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4%% Zero-context examples are not allowed on wiki pages; all such examples have been commented out.
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6%%
7[[quoteright:320:[[VideoGame/{{Gradius}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gradius-meteor.jpg]]]]
8[[caption-width-right:320:BulletHell? More like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxATMfC1H_k Asteroid Hell]].]]
9
10->'''Princess Leia:''' You're not actually going ''in'' to an asteroid field?\
11'''Han Solo:''' They'd be crazy to follow us, wouldn't they?\
12'''Princess Leia:''' ...you don't have to do this to impress me.
13-->-- ''Franchise/StarWars: Episode V — Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''
14
15In science fiction movies and TV, asteroids form a vast, hyperkinetic, obstacle-strewn DeathCourse: Enormous rocks spin like tops and whiz around all over the place, frequently even smashing into each other. Trying to navigate one is like asking a chicken to cross a busy Los Angeles freeway during rush hour: Small nimble spacecraft flown by skillful {{Ace Pilot}}s (i.e, the protagonists) ''may'' be able to slalom through without getting reduced to space dust, but [[AerialCanyonChase any pursuing enemy fighter ships will get picked off one-by-one by giant, malevolent space boulders]]. Any capital ship that can't just blast a path through them with its WaveMotionGun will have to rely on its DeflectorShields to bounce the rocks off. This makes it a good option to escape the guns of a pursuing capital ship.
16
17It's unfortunate that RealLife asteroid fields, while they do exist, don't have such a flair for the dramatic. Real-life asteroids are strewn much farther apart from each other; ''so'' far that the chance of even ''seeing'' one (let alone crashing into one) is pretty much nil. This is because a truly violent asteroid thicket as seen in fiction would simply dash itself to bits in a short period of time in real life. Also, due to gravity, even dust will be attracted to itself; larger rocks this close together would gravitate towards each other even faster, and the whole asteroid field would eventually gather into a few fairly solid clusters — in fact, this is fairly close to the going theory of how planets form from clouds of dust and rocks. Scientists have sent space probes through our solar system's main asteroid belt for decades, including one — ''Dawn'' — that has studied bodies within it — and haven't lost a single one in the process. While obviously no first-hand data is available about asteroid fields in other star systems, everything we know about physics tells us that they'd probably differ little from the ones in our own solar system and would be nothing like typical sci-fi depictions.
18
19Conversely, planetary rings are (relatively) much more sparse in fiction than they are in real life. ''Voyager 2'' flew through Saturn's G ring — one of the fainter rings — once, at an angle, and there was [[http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/040612soi.html "lots of evidence of micrometeroid hits"]] on the quite small 4-meter diameter probe, and the ''Cassini'' spacecraft used its antenna as a shield when crossing the same ring or the space between the rings and the planet during its mission at Saturn. The thickness of the rings is also surprisingly variable, ranging from under 10 meters to over a kilometer. However, aspiring SF writers should know that these planetary ring systems are mostly made up of ice (99% of the rings' content) and rocks 0.01 to 10 meters across.
20
21A SubTrope of ArtisticLicenseSpace and SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale.
22
23Compare SpaceClouds, a trope about the similarly unrealistic portrayal of nebulae in fiction; ConvenientlyClosePlanet for if an Asteroid Thicket could be considered "frustratingly close asteroids"; and DangerousOrbitalDebris, for cases where swarms of artificial wreckage make it hazardous or impossible to leave a planet. A spaceborne equivalent to an AerialCanyonChase will take place in one. If there are AsteroidMiners here, they're going to have hazardous lives.
24
25May be justified if the asteroids are actually a ShatteredWorld left over from a recent EarthShatteringKaboom.
26----
27!!Examples:
28
29[[foldercontrol]]
30
31[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
32* ''Anime/CowboyBebop'': Earth is surrounded by an incredibly thick asteroid field. It was born when an experimental jumpgate exploded near the Moon, and a good third of it blasted into pieces, raining down into Earth's gravity field. And daily meteor showers because of it.
33* ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheSpaceHeroes'': When Aron escapes from the Space Pirates, he deliberately hyperspeeds through an asteroid cluster to lose his pursuers. It works until a random asteroid damages his ship, causing Aron to crash on earth, meet Doraemon and friends, and ask for their help to save his home planet and kickstarting the adventure.
34%%* ''Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly'': Lemo easily navigates one on the way to the planet Vampa.
