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"The first thing that's wrong with being a science-fiction writer today is that the present has caught up with the future and surpassed it."
- Peter Watts
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| Ribbon World | ||
| A planet that presents the same face to its sun has a small habitable area - the ribbon between light and dark. |
A unique term for a unique habitable place in the universe.
| Radole was a small world – and, in military potential, perhaps the weakest of the twenty-seven. That, by the way, was another factor in the logic of the choice. It was a ribbon world – of which the Galaxy boasts a sufficient number, but among which, the inhabited variety is a rarity for the physical requirements are difficult to meet. It was a world, in other words, where the two halves face the monotonous extremes of heat and cold, while the region of possible life is the girdling ribbon of the twilight zone. Such a world invariably sounds uninviting to those who have not tried it, but there exist spots, strategically placed – and Radole City was located in such a one. It spread along the soft slopes of the foothills before the hacked-out mountains that backed it along the rim of the cold hemisphere and held off the frightful ice. The warm, dry air of the sun-half spilled over, and from the mountains was piped the water-and between the two, Radole City became a continuous garden, swimming in the eternal morning of an eternal June. |
| Technovelgy from Foundation and Empire,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Doubleday in 1952 Additional resources -
|
This quote comes from The Mule, published in 1945.
This general idea is also discussed in Too Many Boards!, a 1931 story by Harl Vincent, referring to the planet Mercury and the belief that it is tidally locked like the Moon, presenting one face to the sun:
"Mercury!"
"Larry! It has a terrible climate and is — oh — uncivilized. Besides, its government is unrecognized by
the Tri-planetary Alliance. We'd be exiles in an awful
land where we could never live in peace."
"Honey — listen ! It's just the opposite. I've a very
good friend, Chic Davis, who's captain of the Rocket
III, one of the Tri-planetarian liners. He tells me
Mercury is the finest of all the inhabited bodies. It's
terrifically hot on the side always toward the sun and
frigid on the other, but there's a narrow belt where the
climate is moderate — semi-tropical by earthly standards.
And it's not uncivilized, but highly cultured...
The huge blood-red disc of the sun shone hotly at the
horizon, its almost horizontal rays making of the city
a motley of sweltering high lights and dark shadows.
Rose tinted mists hung low over all, effectually obscuring the heavens above. It was always thus in Luzan,
the sun never leaving the horizon entirely, but circling
it once in every, eighty-eight earth days and alternately
rising to a point that exposed the lower rim of the
enormous disc, then sinking to a point where the topmost edge just peeped through the mists above the
undulating line of demarcation between land and sky.
Apparently, Mercury is tidally locked, but at a 3:2 ratio, so it does not present the same face to the sun.
See also terminator zone from Exiles of the Moon (1931) by Schachner and Zagat and the twilight belt from The Mystery of the Twilight Belt (1934) by JNT Lintott.
"...Where else is there to go-?"
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Foundation and Empire
More Ideas
and Technology by Isaac Asimov
Tech news articles related to Foundation and Empire
Tech news articles related to works by Isaac Asimov
Ribbon World-related
news articles:
- Habitable Planet Gliese 581g Is A 'Ribbon World'
- Could Aliens Shelter In 'Terminator Zones' on 'Ribbon World' Exoplanets?
| SETI Suggests Prospecting The Solar System Without Landing |
| Cislunar Space And The Space Lanes of Golden Age Science Fiction |
| NASA Moonbase Update |
| The Solar Oberth Slingshot |
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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
