Meteors
Entry updated 13 July 2026. Tagged: Theme.
First, a note on terminology: officially, a small rocky object hurtling through space is called a meteoroid; one that falls towards Earth but burns up in the atmosphere is called a meteor; and one that reaches the ground intact is called a meteorite. But the rocks flying in space or landing on Earth are almost universally referred to in sf as "meteors". Indeed, there seems to be a certain aura of glamour attached to the term, because numerous stories use the word "meteor" in their titles even though the object therein is better described as an Asteroid or a small spacecraft (though it is true that there are no firm criteria for distinguishing a very large meteoroid from a very small asteroid). Meteor (1979) is actually about fragments of an asteroid threatening Earth, not a meteor, which is also the situation in Without Warning (1994). And some spacecraft observed landing on Earth are initially misidentified as meteors, in stories ranging from H G Wells's The War of the Worlds (1898) to the serial The Purple Monster Strikes (1945) and the films It Came from Outer Space (1953), Mammoth (2006), and Alien Trespass (2009). Genuine meteors in sf stories fall into two broad categories: those that land on Earth, usually bringing menacing Alien life forms, miraculous benefits, or massive Disaster, and those that imperil space travellers by penetrating Spaceships or spacesuits, causing a loss of oxygen and other damage.
There were no references to meteors in Proto SF and early sf, because only in the nineteenth century did scientists establish that they were objects from space rather than atmospheric phenomena, and that they sometimes landed on Earth's surface; further, there were no indications that meteors constituted a danger, either to space travellers on people on planets. So stories in the nineteenth and early twentieth century focused on meteorites found on Earth and their noteworthy properties.
One theme is that recovered meteorites might contain or create valuable known or unknown Elements, perhaps with miraculous or dangerous properties. Meteorites with standard elements are described in the complex plot of M P Shiel's The Lord of the Sea (1901; savagely cut 1924), involving the recovery of a meteorite containing diamonds; Louis Tracy's The King of Diamonds (1904), including another meteorite with diamonds; Jules Verne and Michel Verne's La Chasse au météore (1908; vt The Chase of the Golden Meteor; vt The Hunt for the Meteor; vt The Meteor Hunt), about disputes arising from the discovery of a large meteor that is made of pure gold; and H Thompson Rich's "The Diamond Thunderbolt" (July 1931 Astounding), featuring a meteorite made of diamond. In Moses Schere's "The Meteoric Magnet" (April 1930 Air Wonder Stories), an iron magnetite found in Meteor Crater is magnetized to defeat a rogue nation. A valuable meteorite inspires conflicts in Antti Tuomainen's Pikku Siperia (2018; trans David Hackston as Little Siberia 2019).
More exotic substances in meteorites are described in J Geo Hilzinger's The Skystone: A Romance of Prehistoric Arizona. Being Vol I of the Chronicles of Mázacl (1899), about a Lost Race whose achievements derive from the properties of a meteorite; William Wallace Cook's "A Gift from Mars" (May-July 1906 All-Story), in which a stone is extracted from a Martian meteorite that can turn lead into gold; and Lord Dunsany's "A Large Diamond" (March 1931 Britannia and Eve), involving a meteorite that transforms coal into diamonds. In R H Farnham's "At Jupiter's Call" (February 1904 Popular Magazine), a scientist believes that a meteorite will enable him to defy Gravity. In Stephen Chambers's "Star-Dust" (November-December 1912 All-Story), a new element from a meteorite enables a Scientist to observe dead people. In Otfrid von Hanstein's Elektropolis: Die Stadt der technischen Wunder: Ein Zukunftsroman (1928; trans anon as "Electropolis" Summer 1930 Wonder Stories Quarterly), radioactive material from a meteorite empowers the establishment of an Underground city; John Taine's The Iron Star (1930) involves an element from a meteorite that emits an addictive gas; and P Schuyler Miller's "The Red Plague" (July 1930 Wonder Stories) depicts a virulent substance from a meteorite that absorbs water and threatens to end life on Earth.