35* ''Manga/GalaxyExpress999'' episode 3 depicts our solar system's asteroid belt this way. Granted, the series runs on RuleOfCool, but the asteroid field isn't some futuristic device designed to look like an old-fashioned inaccurate sci-fi asteroid field... it just ''is'' an inaccurate sci-fi asteroid field.
36%%* ''Anime/HeroicAge'': The "Cemetery Belt" in episode 6.
37* ''Manga/HoshinEngi'': Weaponized by one of the Juttenkun's paopei, Tenzetsujin (Heaven-Cutting Formation), which takes the form of an asteroid thicket PocketDimension where the owner can attack his opponents by sending giant rock meteors their way.
38* ''Anime/IrresponsibleCaptainTylor''. The entire fleet is trying to destroy the Soyokaze, which is on a private mission to rescue their captain. Ahead lies an asteroid field, their only means of escape. They ask WhatWouldXDo and go full speed ahead, proving that the Soyokaze is indeed just as lucky as its captain.
39* ''Anime/{{Macross}}'': Although the series has its share of asteroid belt battles, the asteroids themselves are ''not'' treated as being particularly dangerous obstacles, as even unexceptional pilots are shown to be able to navigate through them fairly smoothly while in the midst of combat.
40** ''Anime/MacrossDoYouRememberLove'': Hikaru and Minmay steal a trainer Valkyrie for a joyride through Saturn's rings, which includes flying through a crapton of debris at one point, culminating in Hikaru kicking off some of the ice and debris from the ring to create a rainbow in space. The rings are also dense enough for [[spoiler: a Zentradi warship to hide within them to capture Hikaru, Minmay, Roy, Misa and Kaifun]].
41** ''Anime/MacrossDelta''L In Episode 5, Messer, Keith, and Hayate pull off some fancy maneuvers by using their boosters and engines to jump off of asteroids to move around.
42%%** ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'': Episode 6 uses the "rings of Saturn" variation.
43* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' does this with the Corregidor Shoal Zone, a collection of debris from decades of asteroid processing for space colony construction that have aggregated around a [=LeGrange=] point. It's a bit more plausible than most examples, as it's relatively young by astronomical standards and it's in a much tighter orbit around its centre of mass than a conventional asteroid belt. Still, while the rocks don't come whizzing out at passing spaceships, there are chunks big enough for HumongousMecha to hide behind, when collisions due to mutual attraction should have reduced them to gravel years ago and they're dense enough to make navigation somewhat difficult, though not to the point of WronskiFeint-ing.
44* ''Anime/OutlawStar'': The independent spaceport Blue Heaven is surrounded by an asteroid thicket, with only a few specific safe lanes in and out.
45* ''Anime/TransformersHeadmasters'' abused this in the episode "My Friend Sixshot"
46* ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato'': In the second season, Yamato attempts to elude the Earth Defense flagship ''Andromeda'' by flying at high speed through our solar system's asteroid belt. (To his credit, Captain Gideon of the ''Andromeda'' simply flies ''around'' the asteroid belt and is waiting for our heroes on the other side in a rare instance of writers remembering that space has more than just 2 dimensions.)
47* ''Anime/StarOceanEX'': Admiral Kenny's ship exits [[FasterThanLightTravel warp]] into the middle of one. Justified, in that it's the result of the BigBad's last planetary [[EarthShatteringKaboom visit]].
48%%* ''Anime/StarshipGirlYamamotoYohko'': Episode 5.
49[[/folder]]
50
51[[folder:Asian Animation]]
52* ''Animation/ThreeThousandWhysOfBlueCat'': One scene in "Will Earth Be Destroyed?" has an extremely thick asteroid belt with asteroids flying everywhere.
53[[/folder]]
54
55[[folder:Comic Books]]
56* ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'': [[ExaggeratedTrope Exaggerated]]. Apparently, the thicket that Adam Strange, Animal Man and Starfire are stuck in has a diameter measured in ''parsecs''. This is handwaved with the explanation that it is not a natural asteroid field, but that comes nowhere close to explaining the sheer amount of mass that is present
57* In ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' storyline "ComicBook/BrainiacRebirth", a depowered Superman tries to evade Brainiac's ship by flying his smaller spacecraft into a meteor storm. However, Brainiac can use his ship's shields to smash through the asteroids whereas Superman is forced to try to dodge them.
58* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel'': The solar system's asteroid field is portrayed in precisely this manner; in fact, the ''Ark'''s mission was to destroy a bunch of asteroids so that Cybertron could pass safely through.
59* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': The Saturnians are building a road through the solar system using tightly packed asteroids, which Diana points out is impossible and makes no sense. Once she arrives at Saturn she discovers they're doing so anyway and she and Steve Trevor destroy the space road which was being built using conscripted slave labor and was intended to be part of Saturn's invasion of earth.
60[[/folder]]
61
62[[folder:Fan Works]]
63* ''Fanfic/Plan7Of9FromOuterSpace'': A news report tells of a [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack protocol droid]] being prosecuted for running a gambling racket, in which he falsely stated that the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field were 3,720 to 1.
64* ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' “[[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/2623715/1/ Virtuoso]]” has Wash expertly flying ''Serenity'' through one to escape Reavers. He zips between two asteroids on a collision course and they both slam into the Reaver ship as ''Serenity'' escapes unscathed.
65[[/folder]]
66
67[[folder:Film — Animated]]
68* ''WesternAnimation/AstroKid'': The plot of the movie is kicked off by an asteroid field destroying the space ship of Willy and his parents, forcing Willy to use an EscapePod which ends up crash landing on an unknown planet.
69* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie2TheSecondPart'': Emmett has to navigate his ship through a '''glass'''teroid field made of giant shards of glass, luckily he gets rescued by Rex Dangervest. [[spoiler:Rex is a FutureBadass Emmett who crashed into a glassteroid and got stranded in the original timeline.]]
70* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerbTheMovieCandaceAgainstTheUniverse'': Phineas and company encounter one as they fly towards Feebla-Oot. Thanks to some help from Perry, they're able to make it through unscathed.
71* ''WesternAnimation/TitanAE'' had the characters flying through a giant ice field. There are a lot of the giant ice shards smashing into each other, which at the rate they were going, they should have reduced the entire ice field to ice cubes within a few years.
72[[/folder]]
73
74[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]
75* ''Film/AirplaneIITheSequel'': The lunar shuttle encounters a ridiculously dense asteroid belt after it goes off course. Made [[RuleOfFunny doubly ridiculous]] because of the way they're going: know of any asteroid belts between the Earth and the Sun?
76* ''Film/Armageddon1998'' explains the cloudburst of meteorites as the result of a comet passing through the asteroid belt and bouncing shrapnel into Earth's vicinity and knocking one "the size of Texas" towards Earth. This is wrong because a single comet could not collide with so many asteroids and conveniently shove them in the same general direction. Enough shrapnel was knocked out of the asteroid belt to keep Earth in a 'shooting gallery' for 18 days.
77* ''Film/GreenLantern2011'': The Green Lantern leads the BigBad through a classic asteroid thicket. There then follows a questionably plausible sequence involving the Sun. Also, the Solar System is apparently [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale ridiculously small]].
78* ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2'': While being chased by a fleet of Sovereign attack drones, Quill doesn't hesitate to fly through a [[QuantumMechanicsCanDoAnything quantum-asteroid]] field, made of of red and blue asteroids that randomly appear, disappear and mutually annihilate like quantum particles. After playing this trope straight with a deadly pursuit through the field (Quill squabbling with Rocket over who should fly the ship doesn't help) they reach the other side intact only to find the rest of the Sovereign fleet has just flown around it.
79* ''Film/{{Meteor}}'' shows Earth's solar system's own asteroid belt being like this, with two large asteroids close enough that when one gets hit by a comet, a spacecraft orbiting the other gets destroyed by the debris.
80* ''Film/GalaxyQuest'': In a variation, the movie has ships traveling through a space minefield. Which makes far more sense because, as a minefield, it's supposed to kill whoever enters it, and the mines were more or less stationary until a ship got close enough to set off magnetic sensors, and close enough together that the ship had trouble staying away from them. Except for the part about someone deliberately putting a minefield in empty space with the apparent hope that someone will eventually blunder into it.
81* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
82** ''Film/ANewHope'': When the ''Millennium Falcon'' briefly drops out of hyperspace in the middle of a cluster of spaceborne rocks, these asteroids are fragments of Alderaan, which has just been destroyed.
83** ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' is the TropeCodifier. Han, deprived of his hyperdrive, has to [[WronskiFeint slalom through densely packed asteroids to evade an Imperial fleet]]. It's stated several times to be insanely dangerous, and multiple Imperial pilots die trying to follow him.
84** ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' has a {{Justified|Trope}} example -- the dense rock field that Obi-Wan chases Jango Fett through is Geonosis' ring, planetary rings actually being that dense in RealLife. It was also done as an echo of the ''Empire'' sequence above.
