Asteroid

An asteroid is a small, solid object in our Solar System, orbiting the Sun. An asteroid is an example of a minor planet (or planetoid), which are much smaller than planets. Most asteroids are believed to be remnants of the protoplanetary disc which were not incorporated into planets during the system's formation. Some asteroids have moons. The vast majority of the asteroids are within the main asteroid belt, with elliptical orbits between those of Mars and Jupiter.

Asteroids in fiction and film

Understandably, most fictional depictions of asteroids focus on their potential risk of striking Earth. Representations of the asteroid belt in film tend to make it unrealistically cluttered with dangerous rocks; in reality asteroids, even in the main belt, are spaced extremely far apart.

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• Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes' arch-enemy, « is the celebrated author of "The Dynamics of an Asteroid", a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it » (The Valley of Fear, 1914, set in 1888).
• In The Little Prince, a 1943 novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the title character lives on an asteroid. The asteroid moon Petit-Prince was named after the character.
• 'Catch that Rabbit', one of the short stories in Isaac Asimov's collection I, Robot (1950), takes place on an asteroid.
• The Japanese science fiction film The Mysterians aka Chikyu Boeigun (1957) reveals the solar system's asteroid belt as the remnants of the Mysterian's home planet, Mysteroid, after a nuclear war broke out.
• In Green Slime (1968), a masterpiece of B-movies, a rogue asteroid hurtles toward Earth. The astronauts leave Space Station Gamma 3 and place bombs on the asteroid, finding it inhabited by strange blobs of glowing slime that are drawn to the equipment. Unfortunately for everyone some of the slime was carried back on a space suit and soon evolves into tentacled creatures! See the review: http://www.badmovies.org/movies/greenslime/. The movie inspired the classic board game Awful Green Things from Outer Space.
• In the classic science-fiction movie ' (1968), the Discovery has a scientifically accurate "close approach" by an asteroid whilst en route to Jupiter. The scene simply cuts briefly to a lone rock passing by the ship, with tens of thousands of kilometres to spare.
• The disaster movie Meteor (1979) depicts an asteroid named Orpheus hurtling toward Earth after its orbit is deflected by a comet.
• In The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Han Solo escapes Empire spacecraft by hiding the Millennium Falcon on an asteroid, but is then attacked by a vast monster that lives (for some unexplained reason) within the asteroid.
• Arthur C. Clarke's novel ' (1986) depicts a journey through the asteroid belt and its ominous parallels with the journey of the RMS Titanic.
• L. Neil Smith's novel Pallas (Tor Books, 1993) depicts a modernized hunting based life on the terraformed asteroid Pallas and introduces Emerson Ngu. The book was partly insired by the 1987 article "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" written by Jared Diamond. The book also includes a brief description of a way to encapsulate the entire surface of a small body such as an asteroid to enable creating an Earthlike environment.
• Arthur C. Clarke's novel The Hammer of God (1993) depicts mankind's efforts to stop an asteroid named Kali from hitting the Earth. The film Deep Impact (1998) was based on Clarke's novel, although in the movie, the asteroid becomes a comet.
• In the LucasArts game The Dig (originally released in 1995) and its novelization, the impact-threatening asteroid Attila turns out to be an alien probe.
• In the 1998 movie Starship Troopers, aliens launch an asteroid at Earth, completely wiping out Buenos Aires. This is the opening move in the war.
• The film Armageddon (1998) is also about efforts to stop an asteroid hitting Earth. Its representation of an asteroid (and of space travel in general) is deeply unrealistic.
• Ben Bova's novel series The Asteroid Wars (2001-2004) focuses on a war over the mining of the asteroid belt.
• An episode of the political television drama, The West Wing entitled "Impact Winter" included a subplot in which the White House staff prepared for a possible asteroid strike on the Earth. (First broadcast on December 15, 2004).