In A Hyatt Verrill's "Into the Green Prism" (March-April 1929 Amazing) and "Beyond the Green Prism" (January-February 1930 Amazing), a scientist uses a glass from a meteorite to enter a microscopic world (see Great and Small). Meteors cause time to run backward (see Time in Reverse) in Michael Maurice's strange Not in Our Stars (1923); a meteorite that allows people to control time is discovered in Jack Williamson's "The Meteor Girl" (March 1931 Astounding); and metals from a meteorite enable scientists to achieve Time Travel in Robert Arthur Jr's "Theft of the Washington Monument" (October 1933 Amazing) and Philip Francis Nowlan's "The Time Jumpers" (February 1934 Amazing). Two elements with miraculous properties, including Antigravity, are found in a meteorite in Eando Binder's "Eighty-Five and Eighty-Seven" (October 1934 Amazing). A mysterious glowing blue meteor causes various problems in Lester Dent's Meteor Menace: A Doc Savage Adventure (March 1934 Doc Savage magazine; 1964) as by Kenneth Robeson. A deadly radioactive meteorite figures in the serial The Phantom Creeps (1939), and another in Gerald Heard's Reply Paid (1942). In C L Moore's Vintage Season (September 1946 Astounding; 1990 chap dos with a sequel, In Another Country by Robert Silverberg), time travellers from the future venture into the past to enjoy life before a meteor hits Earth which results in a ruinous plague; a meteor also brings a plague in Rao Zhonghua's Yuzhou Bingdu ["Space Poison"] (2001). The connected stories in Eleanor Cameron's Jewels from the Moon and The Meteor That Couldn't Stay (1964) involve exotic meteorites, including one that might have contained Antimatter. In Super Mario Bros. (1993), a meteor improbably creates two Alternate Worlds.
In Comics, the lantern that gave the original Green Lantern his amazing powers was said to be built from a substance retrieved from a meteorite. Fragments of the destroyed planet Krypton, transformed into kryptonite, deadly to all Kryptonians, have regularly fallen to Earth as meteorites in Superman adventures; other varieties of kryptonite with different properties, said to be have been altered by travelling through strange clouds and coloured red, blue, white, or gold, were also introduced in the 1960s. In the Real Time Strategy game Command & Conquer (1995), a strange element called Tiberium obtained from a meteorite is valued because it can be used to generate useful materials, and in the Videogame Battlezone (1998), meteorites bring samples of an alien living metal used to devise advanced Technology. In Black Panther (2018), disputes arise in an African nation due to the discovery of a meteorite with unique properties.
There are also stories about meteorites containing messages from Aliens. C I Defontenay's tar, ou Ψ de Cassiopée: histoire merveilleuse de l'un des mondes de l'espace, nature singulière, coutumes, voyages, littérature starienne, poèmes et comédies traduits du starien (1854; trans P J Sokolowski as Star (Psi Cassiopeia) 1975 US, with intro by Pierre Versins) is about a meteorite that contains information about several alien planets. In Charles Dixon's Fifteen Hundred Miles an Hour (1895), a meteorite conveys an account of the exploits of human explorers on Mars to Earth. In Florence Edith Austin's "A Missile from Mars" (August 1906 Monthly Story Blue Book Magazine [see Blue Book Magazine]), a discarded piece of metal is mistakenly identified as a meteor with a message from Mars. A warning about an impending catastrophe is sent from Mars to Earth in a meteorite in Herbert Gubbins's The Elixir of Life; Or, 2905 AD: A Novel of the Far Future (1914). Ellis Parker Butler's "The Great Radio Message from Mars" (November 1923 Radio News) involves a meteorite from Mars that enables a man to communicate with Martians, while David M Speaker's "The Message from Space" (July 1930 Amazing) concerns an element found in a meteorite that enables a scientist to pick up a radio message from aliens. Joslyn Maxwell's The Outpost on the Moon (December 1930/January 1931 Wonder Stories) is about a scientist who deduces that strange meteorites striking Earth are intended to convey a message from the residents of Ganymede.