85** ''Film/{{Solo}}'': The Kessel Run is this on steroids, with dangerous debris everywhere, carbon masses colliding, gigantic space cephalopods, and black holes that suck everything in.
86[[/folder]]
87
88[[folder:Gamebooks]]
89* A few ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' adventures set in outer space will have these as an obstacle.
90** In ''Literature/StarshipTraveller'', you can order the crew of the "Traveller" to mine an asteroid field for resources, but a freak meteor storm ''might'' occur, resulting in some casualties in the process where your engineer gets squashed by stray asteroids.
91** ''Literature/TheRingsOfKether'' have Blaster Babbett's space HQ being located in an asteroid field, which you must navigate your way across if you're choosing an outer space confrontation.
92[[/folder]]
93
94
95[[folder:Literature]]
96* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'':
97** The [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Ellimist]] created one between two warring planets soon after constructing his ship body.
98** In ''The Andalite Chronicles'', an Andalite Dome Ship is destroyed by ''living asteroids''.
99* ''Literature/TheAstronautsApprentice': Lampshaded. Before they reach the Asteroid Belt, Grandpa tells Bradley that you can jump from one asteroid to the next, or swing between them on ropes. Bradley (who read a book about the Solar System before leaving Earth) refuses to believe this, and tells Grandpa that the asteroid belt is "mostly empty". However, when they reach their destination, it turns out that Grandpa is correct.
100* ''Literature/FutureHope'' features a cocky, crackerjack space ace whom the author attempts to characterize as the greatest in the solar system by describing how he was famous for being the only pilot to ever safely navigate through the asteroid belt without his navigation tools on.
101* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': The ExpandedUniverse is actually quite good at treating asteroid belts realistically:
102** ''Literature/HaloTheColeProtocol'': A straight example is actually justified. The Rubble is explicitly said to be very unusual, the asteroids having been artificially tethered together, with the whole thing being kept stable by constant [=AI=]-controlled adjustments. Additionally, the asteroids are Trojan asteroids orbiting a gas giant, and each individual asteroid is relatively small. Then-Lieutenant Jacob Keyes even lampshades this, noting that this trope is what civilians, or "dirt siders", think of when they think of asteroid belts; when he first sees the Rubble, he initially can't accept that it's real, because it isn't what happens in nature, with him explicitly noting that asteroids can be millions of miles apart from each other.
103** ''Literature/HaloMortalDictata'': The kig-yar home system, Y'Deio, is home to a massive asteroid belt that is stated to be abnormally dense (though not to the extent of most examples of this trope, as it's noted that it still takes a good amount of time to travel between asteroids even with Kig-Yar and Covenant starships). In RealLife, the Y'Deio system is actually a real system (with a different name of course), and its asteroid belt is notable for being unusually massive and dense, further justifying this example.
104** The Eridanus asteroid belt, depicted in ''Literature/HaloTheFallOfReach'' and ''Literature/HaloFirstStrike'', is also another aversion, although ''The Fall of Reach''[='s=] comic adaptation strangely depicts the smaller asteroids around Eridanus Secundus (an asteroid within the belt that is colonized by the [[LaResistance United Rebel Front]]) being unrealistically close to each other.
105* Creator/IsaacAsimov:
106** "Literature/FeminineIntuition": While the chief robopsychologist and a prototype robot with important information about nearby habitable exoplanets are being transported via aircraft, they're hit by a meteorite. Because of how improbable it is, the characters speculate as to whether some higher intelligence orchestrated the meteor strike to keep Earth from learning about their alien neighbors. The odds against this happening are so astronomically high, they're compared to the odds of guessing the location of exoplanets to colonize in the first place.
107** "Literature/TheMartianWay": Averted and explained. It's said that perhaps the spaceships didn't have to waste propellant to go around the asteroid belt, since, while on map it looks like a swarm of insects, it would take a serious stroke of bad luck to hit a rock.
108* ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'': {{Discussed|Trope}} before a battle near an asteroid field in ''Revenant Gun'' -- the viewpoint character notes that the asteroids are too dispersed to pose a danger to even a large fleet, but the real threat is that enemy ships might hide behind them for an ambush.
109%%** "Literature/MaroonedOffVesta" embodies this trope, but this is ScienceMarchesOn.
110* ''Literature/AKingOfInfiniteSpace'': Subverted. The protagonist claims to expect the asteroid field to mirror his recollections of ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', only to discover the scientific reality of the asteroid field.
