Юпитер в научной фантастике: эволюция образов и представлений

Depictions of the planet

Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, has appeared in works of fiction across several centuries. The way the planet has been depicted has evolved as more has become known about its composition; it was initially portrayed as being entirely solid, later as having a high pressure atmosphere with a solid surface underneath, and finally as being entirely gaseous. It was a popular setting during the pulp era of science fiction. Life on the planet has variously been depicted as identical to humans, larger versions of humans, and non human. Non human life on Jupiter has been portrayed as primitive in some works and more advanced than humans in others. The moons of Jupiter have also been featured in a large number of stories, especially the four Galilean moons—Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Common themes include terraforming and colonizing these worlds.

Jupiter was long believed, incorrectly, to be a solid planet onto which it would be possible to make a landing. It has made appearances in fiction since at least the 1752 novel Micromégas by Voltaire, wherein an alien from Sirius and another from Saturn pass Jupiter's satellites and land on the planet itself. In the 1800s, writers typically assumed that Jupiter was not only solid but also an Earth like world and depicted it accordingly. Jupiter resembles prehistoric Earth with a rich fauna full of lifeforms such as dinosaurs and mastodons in the 1894 novel A Journey in Other Worlds by John Jacob Astor IV. A few utopian works of fiction of the early 1900s are set on Jupiter, including the anonymously published 1908 novel To Jupiter Via Hell and the 1922 novel The Perfect World by Ella Scrymsour.

Most writers portrayed the inhabitants of Jupiter as being human, including Marie Corelli in the 1886 novel A Romance of Two Worlds and Cornelius Shea in the 1905 novel Mystic Island; Or, the Tale of a Hidden Treasure. Some portrayed Jovians as giant humans, including Albert Waldo Howard in the c. 1895 novel The Milltillionaire and William Shuler Harris in the 1905 novel Life in a Thousand Worlds. In the satirical 1886 novel A Fortnight in Heaven by Harold A. Brydges, an Earthling who visits Jupiter finds a futuristic version of America and discovers that the planet is populated by giant counterparts of Earth persons. Others took different approaches to portraying the natives, such as Fred H. Brown in the 1893 short story "A Message from the Stars", where the planet is inhabited by the spirits of the dead, and Homer Eon Flint in the 1918 short story "The King of Conserve Island", where Jovians are winged.

Jupiter made appearances in several pulp science fiction stories, including the final John Carter story by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the 1943 short story "Skeleton Men of Jupiter". In the 1933 short story "The Essence of Life" by Festus Pragnell, a social scientist is visited by human looking beings from Jupiter who reveal that they have a kind of elixir of life that they are willing to share, but also that they are ruled by octopus like beings who keep them as pets. Jupiter's Great Red Spot is imagined as a landmass of shifting solidity which is mined for radioactive deposits in the 1936 short story "Red Storm on Jupiter" by Frank Belknap Long, and it leaves Jupiter entirely in the 1937 short story "Life Disinherited" by Eando Binder.

As the conditions of Jupiter became better understood in the 1930s and onward, several stories emerged where the planet was portrayed as having a solid surface underneath a high pressure atmosphere. In the 1944 short story "Desertion" by Clifford D. Simak (later included in the 1952 fix up novel City), humans who have been thus transformed find Jupiter a preferable place to live and refuse to leave. Descents into the atmosphere are commonplace, seen in such works as the 1960 short story "The Way to Amalthea" by Soviet science fiction authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, the 1972 novel As on a Darkling Plain by Ben Bova, and the 1977 novel If the Stars are Gods by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund.

Once it was understood that Jupiter itself is a gaseous planet, its moons became more popular settings for stories featuring human or alien life. The satellite is mined for resources in the 1981 film Outland, a science fiction version of the 1952 Western High Noon. In the 1998 short story "The Very Pulse of the Machine" by Michael Swanwick, Io is implied to be sentient.

Europa is depicted as having a breathable atmosphere and native lifeforms on the side of the planet tidally locked towards Jupiter in the 1936 short story "Redemption Cairn" by Stanley G. Weinbaum. Since scientists started hypothesizing that Europa may have water oceans that could harbour life under its surface of ice, several stories have explored the idea, including the 2008 novel The Quiet War by Paul J. McAuley, the 2013 film Europa Report, and the 2016 novel Europa's Lost Expedition: A Scientific Novel by Michael Carroll.

Ganymede has domed cities in the 1901 novel A Honeymoon in Space by George Griffith.

Amalthea is a derelict extraterrestrial spaceship in the 1953 short story "Jupiter Five" by Arthur C. Clarke.