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,
Gliese 777 b given minimum mass. The planet has one of the longest orbits currently known for an extrasolar planet. The planet's mean distance from the star is close to the distance between Jupiter and the Sun. However, unlike Jupiter it has an eccentric orbit. At periastron the distance between the planet and the star is only 2.51 AU and at apastron the distance is as much as 5.33 AU (compared to the Solar System, distance from the Sun to the inner asteroid belt and from Sun to just beyond the orbit of Jupiter). The signal produced by the planet is very weak