Sirius in fiction

The name "Sirius" is also often applied to people, animals, or things not directly connected with the star. For other uses, see Sirius (disambiguation).
An artist's impression of Sirius A and Sirius B. Sirius A is the larger star, Sirius B the smaller white dwarf. (NASA)

The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in much science fiction. Sirius, a double star system with the binary designation Sirius AB, is the brightest stellar object in the night sky. Its component stars are Sirius A (the primary—twice as massive and 25 times more luminous than the Sun[1]) and Sirius B (the secondary—a faint white dwarf). The distance separating Sirius A from its companion varies between 8.1 and 31.5 AU,[2] reflecting the eccentricity of their mutual orbits. The system contains no known extrasolar planets (see Traveller below)—and even if such were eventually discovered, with an estimated age of 230 million years[2] the system is too young to have fostered the development of life or a complex biosphere.

Sirius AB is the alpha star of the constellation Canis Major (the great dog, sometimes styled as Orion's hunting dog[3]), whence its cognomen the dog star. The most commonly used proper name of this star comes through the Latin Sirius, from the Greek Σείριος (Seirios, glowing or scorcher). The ancient Greeks observed that the appearance of Sirius heralded the hot and dry dog days of summer, and feared that it caused plants to wilt, men to weaken, and women to become aroused.[4] (see The Iliad below). The star was also an important harbinger of winter to Maori and Polynesian cultures, and central to the animist beliefs of the Dogon people of Mali. To this day it is frequently mentioned in science fiction and related popular culture.[5]

General uses of Sirius

Achilles Defeated Hector (1630-1635), oil sketch by Peter Paul Rubens. As Athena looks on, the bronze-clad Greek warrior in full shining slays Hector, son of Priam, before the walls of Troy.

Sirius may be referred to in fictional works for its metaphorical (meta) or mythological (myth) associations, or else as a bright point of light in the sky of Earth, but not as a location in space or the center of a planetary system:

 

There follow references to Sirius as a location in space or the center of a planetary system, categorized by genre:

Literature

Plasma globe. More than 99% of the matter in the universe exists in the plasma phase.
Address by Sirius, Lord of the Dog Star, to an audience of canines from the top of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London.
Artist's impression of the interior of Rama. The spinning of the huge cylinder at 0.25 rpm duplicates the effects of gravity on the inside surface. The Cylindrical Sea is visible in the middle distance, bisecting the vessel lengthwise.

Film and television

Sirius in Canis Major, home of the Dominion planet Sirius IV in the Doctor Who serial "Frontier in Space," and of Androzani Major and Androzani Minor in "The Caves of Androzani."
Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god associated with mummification and the afterlife.

Radio

Games

A promotional screenshot showing the Dreadnaught in hardware rendered graphics.

See also

Sirius is referred to as a location in space or the center of a planetary system unusually often in fiction. For a list containing many stars and planetary systems that have a less extensive list of references, see Stars and planetary systems in fiction.

Sirius is a binary star system. For a general article on imagined binary and multiple star systems in fiction, see Binary stars in fiction.

Notes and references

Notes

  1. It is often stated that more than 99% of the material in the visible universe is plasma.[21][22]
  2. The novel The Starlight Barking was written in 1967, during a time of widespread fear of global annihilation through nuclear war,[30] and shortly after the concerted promulgation by the USA and the USSR of the strategic doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).
  3. Substantial or passing references to Jinx and its extensively adapted human inhabitants—the Jinxians—appear in almost all of Niven's tales of Known Space.
  4. Clarke's science was solid for its time (1986). The "solar neutrino problem" perplexed scientists from the 1960s until 2002, with the discovery that neutrinos can oscillate between three states (νe, νμ, ντ), the latter two types previously undetected in the solar flux. The Sun will not go nova anytime soon.
  5. The screamers, as out-of-control killing machines, come from a long and distinguished lineage. See, for example Fred Saberhagen's Berserkers, Cordwainer Smith's Menschenjägers,[39][40] and Jack Vance's Kokor Hekkus (the Killing Machine), "... which split bodies in half with an axe. As dreadful as the axe was the scream the metal ogre emitted with every strike."[41]

