Asteroids have appeared in fiction since at least the late 1800s,^[a] the first one—Ceres—having been discovered in 1801. They were initially only used infrequently as writers preferred the planets assettings. The once-popularPhaëton hypothesis, which states that theasteroid belt consists of the remnants of the former fifth planet that existed in an orbit betweenMars andJupiter before somehow being destroyed, has been a recurring theme with various explanations for the planet's destruction proposed. This hypothetical former planet is inscience fiction often called "Bodia" in reference toJohann Elert Bode, for whom the since-discreditedTitius–Bode law that predicts the planet's existence is named.

By the early 1900s, the asteroids started making more regular appearances. The asteroid field has often been depicted as having asteroids so close together as to impede travel, though this became less common later in the century as writers started portraying a more realistic density. Because the asteroids are so small, they are usually not depicted as inhabited—though in some works they are neverthelesshabitable. In other works they are made so by human activity, be itterraforming or hollowing out to createhabitats on the inside. The latter concept has also been used for turning asteroids intospacecraft. Human activity in the asteroid belt has featured frequently since thepulp era of science fiction, particularly in the form ofasteroid mining.Space piracy also debuted as a theme around the same time. In works where the asteroid belt is settled by humans, it is often conceptually similar to theWild West.

The threat ofimpact events by asteroids has been a recurring theme. It received successive boosts in popularity following the 1980 publication of theAlvarez hypothesis about theextinction of the dinosaurs and the 1994 impact ofComet Shoemaker–Levy 9 on Jupiter. Many stories involve attempts to alter asteroid trajectories to avert such collisions, while in some stories they are instead caused intentionally.

The firstasteroid—Ceres—was discovered byGiuseppe Piazzi in 1801.^[3][4] For the rest of that century, however, asteroids rarely appeared in fiction—writers preferring the planets assettings.^[4][5] When German astronomerHeinrich Olbers discovered a second asteroid—Pallas—in the same orbit in 1802, he theorized that these objects were remnants of a planet predicted by theTitius–Bode law to exist betweenMars andJupiter that had somehow been destroyed.^[2][4][6] This became a popular explanation for the existence of theasteroid belt, though it has since been superseded by the notion that the material never coalesced into a planet in the first place.^[3][4][5][7] In astronomy, this hypothetical former fifth planet is known asPhaëton;^[6] inscience fiction, it is often called "Bodia" afterJohann Elert Bode.^[5][8] Anearly science fiction work that mentions this explanation for the origin of the asteroids isRobert Cromie's 1895 novelThe Crack of Doom, which describes the release of energy stored inatomic nuclei a few thousand years ago as the culprit.^[3][5][9]

By thepulp era of science fiction, Bodia was a recurring theme. In these stories it is typicallysimilar to Earth and inhabited by humans, often advanced humans and occasionally the ancestors of humans on Earth.^{[4][8][10][11]} Interplanetary warfare with Mars causes the destruction of Bodia—and indirectly,the end of civilization on Mars—inHarl Vincent's 1930 short story "Before the Asteroids".^[5][12] An internal disaster resulting in the explosion of theplanetary core is responsible inJohn Francis Kalland's 1932 short story "The Sages of Eros".^[4][13] InLeslie F. Stone's 1934 short story "The Rape of the Solar System", war with Mars over the colonization of then-uninhabitedEarth results both in the partial destruction of Bodia, thus creating the asteroids, and the displacement of the largest fragment to a much wider orbit to createPluto, while the settlers on Earth eventually become humanity.^[5][14]

Following the invention of theatomic bomb in 1945, stories of this planetary destruction became increasingly common, encouraged by the advent of a plausible-seeming means of disintegration.^[15]Robert A. Heinlein's 1948 novelSpace Cadet thus states that the fifth planet was destroyed as a result ofnuclear war, and inRay Bradbury's 1948 short story "Asleep in Armageddon" (a.k.a. "Perchance to Dream"), the ghosts of the former warring factions infect the mind of an astronaut stranded on an asteroid.[3]^[5][16] Several works of the 1950s reused the idea to warn of the dangers of nuclear weapons, includingLord Dunsany's 1954Joseph Jorkens short story "The Gods of Clay" andJames Blish's 1957 novelThe Frozen Year (a.k.a.Fallen Star).[3]^[5][17] InJack Williamson's 1942–1951Seetee series anantimatter explosion is to blame,^[18][19] and inTheodore Cogswell's 1955 short story "Test Area", the destruction results from anuclear test conducted by the inhabitants of Mars, while in Heinlein's 1951 novelBetween Planets the technology that caused the destruction has been lost to time.^[3] The planet's destruction by Martians is also mentioned in Heinlein's 1961 novelStranger in a Strange Land, and implied to have been caused usingsupernatural powers.^[3][5][20] The 1977 novelInherit the Stars, the first inJames P. Hogan'sGiants series, revisits the theme of the fifth planet—here called "Minerva"—being destroyed by nuclear war.^[3][5][20]

