As long as it has existed as a genre, there has been a notable relationship between science fiction and science fact. Since our awareness of the Universe and everything in it has changed with time, so have depictions and representations in popular culture. This includes everything from space exploration and extraterrestrial life to extraterrestrial environments.
The interrelationship between scientific discovery and their portrayal in science fiction is certainly well-known. However, that does not mean that the phenomenon is well-understood, and attempts to study it are still in their infancy. As part of her thesis work, Puranen and her colleagues sought to address this by documenting a key example.
This artist’s view shows the hot Jupiter exoplanet 51 Pegasi b , which orbits a star about 50 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser/Nick Risinger “One thing that became pretty clear is that lots of SF exoplanets are pretty Earth-like. This makes sense, as SF is written by humans, for humans, usually about humans. Still, the Bayesian network showed that since the discovery of real exoplanets, both fictional exoplanets with established non-native human populations living there, and fictional exoplanets with intelligent native life, are becoming less likely.
According to Puranen, this trend demonstrates how science fiction responds to scientific discovery. Past examples also demonstrate this close relationship. For example, how Mars has been portrayed in popular media has closely mirrored what scientists knew about the planet at the time. Prior to the Space Age, astronomical observations during the 19th century revealed several similarities between Mars and Earth, such as polar ice caps and contrasts in surface albedo .
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