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Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, is a popular backdrop for science fiction stories and films. Although Jupiter is now known to have no solid surface one could land on, and has long been known to have an atmosphere, temperature, and high gravity hostile to human life, some earlier works of science fiction used Jupiter itself as a location for stories. More commonly, the Jovian system, including both the space around Jupiter and its very extensive system of moons, is used as a setting.
[edit] On Jupiter
[edit] Written works
- In Voltaire's Micromégas (1752), the eponymous hero and his Saturnian companion stop on Jupiter for a year, where they "learned some very remarkable secrets".
- In Clifford D. Simak's City stories (1952), most of mankind is eventually voluntarily transformed into creatures able to survive on Jupiter without life support. In this new form, Jupiter appears as a paradise.
- In Isaac Asimov's Victory Unintentional (1942), human colonists on Ganymede send three extremely powerful and durable robots to explore the surface of Jupiter and contact the Jovians.
- In Isaac Asimov's Buy Jupiter (1958), aliens purchase Jupiter to use as a giant billboard advertising their products to passing trade ships.
- Arthur C. Clarke's novella A Meeting with Medusa (1972) depicts a journey into the depths of Jupiter's atmosphere, where vast, city-sized floating life-forms have evolved. This is similar to a scene in 2010.
- In Donald Moffitt's The Jupiter Theft (1977) novel, a Chinese-American Jupiter mission is diverted to investigate five immense alien spacecraft headed towards Earth from the direction of Cygnus X-1. The survivors of the captured Jupiter Mission discover their true purpose in appearing in the Solar System is to raid our solar system of a Jupiter-mass planets to use as fuel. In taking Jupiter, the aliens leave behind the burnt-out husk of their prior Jovian type fuel planet, which remains as the central core of a new mini-solar system in the past location of Jupiter.
- In Piers Anthony's Bio of A Space Tyrant series (1983–2001), Jupiter is rendered into an analogue of North America. The moons are the Caribbean (and possibly Central America as well), Jupiter itself is inhabited by floating cities in its atmosphere to represent the United States, and the Red Spot represents Mexico.
- In Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series (and more particularly, in The Cassini Division (1998) instalment of that series), Jupiter has been converted by transhumanists into a habitat for post-human uploads known as the Jovians, while the Solar Union (an inner system socialist collective) and New Mars (a capitalist extrasolar colony) consider whether to attack the civilisation, which they perceive to be potentially threatening.
- Ben Bova's novel Jupiter (2001) also features a journey into Jupiter's clouds, storms, and the liquid stage of its atmosphere for the discovery of intelligent life there. See also: Grand Tour (novel series).
- The Timothy Zahn novel Manta's Gift (2002) is set on Jupiter, home of the Qanska, intelligent lifeforms who dwell amid the layered atmosphere of the planet's equator. The brain of a quadriplegic human is transplanted into an embryonic Qanska, resulting in a transfer of human consciousness to a different species.
[edit] Comics and manga
- In the Battle Angel manga series by Yukito Kishiro, Jupiter has been colonized by man and is now in the process of having a large artificial surface built over the clouds, having consumed all but a few of its' moons for raw materials. The Jupiter Union, as they are known, are in conflict over control of the solar system with Venus, Mars and Earth.
[edit] Film, TV and radio
- Space Patrol (1962), puppet television series.
- The Swamps of Jupiter episode. Captain Dart and his crew are sent to investigate the loss of contact with a scientific base on Jupiter and encounter Martian fur trappers who are killing the local Loomi creatures for their heat-retaining skins.
- The Walking Lake of Jupiter episode. Scientists Dr Brown and Dr Smith discover that water from a Jovian lake has the power to cause inanimate objects to move as if with a life of their own. Dart arrives to witness the phenomenon. and ends up on the trail of the unfortunate Dr Brown, whose spacesuit has become energised by the Jovian water.
- On 1 April 1976, on BBC Radio 2, the astronomer Patrick Moore announced the existence of the Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect, a spectacular April Fools' Day astronomical hoax
- The children's game Scholastic's The Magic School Bus: Space Exploration Game for the Sega Genesis (1995) features an exploration of the planet Jupiter to find Ms. Frizzle. Players take pictures of the Planet, its features and moons, and other various objects on the way. They then land the bus and search for Ms. Frizzle in the atmosphere of Jupiter. The expedition ends with a picture puzzle and card matchup which both have major points/features of Jupiter and the surrounding system.
[edit] Jovian system
- See also Jupiter's moons in fiction.
[edit] Written works
[edit] Film and TV
- In the Doctor Who (1963 to date) story "Revenge of the Cybermen", Jupiter is the setting for the Nerva Beacon, a fictional space station that monitors its fictional new moon (Voga - the Planet of Gold) which once more brings the Cybermen into our Solar System.
- In the Star Trek universe (1966–...), Jupiter is home to Jupiter Station.
- Jupiter is the setting of Stanley Kubrick's classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), although the novel of the same name by Sir Arthur C. Clarke is set in the Saturnian system instead. In both the book and the film of the sequel, 2010: Odyssey Two (1984), fictional technology converts Jupiter into a star by increasing the density of its core.
