Trans-Neptunian objects in fiction

For discussion of fictional planets in the trans-Neptunian region, see Fictional planets of the Solar System.

The region of the Solar System beyond Neptune contains sparse populations of small icy objects. These include the Kuiper belt, with its well-known member Pluto, and other plutoids including Haumea and Makemake. Further out is the scattered disk, a group which includes Eris, the largest known dwarf planet, 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 and completely fictional planets. However, as more trans-Neptunian objects have been discovered and the region has become better understood 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.

Film and television

• In "The Griffin Equivalency", the fourth episode of the second season of The Big Bang Theory, Rajesh 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". The object is itself fictional, and no TNO has been assigned that designation.

See also

• Pluto in fiction