111* ''Literature/KnownSpace'': Justified with the Serpent Swarm in the Wunderland system. The Swarm is explained as a planet that recently (in astronomical terms) broke up, and is described as a "crescent" that spans one third of its orbit around the sun. In the "center" of the swarm, the remnant chunks of planet are just barely close enough to fly between without losing your mind from boredom. Still far enough apart that the human rebels against the Kzinti takeover of the system were easily able to spread out and hide themselves in the swarm.
112* ''Literature/TheMoteInGodsEye'': Humans visiting an alien solar system find the asteroids too far from the inhabited world to make sense. They learn that the asteroids were pushed farther out after a war when one of sides pushed them inward, raining them onto the planet.
113* Creator/RobertAHeinlein:
114** ''Literature/FarmerInTheSky''. The narrator observes that the 'old pile drive' ships used to 'plow right through the asteroid field and none of them was ever hit enough to matter', though the universe had a belt more densely packed than in RealLife due to ScienceMarchesOn. Nevertheless, he had the ''Mayflower'' bypass the Asteroid Belt, to [[TemptingFate avoid even that tiny chance]]. Nevertheless, [[{{Irony}} the ''Mayflower'' was hit]].
115** ''Literature/TheRollingStones1952'' takes care to note that the asteroids are far enough apart that the risk of being hit by one is infinitesimally small. Nevertheless ''The Rolling Stone'' takes precautions anyway when they enter an unusually dense field that's a haven for miners. Averted in that nothing happens to the ship.
116** ''Literature/SpaceCadetHeinlein'': The captain of the [[SpacePolice Space Patrol]] ship ''Aes Triplex'' is not concerned about colliding with an asteroid while searching for the missing ''Pathfinder''. However, as above, the ''Pathfinder'' was also holed by a meteor with the loss of all hands due to ExplosiveDecompression.
117* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'': ''Flashpoint'' features the Kirkegaard belt, known colloquially as the "Kick-You-Good" belt. The Moebius Foundation maintained a cloaked research base there accessible only by a specific and very slow route. [[spoiler:Arcturus Mengsk's fleet decides to simply blast their own shortcut.]]
118* ''Literature/{{Starfire}}'': Justified and lampshaded in ''Crusade''. It first comes up in the context of a closed warp point (a [[OurWormholesAreDifferent warp point]] without a significant/detectable gravity field) that happens to exist in the middle of an asteroid belt, which led to the immediate destruction of small ships transiting due to collisions -- a situation immediately stated as freakish and unique. One chapter later, an enemy uses an asteroid cluster in a different star system [[StealthInSpace to hide a fleet]], while musing that only in a handful of clusters do [[TakeThat/{{Literature}} "conditions even approach those... in popular entertainment."]]
119* ''Literature/{{Starsight}}'': Justified. An asteroid station dragged large numbers of asteroids into close proximity to make mining easier. This also makes it a great training ground for pilots.
120%%* ''Literature/StarTrekTheGenesisWave'': The Boneyard. The titular wave, an InterstellarWeapon, is launched from a base concealed within it.
121* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'':
122** ''Literature/{{Darksaber}}'': The Hoth asteroid thicket is revisited, being the construction site of the titular patchwork superweapon. Fleeing a New Republic task force, the ship attempts to blow up some massive asteroids to evade pursuit, only for the superlaser to not work, and gets crushed in short order.
123** ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'': There's an asteroid belt near Ithor thick enough that tiny ships called Starflies are designed to travel through it. It also has space slugs. When flying a Starfly to rescue her brother, Tash has to rely on the Force and the ImprobablePilotingSkills it gives her to get through. A pair of asteroids actually slam into each other in front of her, becoming a hail of smaller particles.
124** ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'': In ''Vision of the Future'', when the ''Wild Karrde'' goes through an asteroid field, Karrde notes that it's more dense than most his crew has encountered, as they have to shoot down asteroids more or less constantly. Zahn, as a general rule, knows quite well how space works and writes accordingly. But Asteroid Thickets are the one thing that showed up in ''Star Wars'' and could not be explained or {{handwave}}d, so he uses them like anyone else.