- In the 2001 absurdist film The American Astronaut Samuel Curtis meets with the owner of Jupiter to exchange The Girl in a Wallet for The Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman's Breast.
[edit] Animation
- The anime Planetes (2003) features a planned seven year trip to explore Jupiter and its moons, using a ship powered by a Tandem Mirror Engine.
- One episode of Ellen's Acres, entitled "Jumpin' Jupiter", features Ellen travelling to said planet.
- The role-playing game Jovian Chronicles (1992) features a solar nation, the Jovian Confederacy, in a series of space colony cylinders called "Gray Viarium" colonies around Jupiter.
- The PlayStation 2 video game Zone of the Enders (2001) takes place in a colony orbiting Jupiter.
- In the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Earth and Beyond (2002), the Jupiter system is colonized by the explorer race of the Jenquai. Jove City rests in orbit around Jupiter, and was the second most populated station in the known galaxy before being devastated by the Progen Warriors.
- In the PC Game Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, the game begins with several missions situated around Jupiter and its moons.
[edit] Other mentions of Jupiter
[edit] Written works
- In Jules Verne's Hector Servadac (Off On A Comet (1877)), the comet Gallia approaches Jupiter at its aphelion, and the protagonists worry « that the comet, being irresistibly attracted, might be drawn on to the very surface of the planet, and there annihilated » [1].
- In C. S. Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength (1945), Glund, the Oyarsa of Jupiter, is the last of the five major Oyéresu to descend upon St. Anne's. Like the other Oyéresu, his characteristics are reminiscent of the mythology surrounding his planet; his presence immediately fills everyone in the house with a sense of lordly festivity, in obvious reference to "the jovial spirit".
- Larry Niven's A World Out of Time (1976) tells the story of a man who died in the 1970s who is awoken from cryonic suspended animation, hijacks the ship and visits the galactic central core and a vast black hole. When he returns, at least 4 million years have passed due to relativity effects, the sun has undergone a transformation into a red giant, and the Earth has been moved into orbit around Jupiter.
- Milton William Cooper's book Behold a Pale Horse (1991) described a secret plan of the Illuminati to detonate the planet by means of the Cassini-Huygens space probe.
[edit] Comics and manga
- In the Dragon Ball Z manga series created by Akira Toriyama, Bulma Briefs and Earth Kami assistant Mr. Popo reach Jupiter in less than a minute using Kami's spaceship, which they needed to reach the Planet Namek, which was impossible to reach with the technology available at that moment in the series. One month later Bulma's father completes a spaceship model capable of making the journey.
- In the Marvel Comics title Guardians of the Galaxy, Charlie-27 is the last survivor of a colony on Jupiter in the 31st century. His people were engineered to have 11 times the mass of an average human to withstand the higher gravity of Jupiter. The Jovians lived on giant anti-gravity ships in Jupiter's atmosphere.
- In the "Martian Successor Nadesico" Anime Series created by Kia Asamiya, the evil race known as the 'Jovian Lizards' were claimed to be from Jupiter. Late in the series, it is discovered that the Jovians are humans exiled from Mars, returned to take revenge upon Earth, and the people that exiled them.
[edit] Films and television
- In the series Red Dwarf, the titular ship belongs to the Jupiter Mining Corporation, and there are many references to Jupiter and its moons (for example Arnold Rimmer is originally from Io).
- In Men in Black, when Agent J comments he used to think one of his teachers was from Venus, Agent K tells him that J's former teacher is actually from one of Jupiter's moons.
- In the series Stargate SG-1, in the episode entitled, "2010", the Aschen intend to turn Jupiter into a second sun. Note that the titles of the two episodes in which the Aschen appear (2010 and 2001, in the order that the two episodes aired) make clear that this is indeed a reference to the seminal Space Odyssey series by Arthur C. Clarke.
[edit] Animation
- In the anime Gunbuster (1988), Jupiter is used to create the Black Hole Bomb, a massive weapon larger than a small planet, and capable of destroying part of a galaxy. (In fact, a Jupiter-mass black hole would be barely 6 m across, and no more of a threat to the Galaxy than it is right now)
- In the TV show Futurama the planet is revealed to smell like strawberries, an out-of-order monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey is in orbit around it, and Amy mentions Jupiter State University.
- On an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Shake sells Meatwad to a circus run by Randy the Astonishing, the Prince of Jupiter sent to infiltrate the human gene pool and enslave the planet.
- In The Batman episode "Q & A", it is revealed that Cluemaster/Artie Brown's motive included losing a game show in which the question was "Name all 13 moons of Jupiter in order of date of discovery." He starts with Europa, and ends by saying Lysithea was discovered in 1937, and the announcer says it was really discovered in 1938. The latter is correct.
- In the anime Heroic Age, Jupiter is destroyed when a high-powered energy gun is used to knock the moon Io out of orbit. Io plummets into the atmosphere and ignites it, and intervention by the Silver and Bronze fleets leads to a cataclysmic explosion.
[edit] See also
- Jovian, for examples of natives of Jupiter in fiction