InRaymond Z. Gallun's 1950 short story "A Step Farther Out", valuables from the destroyed civilization are recovered,^[18] and inHarry Harrison's 1969 novelPlague Ship, an ancient virus is found in the asteroid remnants.^[21]Paul Preuss's 1985 short story "Small Bodies", wherefossils are found on an asteroid, is a late example of the destroyed planet theme;^[16][22] it has otherwise largely been relegated to deliberately retro works such as the 1989tabletop role-playing gameSpace: 1889.^[20] A variation on the theme appears inClifford D. Simak's 1973 short story "Construction Shack", where the asteroids are leftover material originally intended for the construction of a fifth planet.^[3]

Asteroids started making more frequent appearances in fiction in the early 1900s, and these works tended to depict the asteroid belt as a region that must be navigated carefully lest one's spaceship should collide with one of the asteroids.^{[3][4][5][16]} Thespace opera subgenre in particular often features this motif.^[3] InIsaac Asimov's 1939 short story "Marooned off Vesta", a group of astronauts run into this danger,^[3][5][16] and in Williamson's 1949 novelSeetee Shock, a region of space is virtually impassable for this reason.^[3][5] The problem is circumvented inMark Clifton's 1960 novelEight Keys to Eden by exploiting the third dimension of space, since the asteroids are mostly located in the plane of theecliptic.^[3]

Later works mostly recognize that the individual asteroids are very far apart: the average distance between them is comparable to theEarth–Moon distance.^[3][5][23] Accordingly, they pose little danger to spacecraft,^[5] though this need not necessarily be the case in asteroid fields outside of ourSolar System.^[20] Nevertheless, the idea of a thick asteroid field that poses constant danger to any spaceship within it recurs in the 1979 video gameAsteroids,^[5] and close-quarterdogfights between spacecraft among asteroids appear in the 1980Star Wars filmThe Empire Strikes Back and the 1995–1996 television seriesSpace: Above and Beyond.^[20] A densely packed extrasolar asteroid field in theAlpha Centauri system also appears in the 1981 episode "The Golden Man" of the television seriesBuck Rogers in the 25th Century.^[23]Piers Anthony's 1984 novelMercenary goes so far in its adaptation of the1241 Mongol invasion of Hungary to the asteroid belt that it treats space as two-dimensional and constrains movement accordingly.^[3][24]

Alien life on asteroids appears only rarely in fiction, owing to their small size.^[3][4] An early example is found inKonstantin Tsiolkovsky's 1896 short work "On Vesta", wherethe lifeforms are intelligent and technologically advanced.^[4][25] Humans stranded on an asteroid encounter hostile aliens inClark Ashton Smith's 1932 short story "Master of the Asteroid" andEdmond Hamilton's 1933 short story "The Horror on the Asteroid".^{[3][4][26][27]} The titular reptilian ofEden Phillpotts's 1938 novelSaurus comes to Earth from an asteroid as an egg before hatching,^[3][4][28] and an asteroid is likewise the homeworld of the title character inAntoine de Saint-Exupéry's 1943 novelThe Little Prince.^[5][20] Alien plant life on an asteroid turns it not onlyhabitable but paradisiacal inPoul Anderson's 1952 short story "Garden in the Void",^[3][5][17] and the inhabitants of an asteroid inPhilip K. Dick's 1953satire "Piper in the Woods" persuade human visitors that being a plant is preferable to being human,^[17] while asilicon-based lifeform from an asteroid appears in Asimov's 1955 short story "The Talking Stone".^[16] InFredric Brown's 1957fix-up novelRogue in Space, an asteroid is itself alive.^[4] The notion that asteroids might harbourmicrobial life, possibly even deadlypathogens that could be transferred to Earth either directly by impacting the planet or indirectly via astronauts visiting the asteroid, also surfaces occasionally.^[20]

A new concept was introduced in the pulp era of science fiction:asteroid mining.^[5] This quickly became the most popular fiction use for the asteroids, and the asteroid belt was often portrayed as the setting of a space version of theKlondike orCalifornia gold rush in works like Simak's 1932 short story "The Asteroid of Gold",Stanton A. Coblentz's 1935 short story "The Golden Planetoid", andMalcolm Jameson's 1940 short story "Prospectors of Space".^[3][4][5] Along with this outer-space analogy of theWestern genre came the introduction ofspace piracy to the asteroids in works likeMoore Raymond's 1934 short story "Scouts of Space" and Royal W. Heckman's 1938 short story "Asteroid Pirates", as well as stories of stranded astronauts as inJohn Wyndham's 1933 short story "Exiles on Asperus" and the above-mentioned "Master of the Asteroid" and "Marooned off Vesta".^{[3][4][5][17]} These themes continued to appear in the decades that followed: Heinlein's 1952 novelThe Rolling Stones portrays a community of asteroid miners, Asimov's 1953 novelLucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids features space pirates, andArthur C. Clarke's 1960 short story "Summertime on Icarus" depicts an astronaut stranded on the asteroidIcarus as it makes a close approach to theSun.^[3][5][22]

