Solar System in fiction
Locations in the Solar System besides the Earth have appeared as settings in fiction since at least classical antiquity, initially as an extension of the established literary form of the imaginary voyage to exotic locations ostensibly on Earth. The motif then largely fell out of use for over a millennium and did not become commonplace again until the 1600s with the Copernican Revolution. For most of literary history the principal extraterrestrial location was the Moon; in the late 1800s, advances in astronomy led to Mars becoming more popular. The discovery of Uranus in 1781 and Neptune in 1846, as well the first asteroids in the early 1800s, had little immediate impact on fiction. The main theme has been visits by humans to the Moon or one of the planets, where they would often find native lifeforms. Alien societies commonly serve as vehicles for satire or utopian fiction. Less frequently, Earth itself has been visited by inhabitants of the other planets, or even subjected to an alien invasion.
Source: Wikipedia
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