Binary stars in fiction
Encyclopedia
Much science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 has explored the possibilities of binary star
Binary star
A binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The brighter star is called the primary and the other is its companion star, comes, or secondary...

 or multiple star
Multiple star
A multiple star consists of three or more stars which appear from the Earth to be close to one another in the sky. This may result from the stars being physically close and gravitationally bound to each other, in which case it is physical, or this closeness may be merely apparent, in which case...

 systems.

Film

One of the most well-known examples is the planet Tatooine
Tatooine
Tatooine is a fictional planet and setting for many key scenes in the Star Wars saga, appearing in every Star Wars film except The Empire Strikes Back, although it is mentioned at the end of the movie...

in the Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

movies, which orbits two stars.

At the start of the film Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers (film)
Starship Troopers is a 1997 American military science fiction film, written by Edward Neumeier , directed by Paul Verhoeven, loosely adapted from Starship Troopers, a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. It is the only theatrically released film in the Starship Troopers franchise...

, a FedNet news graphic describes the Arachnid home world as orbiting "a twin star system whose brutal gravitational forces produce an unlimited supply of Bug meteorites."

The movie Pitch Black takes place on a planet in a ternary system.

In Jim Henson
Jim Henson
James Maury "Jim" Henson was an American puppeteer best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for...

's The Dark Crystal
The Dark Crystal
The Dark Crystal is a 1982 British-American fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Although marketed as a family film, it was notably darker than previous material created by them. The animatronics used in the film were considered groundbreaking. The primary concept artist was the...

, the entire plot centers around an upcoming conjunction of an alien planet's three suns.

The prison planet Fiorina 'Fury' 161 in the film Alien 3 orbits a binary star system.

Televised science fiction series

In "Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

", the Doctor's home planet Gallifrey
Gallifrey
Gallifrey is a fictional planet in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who and is the homeworld of the Doctor and the Time Lords...

 orbits a binary star system. The Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American military science fiction television series, and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson...

episode "The Captain's Hand" is set in a binary star system. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...

 episode "Night Terrors" the Enterprise-D becomes trapped within an unusual binary star system, and in Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise is a science fiction television series. It follows the adventures of humanity's first warp 5 starship, the Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek series was formed.Enterprise premiered on September 26, 2001...

episode "Singularity," the Enterprise visits a ternary star system. The home star system of the planet Vulcan in Star Trek is likely to be 40 Eridani
40 Eridani
40 Eridani is a triple star system less than 16.5 light years away from Earth. It is in the constellation Eridanus. The primary star of the system, 40 Eridani A, is easily visible to the naked eye...

, a triple star system, 16 light-years from Earth. In the Stargate
Stargate
Stargate is a adventure military science fiction franchise, initially conceived by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. The first film in the franchise was simply titled Stargate. It was originally released on October 28, 1994, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Carolco, and became a hit, grossing nearly...

 fictional universe, the planet Chulak is located in a binary star system. In Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...

, the crew of the Planet Express Ship
Planet Express Ship
The Planet Express Ship is a fictional spaceship in the animated series Futurama, which bears the official designation "U.S.S. Planet Express Ship." The ship was designed and built by Professor Hubert Farnsworth and is the sole delivery ship of Planet Express, a delivery service owned by the...

 visit a planet in a ternary system in the episode "My Three Suns
My Three Suns
"My Three Suns" is episode seven in season one of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on May 4, 1999. This episode was written by J. Stewart Burns and directed by Jeffrey Lynch and Kevin O'Brien...

".

Literature

David Weber
David Weber
David Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Weber and his wife Sharon live in Greenville, South Carolina with their three children and "a passel of dogs"....

's Honorverse
Honorverse
The Honorverse refers to the military science fiction book series and sub-series created by David Weber and published by Baen Books. The series is set primarily after Honor Harrington's October 1, 3961, birth; although she is the protagonist in most of the stories, more recent entries make only...

features the Manticore system, a binary star with three habitable planets, two of them (Sphinx and the capital world Manticore) orbiting Manticore A and one (Gryphon) orbiting Manticore B. In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...

, Magrathea is a planet in orbit around a binary system. The last part of Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...

's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke. It was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film version and published after the release of the film...

plays out in the atmosphere of a red giant
Red giant
A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius immense and the surface temperature low, somewhere from 5,000 K and lower...

 that is the donor of a semidetached binary. Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...