References

  1. Liebert, J; Young, P A; Arnett, D; Holberg, J B; Williams, K A; Arnett, David; Holberg, J. B.; Williams, Kurtis A. (2005). "The Age and Progenitor Mass of Sirius B". The Astrophysical Journal. 630 (1): L69–L72. arXiv:astro-ph/0507523Freely accessible. Bibcode:2005ApJ...630L..69L. doi:10.1086/462419.
  2. 1 2 Schaaf, Fred (2008). The Brightest Stars. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. p. 94. ISBN 0-471-70410-5. Retrieved 2012-04-17.
  3. 1 2 Homer (1962). Iliad. 22:25. Trans. Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 435–436. ISBN 0-226-46940-9.
  4. Holberg, J B (2007). Sirius: Brightest Diamond in the Night Sky. Chichester, UK: Praxis Publishing. p. 19. ISBN 0-387-48941-X.
  5. The editors of Analog and Asimov's Science Fiction (1993). Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-312-08926-9.
  6. Dryden, John (1681). "Absalom And Achitophel". Read Book Online. pp. [etext: search on quotation]. Retrieved 2012-04-18.
  7. Hardy, Thomas (2000). Far from the Madding Crowd. London: Penguin Classics. pp. 9; 12. ISBN 978-0-14-143965-5.
  8. Hardy, Thomas (2009). Tess of the d'Urbervilles. London: Arcturus. p. 218. ISBN 978-1-84837-322-8.
  9. Jones, Diana Wynne (1975). Dogsbody. New York: Greenwillow Books. p. 5. ISBN 0-06-441038-2.
  10. Tolkien, J R R (1977). The Silmarillion. ed. Christopher Tolkien. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-547-95198-0.
  11. Hoyser, Catherine E; Lorena Laura Stookey (1997). Tom Robbins: A Critical Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 9; 150. ISBN 0-313-29418-6. Retrieved 2012-04-21.
  12. Temple, Robert (1998). The Sirius Mystery: New Scientific Evidence of Alien Contact 5,000 Years Ago. passim. Merrimac, MA: Destiny Books. ISBN 0-89281-750-X.
  13. Fredericks, S C (1976). "Lucian's True History as SF". Science Fiction Studies. 3 (1): 49–60. Retrieved 2012-04-22.
  14. Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (1993). "Lucian". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: St Martin’s Griffin. pp. 739–740. ISBN 0-312-13486-X.
  15. Reardon, B P (2008). Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. pp. 619–622. ISBN 0-520-25655-7.
  16. Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (1993). "Voltaire". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: St Martin’s Griffin. pp. 1287–1288. ISBN 0-312-13486-X.
  17. Volaire. "Micromégas, Philosophical History". Free eBooks by Project Gutenberg. p. [etext: search on quotation]. Retrieved 2012-04-23.
  18. Wells, H G (1927). "A Vision of Judgment—§9". The Short Stories of H.G. Wells. London: Ernest Benn. p. 114.
  19. Cole, Robert (1900). "Bibliography: The Struggle for Empire". Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  20. Clement, Hal (1942). "Bibliography: Proof". Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2012-04-23.
  21. Gurnett, D A; Bhattacharjee, A (2005). Introduction to Plasma Physics: With Space and Laboratory Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 2. ISBN 0-521-36483-3. Retrieved 2012-04-24.
  22. Sherer, K; Fichtner, H; Heber, B (2005). Space Weather: The Physics Behind a Slogan. Berlin: Springer Verlag. p. 138. ISBN 3-540-22907-8. Retrieved 2012-04-24.
  23. Asimov, Isaac (2008). Pebble in the Sky. New York: Tom Doherty Associates. p. 23. ISBN 0-7653-1912-8.
  24. Asimov, Isaac (1962). The Hugo Winners. 1. Robbinsdale, MN: Fawcett Crest. p. 86.
  25. Russell, E F (2007). Wasp. London: Pollinger. p. 31. ISBN 978-1-905665-45-7.
  26. Asimov, Isaac (1958). Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn. New York: Doubleday. p. 8.
  27. Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (1993). "Cooper, Edmund". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: St Martin’s Griffin. p. 263. ISBN 0-312-13486-X.
  28. Vance, Jack (2005). Space Opera. 18. Multiple editors. Oakland, CA: The Vance Integral Edition. pp. 54–74. ISBN 0-9712375-1-4.
  29. Smith, Dodie (1997). The Starlight Barking. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 111; 115. ISBN 0-312-15664-2.
  30. "Doomsday Clock Timeline". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Retrieved 2012-04-29.
  31. "Bibliography: Foeman, Where Do You Flee?". The Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2012-04-29.
  32. Bova, Ben (1972). As on a Darkling Plain. New York: Dell. p. 86.
  33. Niven, Larry (1975). Tales of Known Space. New York: Ballantine Books. p. 157. ISBN 0-345-24563-6.
  34. O'Neill, Brian (2011). "Jinx". Encyclopedia of Known Space. p. [etext: search on Jinx]. Retrieved 2012-04-28.
  35. Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (1993). "Lessing, Doris". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: St Martin’s Griffin. p. 714. ISBN 0-312-13486-X.
  36. Clarke, Arthur C (1986). The Songs of Distant Earth. New York: Del Rey Books. p. 23. ISBN 0-345-32240-1.
  37. Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (1993). "Big Dumb Objects". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. The satirical provenance of this ESF article is described in the Wikipedia article Big Dumb Object. New York: St Martin’s Griffin. pp. 118–119. ISBN 0-312-13486-X.
  38. Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (1993). "V". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: St Martin’s Griffin. p. 1263. ISBN 0-312-13486-X.
  39. Smith, Cordwainer (1993). "Mark Elf". The Rediscovery of Man. Framingham, MA: NESFA Press. p. 34. ISBN 0-915368-56-0.
  40. Smith, Cordwainer. "Mark Elf". Baen Ebooks. pp. [etext: search on Menschenjäger and/or manshonyagger]. Retrieved 2012-05-03.
  41. Vance, Jack (2005). The Killing Machine. 23. Multiple editors. Oakland, California: The Vance Integral Edition. p. 31. ISBN 0-9712375-1-4.
  42. "Independence War Deluxe". CodeWeavers. p. click on ellipsis for full review. Retrieved 2012-05-10.
  43. Sulic, Ivan (2003-01-07). "Freely Lancing". IGN. IGN Entertainment. Retrieved 2012-05-07.
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