A popular subject is actual and usually evil aliens that come to Earth carried by meteors, although in Alfred Denton Cridge's Utopia; Or, the History of an Extinct Planet, Psychometrically Explained (1884 chap), a meteorite brings a benign spiritual being named Psycho who transports its finder to another planet. Also, in Don Howard's "The Machine from Outside" (May-June-July 1924 Weird Tales), a complex machine within a discovered meteorite transports two men to another world inhabited by benevolent aliens. An alien woman emerges from a bracelet found with a meteorite in Leslie Beresford's The Venus Girl ((February-October 1923 Romance UK; 1924; cut 1933), and in Pansy E Black's The Man from the Meteor (1932), sinister aliens emerge from a meteor to threaten Earth. In H Frankish's "The Mystery of the Norfolk Mere" (in Dr Cunliffe, Investigator, coll of linked stories 1913), a meteorite brings a murderous Monster to Earth; dangerous plant creatures emerge from a meteorite in Edward S Pilsworth's "Spawn of Infinitude" (June 1913 All-Story); and in Francis Flagg's "The Danger in the Crystal" (December 1929 Weird Tales), a meteorite containing two Energy Beings has catastrophic effects. In Cornelius Shea's Mystic Island; Or, the Tale of a Hidden Treasure (New York: Street and Smith, 1904) [chap: first appeared 30 April-2 July 1898 Golden Hours as "The Hidden Island; Or, the Wreck of the Schooner Kate", Brave and Bold #98]), a villainous queen on an island falsely claims that she and her people are aliens who came to Earth on a meteor. Charles B Stilson's "The Sky Woman" (25 September 1920 All-Story) involves a Martian woman carried to Earth in a meteor.
Stanton A Coblentz's "The Gas-Weed" (May 1929 Amazing) describes a meteor that carries a virulent and deadly form of plant life to Earth. In Harley S Aldinger's "The Green Intelligence" (November 1929 Science Wonder Stories), a meteor brings to Earth a sentient alien metal that becomes hostile, while in Jack Barnette's "The Vapor Intelligence" (January 1930 Science Wonder Stories), a meteor spawns a homicidal monster. In Rich's "Spawn of the Comet" (November 1931 Astounding), egg-like meteorites that bombard Earth produce alien insects that threaten to displace humanity. Morrison Colladay's "The Burning Swamp" (August 1931 Amazing) and "The Blattids" (December 1931 Amazing) constitute the two-part story of sinister insect-like aliens who come to Earth in a meteorite and threaten to conquer the Earth. In another two-part story, A Rowley Hilliard's "Death from the Stars" (October 1931 Wonder Stories) and "The Reign of the Star-Death" (April 1932 Wonder Stories), a meteor contains an alien organism that causes beings to turn into dust and causes numerous deaths. A small murderous creature emerges from a meteorite in Richard F Searight's "The Cosmic Horror" (August 1933 Wonder Stories).
In Henry K Kostkos's "The Meteor Men of Plaa" (August/September 1933 Amazing), a strange being living on a solid land mass in the upper atmosphere is brought to Earth by a meteorite. Edmond Hamilton's "The Accursed Galaxy" (July 1935 Astounding) involves an ancient energy being that comes to Earth in a polyhedral meteorite. Energy beings that take over people's brains come from a meteorite in Harl Vincent's "Parasite" (July 1935 Amazing). Donald Wandrei's "The Whisperers" (May 1935 Astounding) involves tiny aliens from a meteorite that infect and kill humans at a frightening rate. In Raymond Z Gallun's "A Beast from the Void" (September 1936 Astounding), a man discovers a benign alien creature brought to Earth in a meteorite, but fearing that it would ruinously reproduce on Earth, takes it back into space; in Gallun's "Meteor Legacy" (August 1941 Astounding) a seed from a meteorite engenders a carnivorous plant. Howard Wandrei's "Macklin's Little Friend" (November 1936 Astounding) as by H W Guernsey involves a dangerous alien predator apparently brought to Earth in a meteorite that landed in a lake. In Harry Stephen Keeler's The Man Who Changed His Skin (written 1959; trans into Spanish 1966; 2000) a tree grown from a seed retrieved from a meteorite causes an Identity Exchange.
