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"I feel like I've been very fortunate in that I've stuck like a burr to the dog-leg of the next generation of nerdism. I've been carried into the XXIth century on Bill Gates' pants-cuff."
- William Gibson
 |
| Rogue Planet | ||
| A planet without a sun, it wanders through galactic space. |
| "...Blue giant suns aren't supposed to have planets. But this one does."
"That is recorded, like most news," said the machine, unimpressed. "Your tentative explanation of the phenomenon was later verified. While the star was condensing, a nucleus still surrounded by an extensive nebular envelope, a swarm of rogue planets chanced by. Losing energy to friction with the nebula, they were captured. "Sunless planets are common. They are estimated to number a thousand or more times the stars. That is, nonluminous bodies, ranging in size from superjovian to asteroidal, are believed to occupy interstellar space in an amount greater by three orders of magnitude than the nuclear-reacting self-luminous bodies called stars. Nevertheless, astronomical distances are such that the probability of an object like this passing near a star is vanishingly small. Indeed, explorers have not come upon many rogues even in mid-space. An actual capture must be so rare that the case you found may well be unique in the galaxy. |
| Technovelgy from Satan's World,
by Poul Anderson. Published by Doubleday in 1967 Additional resources -
|
The phrase occurs earlier in The Pulsating Planet (1941) by John Broome, but I don't think it referred to a world untethered to a sun:
See also rogue world from George R.R. Martin's 1977 novel Dying of the Light as well as the wandering worlds from When Worlds Collide (1934) by Edwin Balmer (w/P. Wylie).
He wheeled with only one thought — to get to the transmitter in his cruiser and send out a danger signal that would bring every System ship within ray-range hurtling to the rogue planet.
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- A Rogue Planet - Right In Our Neighborhood
- Smallest Rogue Planet Discovered In Milky Way
| SpaceX's Starman Tesla Roadster In Space |
| Warp Drive Tech Back On The Menu |
| JAXA Int Ball 2 Coming Right Along As Star Wars Remote |
| Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now |
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'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
