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Artist's impression of Pluto and its tidally locked near-twin Charon.
Pluto has been featured in many instances of science fiction and popular culture. Initially classified as a planet upon its discovery in 1930, Pluto has also received considerable publicity following its 2006 reclassification as a dwarf planet.
[edit] Literature
- "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1931), story by H. P. Lovecraft, and other Cthulhu Mythos stories. Pluto is called Yuggoth. In the stories, a fictional alien race called the Mi-go have a base there. There are some stories, though, that identify Yuggoth with a huge world situated beyond Pluto on an orbit perpendicular to the ecliptic.
- "In Plutonian Depths" (Wonder Stories Quarterly, Spring 1931), short story by Stanton A. Coblentz. The first story to take advantage of the newly discovered and named world.
- "The Red Peri" (1935), novella by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The title character is a space pirate with a secret base on Pluto.
- Cosmic Engineers (1939, 1950), novel by Clifford D. Simak, features a human base on Pluto.
- "Sky Lift" (1953), story by Robert A. Heinlein. A torch-ship pilot flies on a mercy mission to Pluto.
- Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958), juvenile novel by Robert A. Heinlein. Pluto is used by aliens as a remote base for Earth exploration. In Heinlein's Starship Troopers (1959), the Terran Federation maintains a research station on or near Pluto, which was destroyed by enemy action.
- World of Ptavvs (1966), novel by Larry Niven. Pluto was theorized to have been a moon of Neptune until it was knocked out of orbit by an interstellar craft moving near lightspeed. A fusion-driven spacecraft landing on Pluto in this story releases the frozen methane, oxygen etc and causes the entire planet to be engulfed in flames.
- "Wait It Out" (1968), short story by Larry Niven. An astronaut is stranded on Pluto in 1989.
- "Construction Shack" (1973), short story by Clifford D. Simak. The first mission to Pluto uncovers evidence suggesting that the solar system is nothing short of a huge alien engineering project gone awry.
- Passage to Pluto (1973), Book 14 in the Chris Godfrey of U.N.E.X.A. series by Hugh Walters. An expedition to Pluto discovers a super-dense wandering planet nearby. The astronauts name it Planet X and further discover that it is about to decimate the solar system.
- The Forever War (1974), novel by Joe Haldeman. Pluto is used as a training base to simulate the ultra cold conditions of planets around collapsars which are used as faster than light jump points.
- Inherit the Stars (1977), first book of the Gentle Giants series by James P. Hogan. Pluto turns out to be the remains of Minerva, a planet that exploded to form the asteroid belt 50,000 years ago.
- "Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe" (1977) by John Varley. Pluto is the setting of a coming-of-age story of a boy who discovers himself to be the clone of Pluto's finance minister.
- Starrigger series (1983) by John DeChancie. Pluto is the location of our solar system's dimensional gate to the interstellar Skyway.
- Icehenge (1985), novel by Kim Stanley Robinson. A mysterious monument is found on Pluto's north pole.
- Vacuum Diagrams (2001), novel by Stephen Baxter. Frank Poole's wormhole system has placed a portal in the orbit of Pluto, when a survey mission is sent to the planet, the gate malfunctions and the two women explorers make a forced landing. It is later discovered that Pluto harbors life in the form of snowflake-like creatures who reproduce during the brightest phase of Pluto, the perihelion, or closest point to the Sun, by sending strands of "cobwebs" from Charon, its moon to seed the surface of Pluto.
- The Sunborn (2006), a novel by Gregory Benford. First expedition to Pluto discovers intelligent creatures thriving in -300 Degree temperatures along the shore of the planet's amonia sea. These life forms are discovered to be an experiment conducted by magnetic entities living in the Heliopause.
- Before Dishonor (2007), a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel by Peter David. A large Borg cubeship "consumes" Pluto, Charon, Nix and Hydra for resources before advancing to Earth's orbit. A character darkly remarks that at least the problem of what to call Pluto has been eliminated.
[edit] Comics
- "Planet X" (1996), song by Christine Lavin. A good-natured protest against suggestions that Pluto is not a planet.
- "Pluto" (1997), song by Björk. Pluto is used to represent death and rebirth.
- "Pluto" (1998), song by 2 Skinnee J's. An impassioned defense of Pluto's status as a planet.
- "Pluto Drive" (1999), song from Boomerang by The Creatures. Implores the listener to join them on a journey to Pluto, but is not notable for astronomical accuracy.
- Thing a Week, August 25, 2006 podcast by Jonathan Coulton. Featured a song "I'm Your Moon," from Charon's point of view, about Pluto being reclassified as a dwarf planet.
