Меркурий планетасы әдебиетте: бейнелер мен эволюциясы

Depictions of the planet

Fictional depictions of Mercury, the innermost planet of the Solar System, have gone through three distinct phases. Before much was known about the planet, it received scant attention. Later, when it was incorrectly believed that it was tidally locked with the Sun creating a permanent dayside and nightside, stories mainly focused on the conditions of the two sides and the narrow region of permanent twilight between. Since that misconception was dispelled in the 1960s, the planet has again received less attention from fiction writers, and stories have largely concentrated on the harsh environmental conditions that come from the planet's proximity to the Sun. The 1750 novel Relation du Monde de Mercure (English title: The World of Mercury) by Chevalier de Béthune is another early example which is unusual in not using the fictional extraterrestrial society for purposes of satire. In W. S. Lach Szyrma's 1883 novel Aleriel, or A Voyage to Other Worlds, Mercurians are depicted as living in the planet's atmosphere. The first English language work of fiction set primarily on Mercury was William Wallace Cook's 1905 novel Adrift in the Unknown, or Adventures in a Queer Realm, a satire on United States capitalism. Homer Eon Flint's 1919 short story "The Lord of Death" depicts the ruins of a previous civilization now extinct on Mercury. Examples include Ray Cummings' 1930 novel Tama of the Light Country where the inhabitants of Mercury live their lives under an unmoving Sun, Isaac Asimov's 1942 short story "Runaround" (later included in the 1950 fix up novel I, Robot) where a robot is sent to retrieve critical supplies from the inhospitable dayside and malfunctions, Asimov's 1956 short story "The Dying Night" where a character who has spent a long time on Mercury is used to there being areas in permanent darkness, Larry Niven's 1964 short story "The Coldest Place" depicts the nightside of Mercury and may be the last story of a tidally locked Mercury; between the time the story was written and when it was published, it was discovered that the planet is not tidally locked—it actually has a 3:2 spin–orbit resonance such that all sides regularly see daylight.

Even after it was discovered that Mercury is not tidally locked with the Sun, some stories continued to use the juxtaposition of the hot daytime side facing the Sun and the cold nighttime side facing away as a plot device; the 1982 short story "The Tortoise and O'Hare" by Grant Callin portrays an astronaut who struggles to stay on the night side of the terminator line in order to avoid dying from the heat of the dayside, In general, however, most modern stories focus on the generally harsh conditions of the planet. Similarly, the planet is used as a solar power station in the 2005 novel Mercury, part of Ben Bova's Grand Tour series. The 1973 novel Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke portrays the descendants of human colonists on Mercury, known as Hermians, as tough and paranoid. In the 2005 short story "Kath and Quicksilver" by Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper, Mercury is threatened by the expansion of the Sun. It serves as a backdrop in the 2007 film Sunshine when one spacecraft goes into orbit around Mercury before rendezvousing with another.