A 1944 Comic book story features the Superhero Blue Beetle battling evil Saturnians who came to Earth in a meteorite. Huge crystals that emerge from a meteorite threaten people in The Monolith Monsters (1957); the amorphous monster The Blob (1958) is brought to Earth by a meteorite; and in It Came from Outer Space (1967), a meteorite brings alien energy beings who take over humans' minds. The satellite that brought a dangerous organism to Earth in The Andromeda Strain (1971) was diverted to Earth by a meteorite. In one episode of Mobile Police Patlabor (1988-1989), cells within a meteorite grow to become a monster. In Peter Høeg's Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne (1992; trans Tiina Nunnaly as Smilla's Sense of Snow 1993; also trans F David as Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow 1993), filmed as Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997), a meteorite landing in the Arctic brings alien life to Earth. In Evolution (2001), a meteor comes to Earth with alien creatures that rapidly evolve to become more and more advanced beings that prove menacing (see Evolution); the videogame Spore (2008) asks players to assist in enabling an alien cell delivered by a meteorite to develop into a sentient being; in Slither (2006), a dangerous alien parasite comes to Earth on a meteorite; and in The Seed (2021), a meteor reaching Earth produces a small dangerous creature. "Tunguska", an episode of the X-Files (1994), has agent Mulder investigating whether the 1908 meteorite that struck Siberia contained alien microorganisms. A alien child is brought to Earth in a meteor in Stephen Cox's Our Child of the Stars (2018).
If they do not carry monsters, meteorites may create monsters. Mayo Reiss's "Carnate Crystal" (October 1928 Weird Tales) involves a strange red crystal from a meteorite that infests a researcher. One famous story on this theme is H P Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space (September 1927 Amazing; 1982 chap), in which a meteorite has disturbing effects on a region near Arkham, Massachusetts, poisoning creatures, turning others into monsters, and driving people insane; it has been imperfectly filmed as Die Monster Die (1965), The Curse (1987), and Color Out of Space (2019). Meteors striking the sun somehow cause people to become taller in Leslie F Stone's "Cosmic Joke" (January 1935 Wonder Stories). In The Invisible Ray (1936), a meteorite discovered in Africa transforms a Scientist into a killer. A meteor makes a youth into a monster in Teenage Monster (1957), while another meteor turns a man into a monster in Track of the Moon Beast (1976). In "Meet the Meteor", an episode of Gilligan's Island (1966), a meteor lands on the island, and it is feared that it will cause the castaways to prematurely age. In a two-part episode of The Incredible Hulk, "Prometheus" (1980), a meteor transforms David Banner into half-human and half-Hulk, leading authorities to regard him as an alien. The videogame Maniac Mansion (1987) features a Villain influenced by a sinister meteor, while the related television series Maniac Mansion (1990-1993) includes a Mad Scientist whose creations are enabled by a meteor. Killer Tongue (1996) is about a woman who becomes a crazed killer due to a meteorite, while another meteorite makes a woman into a giant in Monsters vs. Aliens (2009).
But sometimes, meteors have helpful effects: an object within a meteorite provides a man with Telepathic powers in Gallun's "Telepathic Piracy" (March 1935 Astounding); the comic book superhero the Atom gained his shrinking powers from a meteorite that came from a white dwarf star; The Meteor Man (1993) is about a man who develops amazing abilities due to a a meteorite; in the series Smallville (2001-2011), meteor impacts cause several teenagers to acquire Superpowers; and in the videogame Psychonauts (2005) and the film Chronicle (2012), meteorites provide Telekinetic abilities. Philip José Farmer in numerous stories has developed the idea that an actual meteorite that landed in England in 1795 emitted radiation that led to the creation of various fictional heroes with unusual attributes, including Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes, and Tarzan as well as many others (see Wold Newton Family). In A G Taylor's Meteorite Strike (2010), a meteorite brings an alien virus that kills many people but also causes some to develop Psi Powers.