125** ''Literature/LukeSkywalkerAndTheShadowsOfMindor'' features Luke and his task force making plans to attack Mindor. This planet had a sister planet very near it not at all long ago, but during a superweapon testing the sister planet was destroyed, and the debris was largely pulled around Mindor in a configuration that was too unstable to be called an orbit. This resulted in the planet becoming largely uninhabitable and the space around it acquiring an "asteroid storm"; capital ships appearing in it had a one-in-fifty chance of being hit by a big rock ''immediately'', increasing incrementally as time went on.
126** ''Literature/XWingSeries'': Asteroid thickets come up once, as the X-wings try to get through asteroids to an enemy ship. The enemy actually had a strategy for this situation, which was to shoot the bigger asteroids, which would destroy the fighters which are hiding behind them on their way to the big ship. Even though a pilot realized this before it happened and called them off, two were taken out on the retreat by, yes, unavoidable giant space rocks.
127** Several books mention “The Graveyard”, the asteroid field created when Alderaan was destroyed by the Death Star. The Graveyard is such a dense field of asteroids that going into it is considered certain death for any starship, even one as large as a Star Destroyer. Some Alderaanian survivors request space burial or cremation there, while others come to leave messages to lost loved ones.
128* ''Literature/TroyRising'': In ''The Hot Gate'', it's noted as unusual that another star system has a dense asteroid belt, contrasted with the comparative emptiness of Sol's belt.
129* Discussed in the non-fiction book ''Calculating the Cosmos'' by Ian Stewart, which suggests it comes from two sources; firstly the term "asteroid belt" itself, which implies something relatively solid, and secondly diagrams of the belt that show densely clustered dots without explaining that this is not to scale, and each dot represents a huge region of space which ''contains'' an asteroid.
130[[/folder]]
131
132[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
133%%* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': Rather surprising given that it's usually relatively accurate when it comes to astrophysics.
134%%* ''Series/BlackMirror'': In "[[Recap/BlackMirrorUSSCallister USS Callister]]", it's justified because this is a game obstacle.
135* ''Series/BlakesSeven''
136** "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS1E7MissionToDestiny Mission To Destiny]]" features a space storm that appears as an asteroid thicket. An interstellar one.
137** Season one has two "[[ArtisticLicenseSpace meteor storms]]", with lots of rocks hitting the ship as if it were a heavy hailstorm or an avalanche.
138* ''Series/CosmosASpacetimeOdyssey'' depicts the Asteroid Belt as much denser than it really is when Neil flies the Ship of the Imagination through it. In a [=StarTalk=] episode, he admits to the ArtisticLicense taken because it quickly conveys where he is in the solar system and does point out (as said in the summary here) that no probe could have gone past Mars if the belt was really that hard to navigate. The depiction of the Oort Cloud is much more realistic.
139%% ''Series/DoctorWho'':
140%% ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E2IntoTheDalek Into the Dalek]]: The ''Aristotle'', headquarters of the human [[LaResistance resistance]] against the Daleks, is hiding in one.
141%% ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E3Rosa Rosa]]: At the end, when the Doctor and company go see the asteroid named in honour of the title character, it's shown in the middle of a thicket.
142%% **[[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E5TheTsurangaConundrum The Tsuranga Conundrum]]%%: The ambulance ship the episode is set on travels through two over the course of the episode.
143* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'': In the ''Peacekeeper Wars'' wrap-up mini-series, [[TheDragon Braca]] leads a fighter squadron through a planetary ring in order to strike at the rear of the Scarran battle fleet. Plausible (not the thicket) in that radiation would keep the squadron's approach masked from enemy sensors.
144%%** The pilot episode has an asteroid thicket.
145* ''Series/TheGoodies'': RuleOfFunny version in "Invasion of the Moon Creatures". When their moon rocket goes through a meteor storm, Bill opens the window to take a picture and they all get pelted with rocks.
146* In the series premiere of ''Series/HoneyIShrunkTheKids'', due to that episode being a FantasticVoyagePlot with Wayne, Diane and Amy being shrunk and unwittingly being swallowed by Grandpa Murdock, it involved a thicket not of asteroids, but ''kidney stones!''
147* ''Series/LostInSpace'': "The Reluctant Stowaway" features the ''Jupiter 2'' being pummeled by asteroids as it drifts off course into the belt.
148* ''Series/LostInSpace2018'': Some of the cast spend part of Season 3 stuck on a ShatteredWorld after one of the chunks damages the Jupiter's engine. After being there for a year (and the planet having been blown up who knows how long ago), they calculate that they have [[RaceAgainstTheClock only a few days left]] to get off-planet before the constant orbital collisions create a debris field too dense to get through.