- "Pluto" British rock band originating from Norwich. Formed in 2002, the band released their debut album Thunder and Lightening in 2005. [1]
- "Pluto", eighth movement added to Gustav Holst's Planets Suite, by Colin Matthews. The movement was premièred in 2000 [2].
- "Bring Back Pluto" (2007), song by Aesop Rock on the album None Shall Pass. Hip-hop song supporting Pluto's status as the 9th planet in our solar system.
[edit] Television
- In the Doctor Who (1963–) serial The Sun Makers (1977), set far in the future, Pluto is covered with vast cities that are warmed by artificial suns, but access to sunlight is controlled by a ruling elite.
- In the 1974 Japanese anime series Space Battleship Yamato, also known as Star Blazers, the eponymous starship destroys an alien base on Pluto and fights a subsequent battle in an asteroid belt beyond Pluto. Eighteen years later astronomers confirmed the existence of the real-life Kuiper belt.
- In the 1978-1981 anime series Galaxy Express 999 Pluto exists as a planet where those people who have abandoned their physical bodies for mechanical ones discard their former organic bodies.
- In an episode of The Magic School Bus (1994-1998) the class takes a tour of the solar system and visits Pluto.
- In Earth: Final Conflict (1997–2002), a mission to Pluto is abandoned when the alien Taelons provide core samples from Pluto for Earth scientists.
- In the Japanese anime series Cowboy Bebop (1998), it is mentioned that a "supermax" maximum security penitentiary is located on Pluto.
- The first five episodes of Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles are set on Pluto.
- The television show Futurama (1999–2003) featured Pluto in an episode as a habitat for penguins. It it also referred to as "McPluto", pointing out that the planet was bought by McDonald's.
- In the television show Aqua Teen Hunger Force (2000–), two of the show's main antagonists, Oglethorpe and Emory (the Plutonians), are from Pluto.
- In the cartoon Fairly Oddparents (2001–) Cosmo destroys Pluto with a button the president lost. It was also the place where he hid his corn.
- In the second part of the BBC drama documentary Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets (2004), Pluto is the penultimate destination on a hypothetical human space flight to planets of the Solar System
- In the TV series Space Patrol (1962) - episode The Fires of Mercury - Professor Heggarty's device for translating the language of ants also converts heat waves into radio waves. Maria realises that this might provide a way of transmitting warmth from Mercury to the Colony on Pluto, where freezing conditions worsen as the planet nears the point in its orbit farthest from the Sun.
- In the 1982 Super Dimensional Fortress Macross anime series, the SDF-1 Macross spaceship executes a spacefold jump inside Earth's atmosphere to escape the attacking Zentradi forces. An accident takes the ship and everything within several-kilometer radius (ocean, island, city, naval forces) to the orbit of Pluto, and the SDF-1 Macross must return to Earth by more conventional means. Macross was later adapted as the first part of the 1985 series Robotech.
- In the landmark Japanese anime series Sailor Moon, Setsuna Meioh is Sailor Pluto, and is personified as one of the main "Sailor Senshi" (Sailor Soldiers). Her key element is time- her primary role was to guard the gates of time, preventing anyone from manipulating the fourth dimension (time) and she is characterised as being mysterious and distant with little known about her personality. Her elements and personality are vaguely linked to Pluto in Roman mythology.
- The player visits Pluto as the second planet on the way to the Sun in the NES port of Gyruss
- In the computer game Star Control II (1990), and consequently in The Ur-Quan Masters, the Spathi Captain Fwiffo can be found on Pluto.
- In the game Starsiege (1999), Pluto is destroyed at the end of the game.
- In the 2003 PC game Freelancer, an introduction movie that was cut from game during development shows Pluto being destroyed by an extraterrestrial race 800 years before the game starts.
- In the game Epoch Star (2004), Pluto is the home planet of the Anthropite civilization.
- In the 1994 PC game Descent, Pluto serves as the final location. Levels 25 and 26 are set in an outpost and military base on the planet itself. Level 27, the final level in the game, takes place on Charon, in a volatile materials mine.
- In the Xbox 360 RPG Mass Effect, Pluto's moon, Charon, was discovered to have been a 'Mass Relay' device encased in ice, a teleporter left behind by an ancient civilization. Once this relay is reactivated, Pluto's orbit becomes less eccentric and inclined, ceasing its occasional cross with Neptune's orbit.
- The first few missions of the PC game Battlezone 2 take place on Pluto.
- In the arcade game Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA 2 there is a song called Pluto (as part of a theme of planet named songs) with dark and cold progressive melodies. Also there is a remix titled Pluto Relinquish in recognition of the controversy of considering Pluto's status as a planet.
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