The Lowest Heaven

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It should come as no surprise that the relationship between astronomy and science fiction has always been a close one. After all, even in the Space Age, the nearest most of us will get to experiencing the wonders of deep space for ourselves is through the medium of books, films and television (and perhaps, if we’re lucky, virtual reality too).

Modern astronomy is characterised by vast distances and immense spans of time which challenge the imagination of even the most hardened cosmologist. Douglas Adams perhaps came closest to a concise description of the true scale of the Universe when he wrote “Space is big”, but such enormous numbers are almost impossible to grasp in any meaningful way beyond the purely mathematical. However, science fiction can give us a way to make at least some sense out of those mind-blowing figures. By setting human stories within that immense canvas writers can help us to see ourselves as part of the wider cosmos, and perhaps give us an inkling of what that might actually mean. No wonder that many of today’s professional astronomers can trace their interest, at least in part, to an early encounter with science fiction.

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