Other meteorites without unusual properties are troublesome simply because of the destruction and other effects that they could cause. On Earth, meteors fall to Earth in Shunrō Oshikawa's "Ōgon no Wankan" ["The Golden Bracelet"] (January 1907 Shōnen Sekai). In Verrill's The Golden City: A Tale of Adventure in Unknown Guiana (1916), a meteor destroyed an ancient city. Enormous meteors periodically strike Earth and disrupt its orbit in Maurice's Not in Our Stars. In S Maxwell Coder's "The Ether Ship of Oltor" (July 1927 Amazing), a new star and planet entering the solar system bring destructive meteors to Earth. Hanstein's "In the Year 8000" (apparently not published in German; trans by Laurence Manning and Konrad Schmidt July-September 1932 Wonder Stories) depicts conflicts on a future Earth afflicted by violent meteor impacts. A meteorite landing nearby in the sea forces a ship to become trapped in Cyril G Wates's "The Visitation" (June 1927 Amazing). Frank Belknap Long's "The Roaring Blot" (March 1936 Astounding) involves a strange meteorite that bores a hole deep inside the Earth. J Storer Clouston's Not Since Genesis (1938) describes a Europe worried about an impending meteor impact, which is also a concern in Maurice Dekobra's Météore 101 ([date not established]; trans Metcalfe Wood as Death Requests the Pleasure 1940). In William F Powers's "Meteor" (September 1950 Astounding), an approaching meteor arouses great concern because of the damage it will cause before it burns up in the atmosphere. In "Target: Hurricane" an episode of Science Fiction Theatre (1955), a meteorite causes a hurricane. In J F Bone's "Triggerman" (December 1958 Astounding), a meteor impact destroys Washington, D.C. In the film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), meteors improbably cause the Van Allen belts surrounding Earth to ignite into flames, endangering humanity and requiring the intervention of an advanced submarine. A report of a feared meteorite approaching Earth is revealed to be a hoax in the series Object Z (1965). In the animated series Valley of the Dinosaurs (1974), the stranded people are menaced by meteors, and Donald Malcolm's The Iron Rain (1976) envisions an Earth devastated by innumerable meteorites.
The Crater Lake Monster (1978) involves a prehistoric creature hatched from an egg in a lake heated by a meteorite impact. In Ronald V Fodor's and G J Taylor's Impact! (1979), a meteor about to strike Earth inspires fear; an impending meteor impact is also the subject of Naomi Foyle's Seoul Survivors (2013). An approaching meteorite threatens an American city in Gary Paulsen's Meteorite Track 91 (1979). Paul O Williams's Pelbar Cycle, beginning with The Breaking of Northwall (1981), takes place on a devastated future Earth where a ruinous meteor shower led to a nuclear war. In an episode of the animated series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, "Visitors from Earth" (1984), astronauts from Earth arrive on He-Man's world anxious to return in order to use a missile to destroy a dangerous meteor heading toward Earth. In Yukinobu Hoshino's "Kyōfu no Insekijun" ["Meteorites of Fear"] (graph January 1976 Shōnen Jump; fixup as part of Blue City 1988) meteorites cause a pandemic. In the videogame Simearth (1990), players have the option of changing Earth's development by means of more frequent meteor impacts. A future Earth is damaged by numerous meteorites in the television movie Strange New World (1975), the videogame Dark Earth (1997), and the animated series Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999). A meteor kills a woman in Disaster in Time (1997), and swarms of impacting meteors menace people in Anna's Storm (2007), Meteor Storm (2010), and Meteor Apocalypse (2010). A large meteorite is about to devastate the Earth in Steven Sivell's Cloud Cuckoo Land (2007), while a meteorite causes accelerated Climate Change in Benjamin Percy's The Ninth Metal (2021). A town in Nevada is disastrously struck by a meteor in David Oppegaard's Wormwood, Nevada (2009), In Torsten Krol's The Secret Book of Sacred Things (2012) a meteor impact has destroyed Earth's civilization, and in Neal Stephenson's Seveneves (2015), meteors resulting from fragmentation of the Moon have eliminated all life on Earth's surface, though humans survive Under the Sea. But in Lloyd Arthur Eshbach's "The Time Conqueror" (July 1932 Wonder Stories), meteors actually benefit Earth by devastating alien invaders. In a few cases, meteors are deliberately deployed by aliens as Weapons to attack the Earth, as in Verrill's "Death from the Skies" (October 1929 Amazing) and Clinton Constantinescu's "The War of the Universe" (Fall 1931 Amazing Stories Quarterly).