The prospect ofcolonizing the asteroids was limited by their small size,^[3] though this did not stop some works such as the 1959–1964 science fictionanthology seriesThe Twilight Zone from portraying asteroids with breathable atmospheres andEarth-level gravity.^[23] Somewhat more realistic portrayals of human-habitable asteroids involveterraforming, as inPaul Ernst's 1931 short story "The Planetoid of Peril" andJack Vance's 1947 short story "I'll Build Your Dream Castle", or hollowing them out to createspace stations or habitats, as in Heinlein's 1939 short story "Misfit".^{[3][4][5][16]} In "I'll Build Your Dream Castle", the terraformed asteroids are sold as luxury real estate,^[3][17] while inCharles Platt's 1967 novelGarbage World, a terraforming effort gone wrong results in an asteroid being used as a dumping place for the Solar System's garbage.^[3][29]

The concept of hollowing out asteroids has also extended to turning them into large spacecraft, as inMurray Leinster's 1960 novelThe Wailing Asteroid.^{[3][4][17][30]} InFrederik Pohl's 1977 novelGateway andits sequels, an asteroid that orbits at an unusual ninety-degree angle to the ecliptic turns out to have been modified in this way by aliens long ago,^[3][16] while inGeorge Zebrowski's 1979 novelMacrolife humanity converts a large number of asteroids into spacecraft forinterstellar travel.^[3][4][5] Another alien-modified asteroid appears inGreg Bear's 1985 novelEon,^[3][16] and inPamela Sargent's 1983 novelEarthseed an asteroidalgeneration ship is used for settling the cosmos.^[4][30][31] Hollowed-out asteroids used as prisons ininterstellar space appear in Zebrowski's 1998 novelBrute Orbits,^[4][32] and the asteroidSidonia is converted into another generation ship in the 2014–2015anime seriesKnights of Sidonia.^[33][34]

Settlement in the asteroid belt is in fiction often associated with a fiercely-independent,libertarian-minded,frontier mentality akin to that of theOld West.^[16][20][35] Anderson's 1970 fix-up novelTales of the Flying Mountains recounts the history of such a society and the development of its particular culture,^[3][5][16] inKatherine MacLean's 1975 short story "The Gambling Hell and the Sinful Girl" the asteroids are settled by "outcasts from earth",^[5][36] andLarry Niven's stories ofKnown Space, such as the 1975 short story collectionTales of Known Space, depict a community of hardened asteroid-miners known as "Belters".^{[3][5][16][17]}John Varley's 1974–1986Eight Worlds series transposes this motif from the asteroid belt to the remoteOort cloud at the outer edge of the Solar System.^[37] InCharles Sheffield's 1995 novelThe Ganymede Club, war breaks out overtrade disputes,^[16] and in theAsteroid Wars subseries ofBen Bova'sGrand Tour series, starting with the 2001 novelThe Precipice, different factions compete for control of the resources in the asteroid belt,^[3][5][16] whileChris Bunch's 2002 novelStar Risk, Ltd revisits the oldertrope of asteroid miners fighting against space pirates.^[3]Kim Stanley Robinson's 2012 novel2312, by contrast, depicts asteroids adapted for human habitation as an integrated part of a thoroughly colonized Solar System.^[3][38] AstrophysicistElizabeth Stanway [Wikidata] writes that while the portrayal of the inhabitants of the asteroid belt as independent-minded remains common in works such asJames S. A. Corey's (joint pseudonym ofDaniel Abraham andTy Franck) 2011–2021 novel seriesThe Expanse and its2015–2022 television adaptation, there has also emerged a portrayal of the region as dominated by corporate interests as in the 2017Doctor Who episode "Oxygen".^[37] Colonized asteroids also appear in games such as theWarhammer 40,000 franchise and the 2009 tabletop role-playing gameEclipse Phase.^[20]

Resource extraction from asteroids has remained a common theme in science fiction, serving many different purposes both in space and on Earth.^[4][16][20] Besides being sources of valuable materials such asprecious metals to be sold for profit,^[20] asteroids may be repurposed as raw material forspace construction projects,^[4] and certain compounds such as ice may be used for terraforming.^[16][20] Other compounds may be used on-site forchemical industry purposes, asrocket fuel, or to set up acontrolled ecological life-support system.^[4][20] InFred Hoyle's 1967 short story "Element 79", large quantities of asteroidalgold disrupt theglobal economy,^[22] a topic earlier broached byFrench science fiction authorJules Verne's posthumously-published 1908 novelThe Chase of the Golden Meteor.^[20] In Robinson's 1992 novelRed Mars, material from the asteroid belt is used to construct aspace elevator.^[39]