149* ''Series/RedDwarf'': "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIPsirens Psirens]]" features the crew chasing the stolen ''Red Dwarf'' in the much smaller Starbug. They have an opportunity to catch it because it's had to make a detour around an asteroid field, which Starbug can go through. Even then they need the Cat, with his fast reflexes, as pilot to get safely through.
150* ''Series/StargateSG1'': Part of the race course in "Space Race" goes through what appears to be an Asteroid Thicket composed of house-sized chunks of ice.
151* The 4th season premiere of ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' has Atlantis, shot into space in the previous season, having to make its way through an asteroid field. Sheppard, [=McKay=], and a team have to shoot the asteroids into pieces to clear a path. Sheppard, trying to reassure [=McKay=], compares it to the video game ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}''. [=McKay=] responds, "But I was ''terrible'' at ''Asteroids''! I think I actually scored ''zero'' once!".
152* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
153** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E6MuddsWomen Mudd's Women]]" shows the ''Enterprise'' chasing Harry Mudd's stolen ship through an asteroid belt (at relativistic speeds) where the asteroids are seen to zip past the ''Enterprise'' (as seen by the bridge screen that Kirk is looking at). The asteroids appeared to be spaced apart from each other at considerable distance rather than the traditional ''Franchise/StarWars''-type asteroid thicket.
154** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
155*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E18Genesis Genesis]]", the ''Enterprise'' sends a shuttle craft into an asteroid field because it was too dense for the ''Enterprise'' to go in safely. It was mentioned that the asteroid field was unusually dense though. This was by far the least significant scientific inaccuracy in this episode, where the crew 'de-evolved'.
156*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E11ThePegasus The Pegasus]]", the ''Enterprise'' is searching for the starship ''Pegasus'', lost years ago on a top secret mission. The search leads into a dense asteroid belt, where the ''Enterprise'' finds the ''Pegasus'' partly ''inside'' one asteroid. [[spoiler:It turns out the ''Pegasus'' was testing an advanced "phasing" cloaking device that would let it pass through solid objects, and the device failed when the ship was passing through the asteroid.]]
157** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': In a 7th season episode, Odo tries to hide from some Jem'Hadar by flying into a dense Kuiper Belt, which aside from trading comets for asteroids, is still a classic Asteroid Thicket.
158* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959''
159** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E7TheLonely The Lonely]]": A spaceship crewman says that the ship is "almost out of fuel" because they've been "dodging meteor storms". The only way this can happen in our solar system is if it had suddenly developed an area with a high concentration of asteroids.
160** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E20Elegy Elegy]]": One of the astronauts from the ship explains that they went through a meteor storm, which caused them to run low on fuel. The only way they could experience a meteor storm is if the asteroid field they passed through was unusually thick and dangerous.
161* ''Franchise/UltraSeries''
162** In the ''Series/UltramanMebius'' spin-off, ''Series/UltramanMebiusGaiden'', the first episode "Hikari Saga" has Ultraman Hikari pursuing the space monster, Bemstar, across an asteroid field. Hikari managed to land a kick on Bemstar's head causing the monster to crash in one of the asteroids, but this only allows Bemstar to use the asteroid field's advantage to sneak up behind Hikari, with the battle culminating with both Ultra and kaiju crashing on a moon-sized asteroid.
163** The pilot of ''Series/UltramanTaiga'' is a BatmanColdOpen where the New Generation Heroes consisting of [[Series/UltramanGinga Ultraman Ginga, Ultraman Victory]], Series/UltramanX, Series/UltramanOrb, Series/UltramanGeed, [[Series/UltramanRB Ultraman Rosso and Ultraman Blu]] pursues the villainous Ultra, Tregear, through space, culminating near an asteroid field where the heroes managed to force Tregear into crashing on the largest asteroid. Unfortunately for ''them'', that's [[BatmanGambit precisely what Tregear wants]], having rigged the asteroid with dozens and dozens of mines, [[LuredIntoATrap ready to blow the heroes into smithereens]].
164[[/folder]]
165
166[[folder:Pinball]]
167* ''Pinball/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': There's one in the "Asteroid Threat" mission. Possibly justified since they may be the debris from the lone giant asteroid they just blew up.
168[[/folder]]
169
170[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
171* ''Magazine/{{Ares}}'' magazine #16 game "The High Crusade". One of the possible Fleet Combat Table results is that the battle area is filled with large and small asteroids. One of the two fleets involved will take significant damage from running into them.