On the Moon, in Hugo Gernsback's The Scientific Adventures of Baron Münchausen (May 1915-February 1917 Electrical Experimenter, irregularly, as "Baron Münchhausen's New Scientific Adventures"; reprinted in Amazing, February-July 1928; cut 2006; vt Baron Münchhausen's Scientific Adventures 2017 dos), it is feared that the Baron has been killed by a meteor while walking on the Moon. Ancient Martians employ meteors to attack the Moon in Otis Adelbert Kline's Maza of the Moon (1930), and meteors devastate the Moon in Robert H Wilson's "Out Around Rigel" (December 1931 Astounding). A spaceship on the Moon is destroyed by meteors in Pathfinders in Space (1960) (see Pathfinders Series).
On Mars, in Gustavus Pope's Romances of the Planets, No. 1: Journey to Mars: The Wonderful World; its Beauty and Splendor; its Mighty Races and Kingdoms; its Final Doom (1894), a Martian civilization is imperilled by meteors, while in Louis Pope Gratacap's The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars: Being the Posthumous Papers of Bradford Torrey Dodd (1903), a meteor shower threatens a domed city on Mars. A meteorite causes problems for a stranded astronaut in Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964).
Elsewhere, George C Wallis's "The Great Sacrifice: A Scientific Romance" (June 1903 The London Magazine) is about an enormous meteor swarm that will heat up the Sun and destroy all life on Earth; a similar peril is envisioned in Gallun's "Nova Solis" (December 1935 Astounding) as by E V Raymond. In John Brunner's The Crucible of Time (1982), an alien race on a distant planet experiences ruinous meteorite impacts and gradually realizes that their existence in a dangerous region of space will eventually require them to leave their world and live elsewhere. The animated series The Clangers (1969-1970; 1971-1972; 1974) is set on a small world in our Solar System which regularly suffers meteor impacts.
Meteors have long been characterized as a grave danger to space travellers, though sixty-five years of actual astronauts in space have shown that the risk is extremely minor. Two early stories about space travellers imperilled by meteors in space are Garrett P Serviss's Edison's Conquest of Mars (first appeared 12 January-10 February 1898 New York Evening Journal as "The Conquest of Mars"; 1947; cut vt Forrest J. Ackerman Presents Invasion of Mars 1969) and Howard R Garis's Lost on the Moon or, in Quest of the Field of Diamonds (1911) as by as Roy Rockwood. Henry James's "Mernos" (February 1929 Amazing) is about a spaceship diverted by a meteor to an unknown planet. Philip Francis Nowlan's "The Onslaught from Venus" (September 1929 Science Wonder Stories) mentions that some spaceships transporting Venusians to Earth were struck by meteors. John R Pierce's "The Relics from the Earth" (March 1930 Science Wonder Stories) describes a flying saucer from Triton that is damaged by a meteor, and his "Adrift in the Void" (June 1934 Wonder Stories) is about a human spaceship crew endangered by a meteor that strikes their vehicle.
In Stanton A Coblentz's The Blue Barbarians (Summer 1931 Amazing Stories Quarterly; 1958), a spaceship approaching Venus is menaced by the meteors that surround the planet. In Ray Cummings's "The Mark of the Meteor" (Winter 1931 Wonder Stories Quarterly), a spaceship is damaged by a meteor, killing all but three passengers, two of them later rescued. A flight to Pluto is damaged by a meteor in Coblentz's Into Plutonian Depths (Spring 1931 Wonder Stories; 1980). In Isaac R Nathanson's "Moon People of Jupiter" (Spring 1931 Amazing Stories Quarterly), a spaceship on the way to Mars is severely damaged by a meteor and must instead make a landing on the Jovian moon Io. In Sewell Peaslee Wright's "The Ghost World" (April 1931 Astounding), a spaceship is diverted by a meteor swarm to an unknown world. J Harvey Haggard's "An Adventure on Eros" (September 1931 Wonder Stories) describes a training exercise involving threatening meteors near Eros, while his "Castaways on Deimos" (August 1933 Wonder Stories) is about a meteor swarm that forces passengers into a lifeboat that lands on Deimos. Neil R Jones's "The Asteroid of Death" (Fall 1931 Wonder Stories Quarterly) is about a meteor that strikes a spaceship on an asteroid and kills its passengers. In John W Campbell Jr's "The Derelicts of Ganymede" (January 1932 Wonder Stories), a ship headed for Mars is damaged by meteors but manages to land safely on Ganymede. In J M Walsh's Vanguard to Neptune (Spring 1932 Wonder Stories Quarterly; 1952), only two people survive when a spaceship is hit by a meteor swarm. Edward Morris's and Jack Bertin's "Rebellion on Venus" (Summer 1932 Wonder Stories) is about a spaceship struck by a meteor, though passengers use lifeboats to reach Venus.
