getting trapped and have to reinvent rocketry
A few days ago my friends told me about a sci-fi book where a group of future humans drop their ship out of FTL above a planet and descend to the surface in a small lander, shortly before having the ...
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Where does the "Starname Prime" naming scheme for planets originate?
I mean the name of a star followed by the word Prime, used to denote the system's most important/primary inhabited world. For example, Earth would be called Sol Prime using this naming scheme. I've ...
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First story to describe humans colonizing another planet?
Elon Musk has plans to colonize Mars within the next decade. This made me think: What was the first SF story to describe humans colonizing another planet?
I don't want stories where humans establish a ...
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Which Narnia book corresponds to which planet?
In case people haven't heard of it, there's a brilliant theory which suggests that each of C S Lewis's seven Narnia books corresponds to one of the seven 'planets' of pre-Copernican astronomy (the Sun,...
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Novel. I think by James P Hogan. Has humans studying flying alien wildlife. These animals are passing on learned behaviour in their genes
I read this book about 20-25 years ago. It was a long story with lots of other things I have forgotten.
The part that really stuck in my mind involved human scientists studying flying wildlife on an ...
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Old sci fi story about a ship that arrives on an alien planet and watches evolution from bacteria to whatever comes after man
I've been trying to remember a short story which I read in the 1980s in a sci-fi anthology.
I recall a ship arriving an alien planet and watching as evolution from bacteria to fish, reptile, mammal, ...
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Man on another world, kicked out of colony, tries to survive in jungle
Paperback book, probably from the 1950s or 60s.
Premise, a colony has been established on a mountain plateau of a jungle planet. (pop maybe 200-500 people) There are ape like creatures living in ...
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Novel with boy space traveler and his alien buddy
I read this book probably 5-6 years ago.
The main plot was about a boy who travels through space to individual planets with an alien buddy of his or something like that. I remember that they lived in ...
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What was the first instance of a "planet eater" in sci-fi?
In Sci-Fi, there are quite a few 'planet eaters'; giant beings that consume/live off planets or similarly large celestial bodies. The ones I know of are:
Unicron from Transformers 1986
Galactus from ...
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Short story. If I were a M........... The word begining M is an alien race on a planet where a few humans are living too
The title might have started "If you were a M*"
I read this story about 2015 but it seemed to be written some decades earlier.
A small number of human men are living on a planet inhabited by ...
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Short Story or Novella. Two human boys amongst the first born on the planet in our solar system. Drive a heavy vehicle across planet in an emergeny
I listened to this audiobook story about 2019 as part of an anthology.
It may have been Mars where they lived or possibly the moon.
The two boys were about twelve. One was the son of the heavy vehicle ...
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Know a short story (Heinlein?) about a man constantly fighting alien life forms, realizing at the end that they're projections of his own feelings? [duplicate]
I just saw an old interview of Roger Waters where he describes a sci-fi short story, probably by Robert Heinlein, that he read in his youth, so dating back to the 1960s at least, and I'd really like ...
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American Indian and others escape Earth that is controlled by a computer
Please help me identify a science fiction book series I read in the early 80s. The story starts with an American Indian that is given an injection so he remembers he's not just a member of a tribe, ...
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SciFi novel about scientist, terraforming and soldiers
I read this novel back on deployment 5 years ago. The cover was red with a polaroid photo of a green army man toy holding what appears to be a flamethrower and he is in background of grass.
A team of ...
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Black & white sixties episode where a spacecraft is unable to depart the planet
I believe it's a sixties T.V. item, possibly from The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. It is not "Death Ship."
This crew land and can not secure takeoff again no matter what they try. The ...
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First named, colonized planet in a science fiction story
What is the first non-Sol system planet that's colonized by humans in a work of fiction?
To be specific, I'm not looking for "Proxima Centauri B" or that sort of scientific nomenclature, and no ...
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Help finding title of book about planets containing essays and sf stories
Ok, this one has been bugging me for a while now. Back in, I would say the mid-80's, I owned a hardcover book with a white dust jacket featuring a full-color photo of Saturn. I thought it was called '...
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What were the 27 planets taken by the Daleks?
In "The Stolen Earth", 27 planets are stolen by Davros and the Daleks to create a doomsday machine. As we can see in the following scene, they include:
Earth (obvs)
Callufrax Minor
Jahoo
...
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80's 90'sTV series/movie identification, live-action: bad guy turns to be the good one [duplicate]
I remember a sci-fi show/movie as a child where a kid/teen and a generic hero traveled to other planets. One was a mushroom people one, another was a giant people one, can't remember more. They were ...
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A book or short story about planet colonizing
I remember reading it at school but do not remember if it was in a collection of short stories or a book.
It was the 80's so it would be that time or before the 80's.
What I remember is a new planet ...
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