The threat of asteroidalimpact events is a recurring theme.^[4][16][20] The earliest fictional example, according toscience fiction scholarGary Westfahl, is arguablyGeorge Allan England's 1912–1913serialDarkness and Dawn, apost-apocalyptic story where the exact cause of destruction is never specified but there is a crater hundreds of miles wide and deep in the formerMidwestern United States.^[5][40] In the 1916–1917 serial "The Moonmaker" byArthur Cheney Train andRobert W. Wood, an errant asteroid is diverted to enterEarth orbit as an additionalnatural satellite instead of striking the Earth,^[4][41] a plot point that recurs in Isaac R. Nathanson's 1930 short story "The Falling Planetoid".^[5][42] InWalter Kateley's 1930 short story "The World of a Hundred Men", a record of an inhabited asteroid's history leading up to its collision with Earth is found underneathMeteor Crater inArizona.^[5][43]

The asteroid impact motif continued to appear followingWorld War II, at a time when fear of sudden cataclysmic events was widespread in the form ofnuclear anxiety.^[44][45] Examples include the 1958 Italian filmThe Day the Sky Exploded, the 1967 novelA Torrent of Faces by James Blish andNorman L. Knight, and the 1968 Japanese filmThe Green Slime.^[3][4][44] In Clarke's 1973 novelRendezvous with Rama, a disastrous asteroid impact motivates humanity to keep close track of Solar System objects thereafter.^[5]Gregory Benford wrote three stories in short succession that revolve around the topic: "Icarus Descending" in 1973, "How It All Went" in 1976, andShiva Descending in 1980—the last one in collaboration withWilliam Rotsler.^[4][46] Clarke revisited the theme in 1993 with the novelThe Hammer of God, which revolves around efforts to avert the disaster.^[4][5][17]

Successive boosts to the theme's popularity came in 1980 with the publication of theAlvarez hypothesis, which states that theextinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was caused by an asteroid impact that created theChicxulub crater off the coast of Mexico,^[4][17][47] and in 1994 with the collision ofComet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with Jupiter.^[17][48] The latter in particular is credited with inspiring a large number ofdisaster films and other on-screen portrayals of impact events or threats thereof—be they by asteroids or other objects such ascomets—in the years that followed.^[17][48] Among these are the 1997 TV miniseriesAsteroid and the 1998 filmArmageddon; the concept had earlier appeared in the 1979 filmMeteor.^[3][4][17]Brian Stableford writes inScience Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia that by the beginning of the new millennium, asteroidal impact events andclimate change were the two most popular scenarios inapocalyptic fiction.^[4]

Altering asteroid trajectories, besides being a means to avert impact events as inRoger MacBride Allen's 1988 novelFarside Cannon, also appears in fiction as a way to cause them.^[3][4] InBob Shaw's 1981 novelThe Ceres Solution, Ceres is deliberately crashed into the Moon.^[3][4][17] Impact events are occasionally weaponized; Earth is targeted with asteroids in this manner by aliens as a form of interplanetary warfare in Heinlein's 1959 novelStarship Troopers, Niven andJerry Pournelle's 1985 novelFootfall, andDavid Feintuch's 1996 novelFisherman's Hope.^{[3][5][17][20]} A human redirects asteroids from the distant Oort cloud towards Earth in an act of attemptedmass murder inDon Bingle's 2002 short story "Patience", and an asteroid is set on a collision course with one of themoons of Neptune to create an additionalplanetary ring inAlastair Reynolds's 2012 short story "Vainglory",^[22] while another human-caused—but this time unintentional—impact event appears inStephen Baxter's 1997 novelTitan.^[20] Asteroid diversion also appears inCharles L. Harness's 2000time travel story "A Boost in Time" in an attempt to save thedinosaurs from extinction.^[4]

• Comets in fiction
• Pluto in fiction
• Tunguska event in fiction

• Bly, Robert W. (2005)."Asteroids Colliding with the Earth".The Science in Science Fiction: 83 SF Predictions That Became Scientific Reality. Consulting Editor:James Gunn.BenBella Books. pp. 43–46.ISBN 978-1-932100-48-8.
• Nicholls, Peter (1983)."Mining the Moon and the asteroids". InNicholls, Peter (ed.).The Science in Science Fiction. New York: Knopf. pp. 23–25.ISBN 0-394-53010-1.OCLC 8689657.

• Fiction about asteroids

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