's renowned short story Nightfall is set in a six-sun system. Stanisław Lem's Solaris
Solaris (novel)
Solaris is a 1961 Polish science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem. It is about the ultimate inadequacy of communication between human and non-human species....

is also found in a binary star system.

Brian Aldiss in the Helliconia trilogy
Helliconia
The Helliconia Trilogy is a series of science fiction books by Brian Aldiss, set on the Earth-like planet Helliconia. It is an epic chronicling the rise and fall of a civilization over more than a thousand years as the planet progresses through its incredibly long seasons, which last for...

, explores in detail the biosphere and ecosystem of a terrestrial planet in a binary star system. Helliconia lies in a loose binary star system, which consists of a yellow-orange dwarf similar to our sun, Batalix (spectral class G4 [1] ), and a hotter and brighter white star, Freyr (Type A supergiant). Helliconia orbits Batalix, which in turn orbits Freyr. The Batalix-Freyr system is supposedly in the constellation of Ophiuchus, about a thousand light years from Earth. This leads to a large variation in temperature over a span of hundreds of years. The trilogy designates these as seasons, and each book takes place in one part of this cycle: Spring, Summer and Winter.

The fictional planet Darwin IV
Darwin IV
Darwin IV is a fictional planet that was the subject of Wayne Barlowe's book Expedition and the television special, Alien Planet, based on Expedition...

, created by Wayne Barlowe
Wayne Barlowe
Wayne Douglas Barlowe is an American science fiction and fantasy painter. He has paintedover 300 book and magazine covers and illustrations for many major book publishers, as well as Life magazine, Time, and Newsweek...

 and featured in the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...

 sci-fi special Alien Planet
Alien Planet
Alien Planet is a 94-minute docufiction, originally airing on the Discovery Channel, about two internationally built robot probes searching for alien life on the fictional planet Darwin IV. It was based on the book Expedition, by sci-fi/fantasy artist and writer Wayne Douglas Barlowe, who was also...

, is also supposed to be located in a binary star system approximately 6.5 light years away from the solar system.

Less well known but notable for its complexity is the Marune system, Number 993 in Jack Vance
Jack Vance
John Holbrook Vance is an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance has published 11 mysteries as John Holbrook Vance and 3 as Ellery Queen...

's "Alastor Cluster", in which the planet is lit by a combination of four suns whose combination of lighting patterns controls local culture: Marune orbits one star of a central binary pair and the second binary pair orbits the first, further out; nor are any of the orbits co-planar. Another anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 with a good example of a binary system is the series Trigun
Trigun
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yasuhiro Nightow, published from 1996 to 2008 and spanning 17 collected volumes....

, which takes place on a desert planet orbited by twin suns.

Video games

The 1999 computer game Unreal
Unreal
Unreal is a first-person shooter video game developed by Epic MegaGames and Digital Extremes and published by GT Interactive in May 1998...

takes place on the planet Na Pali, which orbits a binary system. The 2008 video game Spore
Spore (2008 video game)
Spore is a multi-genre single-player god game developed by Maxis and designed by Will Wright. The game was released for the Microsoft Windows and Macintosh operating systems in September 2008 as Spore...

contains numerous binary stars in the Space stage, many of which have planets orbiting them.

Other instances include the anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 series Simoun
Simoun (anime)
is a Japanese anime television series that was broadcast in Japan in 2006. It ran for 26 weekly episodes from 3 April to 25 September.A manga adaptation was published in three issues of Comic Yuri Hime. The manga shared the same characters and setting as the anime, but presented a different storyline...

and the 1994 computer game Little Big Adventure
Little Big Adventure
Little Big Adventure is an action-adventure game developed by Adeline Software International and first released at the end of 1994. It was published in Europe by Electronic Arts and in North America, Asia and Oceania under the name Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure by Activision. Over 400,000 copies...

,
the latter set on a planet stabilised between two stars and the Solar System that includes the planet of Gallifrey
Gallifrey
Gallifrey is a fictional planet in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who and is the homeworld of the Doctor and the Time Lords...

 in British TV si-fi show Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

.

The Star Fox video game series takes place within the Lylat System, which contains a hot white star, and a cooler red dwarf
Red dwarf
According to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, a red dwarf star is a small and relatively cool star, of the main sequence, either late K or M spectral type....

 (named Solar).

The Rayman video game series takes place in a world known as the Glade of Dreams, which orbits a binary star system consisting of two yellow Suns: one large and one small.
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