Solar System in fiction close to the Sun and its surface was exposed to extremes of temperature. The asteroids were too tiny and airless. By the early 20th century, prospects for life in the Solar System focused on Venus, the larger moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and especially Mars. With the onset of the Space Age, planetary probes cast increasing doubt on the likelihood of extraterrestrial life in the Solar System, at least life of any magnitude greater than organisms such as bacteria. By the mid-1960s, it was firmly established that life could have no foothold on the hostile surfaces of Mercury or Venus,
Third from the Sun called "Earth". Todd VanDerWerff of "The A.V. Club" rated it A and called the twist "justifiably famous". The episode contains an anomaly: the planet revealed as being Earth is described as being in another solar system, "11 million miles" away. The next closest solar system to our sun is actually 25.7 trillion miles away. Third from the Sun "Third from the Sun" is episode 14 of the American television anthology series "The Twilight Zone". It is based on a short story of the same name by Richard Matheson which first appeared in the first issue of the magazine "Galaxy Science