Trans-Neptunian objects in fiction

The region of the Solar System beyond Neptune contains sparse populations of relatively small rocky and icy objects. These include the Kuiper belt, a group which includes the dwarf planet Pluto and other plutoids including Haumea and Makemake. Further out is the scattered disk, a group which includes Eris, a dwarf planet slightly smaller than Pluto, and even more distant detached objects such as Sedna.

In the past, the use of this area of the solar system as a setting for science fiction has been limited to Pluto, given its comparatively early discovery in 1930, and trans-plutonian fictional planets. However, as Eris, other dwarf planets such as Haumea and Makemake and further trans-Neptunian objects have been discovered and the region has been better scrutinized by astronomers, works of fiction have begun to reflect the region more extensively and realistically.

Literature

• Saturn's Children (2008), novel by Charles Stross. An intelligent robot in the service of a shadowy organisation travels throughout the Solar System, with the plot climax on Eris.
• In The Unincorporated Man (2009), by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin, Eris is settled by puritanical prudes.
• 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997), by Arthur C. Clarke, features a mission to mine the Kuiper belt for water to terraform Venus.
• The End of All Things (2015), by John Scalzi, has an abandoned base on Sedna.

Film and television

• In "The Griffin Equivalency", the fourth episode of the second season of The Big Bang Theory, Raj Koothrappali is included in People magazine's "30 Under 30 to watch" list for his discovery of a trans-Neptunian object beyond the Kuiper belt. Officially designated 2008 NQ₁₇, Raj had nicknamed the body "Planet Bollywood".^[1] The object is itself fictional, and no TNO has been assigned that designation.

Games

• In the video game series Mass Effect (2007–), Pluto's moon Charon is discovered by humanity, in 2149, to be a Mass Relay encased in ice.

See also

• Pluto in fiction

References

1. "The Griffin Equivalency". The Big Bang Theory. Season 2. Episode 4. October 13, 2008.