Spheroid reasoned that Jupiter and Earth are oblate spheroids owing to their centrifugal force. Earth's diverse cartographic and geodetic systems are based on reference ellipsoids, all of which are oblate. A science-fiction example of an extremely oblate planet is Mesklin from Hal Clement's novel "Mission of Gravity". The prolate spheroid is the shape of the ball in several sports, such as in rugby football. Several moons of the Solar System approximate prolate spheroids in shape, though they are actually triaxial ellipsoids. Examples are Saturn's satellites Mimas, Enceladus, and Tethys and Uranus' satellite Miranda. In contrast to being distorted into oblate spheroids
Solar System in fiction Solar System in fiction The Solar System and its various bodies (planets, asteroids, moons, etc.) were the earliest objects to be treated as fictional locations in works of science fiction. Among these, imaginary voyages to and explorations of Earth's Moon are found in seventeenth century literature. By the early twentieth century, following the increase in scientific and technological development spurred by the Industrial Revolution, fictional journeys to (or from) the Solar System's other planets had become common in fiction. Early literature regarding the Solar System, following scientific speculations dating back to the 17th century, assumed that every planet hosted its