In Robert Baldwin's "Retribution" (November 1933 Amazing), a meteor penetrates a spaceship and kills two passengers. When a meteor damages a spaceship in Joseph W Skidmore's "Souls Aspace" (February 1933 Amazing), a Martian survives by transferring his personality to a human. Edward H Hinton's "Monsters of Callisto" (October 1933 Wonder Stories) is about a spaceship forced by meteors to enter a dangerous zone. Belts of meteors orbiting Earth threaten astronauts in Lowell Howard Morrow's "Through the Meteors" (April 1930 Air Wonder Stories), Richard Tooker's "Tyrant of the Red World" (August 1932 Wonder Stories), and Frank K Kelly's "Into the Meteorite Orbit" (December 1933 Amazing). In Everett C Smith and R Z Starzl's "The Metal Moon" (Winter 1932 Wonder Stories Quarterly), all space travel is temporarily ended because of a huge meteor swarm that enters the solar system. Meteors damage a spaceship in J Harvey Haggard's "Castaways on Deimos" (August 1933 Wonder Stories). But meteors are actually beneficial in Edwin K Sloat's "Beyond the Planetoids" (August 1932 Amazing), as they enable a man to escape from a space pirate, and in Kelly's "Crater 17, Near Tycho" (June 1934 Astounding), where they protect a a rebel ship being pursued by the authorities. Meteor damage to a spaceship traversing the asteroid belt creates the titular problem of Isaac Asimov's debut story "Marooned off Vesta" (March 1939 Amazing).
One typical later story about the hazards of meteors in space was Arthur C Clarke's "Thirty Seconds – Thirty Days" (December 1949 Thrilling Wonder Stories vt "Breaking Strain"), in which a meteor damages the oxygen supply of a spaceship headed for Venus, meaning that there will not be enough oxygen for both crewmates to survive; it was filmed as Trapped in Space (1994). In William Vine's "Death Sentence" (June 1953 Imagination) a man in a spaceship stages a purported meteor strike to conceal a murder. John Alfred Taylor's "Far from Home" (December 1955 Astounding) describes the pilot of a spaceship disabled by a meteor who is still able to return to Earth safety. In Donald Malcolm's "The Long Ellipse" (January 1958 New Worlds), a spaceship on the way to Venus is damaged by a meteor, but the crew manages to stay alive by going into Suspended Animation. A spaceship travelling from a space station to Earth recovers from a meteor impact in Frank B Bryning's "For Men Must Work" (February 1956 Fantastic Universe). A meteor that lodges in and damages a ship bound for the Moon and must be removed is the subject of Donald E Westlake's "Meteor Strike!" (November 1961 Amazing). In the animated film The Return (1980; original title Vozvrashchenie) an astronaut flying from Jupiter to Mars is imperilled because his spaceship is struck by meteors. One threat encountered by the reader-protagonist travelling through space in R A Montgomery's Choose Your Own Adventure book Space and Beyond (1980) is a meteor shower. Even in the twenty-first century the meteor-as-deadly-hazard trope persists: in John J Nance's Orbit (2006), a spaceship passenger (wrongly) thinks himself doomed when a micrometeorite kills the pilot, while in Ben Bova's and Les Johnson's Rescue Mode (2014), a spaceship headed for Mars is damaged by a meteor but strives to reach its destination anyway.
Films and television programs of the 1950s featuring spacecraft or astronauts in space threatened or damaged by meteors are too numerous to name; some prominent examples include Rocketship X-M (1950), Flight to Mars (1951), Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), Conquest of Space (1956), Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1956), Missile to the Moon (1958), First Man Into Space (1959), Der Schweigende Stern (1960), 12 to the Moon (1960), The Phantom Planet (1961), Planeta Bur (1962), Dos Cosmonautas a la Fuerza (1965), Uchūdaikaijū Girara (1967), and Mission Mars (1968). They also caused regular problems for space travellers in the television shows of the 1950s, but were most frequently observed in the series Men into Space (1959-1960) because it did not introduce aliens or space pirates to generate conflicts. Later, meteors endanger an interstellar starship in The Day After Tomorrow (1975); a spaceship approaching a Black Hole is struck by a meteor in The Black Hole (1979); and a swarm of meteors damages a spaceship on the way to Mars in Mission to Mars (2000).
An obvious consequence of hazardous meteors in space would be to equip spaceships with devices to detect or deflect them, as is the case in Jim Vanny's "Liners of Space" (February 1930 Air Wonder Stories), Morrow's "Through the Meteors", Maxwell's already-cited The Outpost on the Moon, Jones's "The Jameson Satellite" (July 1931 Amazing), Lewis Burtt's "When the Universe Shrank" (October/November 1933 Amazing), and Richard Vaughn's The Exile of the Skies (January/March 1934 Wonder Stories). "Magnetic meteor deflectors" are also employed to protect astronauts on the Moon in 12 to the Moon.
Space Stations are also often imperilled by meteors, as in Bernard Buley's "Flaming Frontier" (16 June 1934 Scoops). But in Arthur C Clarke's Islands in the Sky (1952), a meteor seemingly penetrates the hull of a space station but this turns out to be only a training exercise. In Harriette S Abels's Meteor from the Moon (1979), a passing meteor disrupts the position of a space station, and in Anne Mason's The Dancing Meteorite (1984), a woman on a space station observes a meteorite acting strangely and deduces that it is being manipulated by aliens confined in the station who want to escape. In Destination Space (1959), a planned rocket launch to the Moon from a space station is disrupted by a meteor striking the station. The lost Doctor Who multi-part story "The Wheel in Space" (1968) features the Doctor rescuing a space station from threatening meteorites.
Meteors in space, like meteors on Earth, might also be sought after for the valuable substances they might have, as is the case in Neil R Jones's "The Death's Head Meteor" (January 1930 Air Wonder Stories), where a meteor is being examined for the jewels and minerals it might contain before it crashes into Mars, and in Jack Winks's "Adrift on a Meteor" (August/September 1933 Amazing), wherein an astronaut adrift in space encounters a meteor that might contain coveted materials.
Unusual stories about meteors include Ray Cummings's The Man on the Meteor (January-September 1924 Science and Invention; 1943), in which a man with Amnesia wakes up on a meteor orbiting Saturn and has some strange adventures there. A film singularly focused on meteors is Riders to the Stars (1954), involving an effort to discover why meteorites do not burn up in the atmosphere before hitting the ground; astronauts fly into near-Earth orbit to capture a meteorite before it lands, whereupon it is found that meteorites have coatings of diamonds to protect them. A strange meteor shower causes observers to become blind in John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids (1951).
Since the overwhelming majority of meteors are tiny and nonthreatening, and since meteorites have provided scientists with valuable information about the history of the solar system, it is odd that they so often function as threats in sf stories, objects almost always to be dreaded and avoided at all costs. Though there are usually happy endings, meteors thus convey the lingering fear of the unknown that persists in the purportedly optimistic genre of sf. Then again, meteorites do represent one convenient way to introduce alien menaces to Earth, and because actual space travel has proven with rare exceptions to be monotonously routine, meteors are one of the few ways to introduce drama in sf stories about space without bringing in stowaways, ludicrous monsters, or aliens. [GW]
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