172* ''TabletopGame/BattlefleetGothic'': Asteroid fields are an JustForFun/{{egregious}} example, probably caused by [[TheCoconutEffect the target audience expecting]] [[SpaceIsAnOcean "terrain" to fight around]]. The effects of asteroid fields are thus: Anything unguided (a space hulk, torpedoes and so on) are automatically destroyed upon entry. [[SpaceFighter Attack craft]] have a 1 in 6 chance of destruction and full space ships (from [[StandardSciFiFleet escorts to capital ships]]) must take a command check, and if failed can take crippling damage in a single instance.
173* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'', being straightforward HighFantasy in space rather than any kind of science fiction, makes common use of this.
174** The Grinder around [[TabletopGame/{{Greyhawk}} Oerth]] is an asteroid belt with the asteroids close together. Of course, the ''Spelljammer'' universe is not intended to reflect real space in any way.
175** ''Magazine/{{Polyhedron}}'' magazine #81 adventure "In His Majesty's Spacial Service". Kleggra's Bones is the asteroid field where the space pirate Willy the Squid has his base. The PlayerCharacters must take their spelljammer ship inside the field to find the base, risking running into one of the asteroids to do so.
176* ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' actually manages to avoid this. There are asteroid fields, but they're exactly as they are in reality.
177* ''Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters'': In the adventure "Murphy's Law, Squared", when an out-of-control asteroid enters a debris field on the edge of a solar system, it will hit another asteroid unless the {{PC}}s can prevent it.
178* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}'' have the Diaspora, the remains of twin planets destroyed long ago. The relative closeness of the rocks is probably the ''least'' unrealistic thing about the belt(there is, after all, the ''river'' running through it).
179* ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'': The Asteroid Belt is full of fast moving debris, making mining incredibly dangerous. Not that anyone lets that stop them.
180* ''TabletopGame/StarblazerAdventures'', campaign setting ''Mindjammer'', adventure "The First Casualty": When an out-of-control ship suddenly appears near Gentility Base, it is on course toward the nearby asteroid belt and is likely to suffer a catastrophic collision if it enters it.
181* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
182** ''TabletopGame/{{Risk}}: Star Wars Edition'' uses an impenetrable asteroid field to represent planets destroyed by the Death Star, rendering travel in the region problematic.
183** ''TabletopGame/StarWarsArmada'': Dense swarms of space rocks are a type of obstacle for the game. Fighter squadrons can move in and out without any difficulty, while large ships take collision damage.
184* ''TabletopGame/StarFleetBattles'': Asteroid fields are thick enough so that any ship or seeking weapon passing through them has a significant chance of taking damage, possibly enough to destroy it. They also interfere enough with sensors to allow ships and bases to hide within them.
185* ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}''
186** ''Adventure 1: The Kinunir''. While a ship is in the Shionthy asteroid belt, there is a 1 in 36 chance per hour that it will contact a speck of antimatter. The resulting explosion will severely damage the ship.
187** ''Beltstrike'' boxed set. The asteroid Jarlsson's Doom is closely surrounded by a swarm of smaller asteroids. If the PlayerCharacters aren't extremely careful flying through it, they have a base 86% chance of colliding with an asteroid. This will cause the ship to be either damaged or (if it takes a critical hit) destroyed.
188* ''TabletopGame/TwilightImperium'' features asteroid belts that take up the same amount of space as a star system and pose a serious problem for the movement of certain classes of starships.
189* ''TabletopGame/{{Universe}}'': In the ''[=DeltaVee=]'' rules, whenever a ship enters an asteroid field it must check for collision (roll speed or higher on a six-sided die to avoid). The faster a ship traveling, the greater the chance for a collision. At a speed of 6 or higher the ship is ''certain'' to hit an asteroid.
190[[/folder]]
191
192[[folder:Theme Parks]]
193* ''Ride/SpaceMountain'' at [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disneyland Paris]] sends riders hurtling through an asteroid field.
194* ''Ride/SpaceFantasyTheRide'' at [[Ride/UniversalStudios Universal Studios Japan]] puts guests right into the middle of a meteor shower.
195[[/folder]]
196
197[[folder:Video Games]]
198* ''VideoGame/AndroDunos'': The small asteroids near the beginning of Stage 5 can be easily blasted into harmless debris, but the larger asteroids that pervade most of the stage are indestructible, though a few can be separated from each other.
199%%* ''VideoGame/ArtemisSpaceshipBridgeSimulator'': These show up scattered throughout the sector.
200* ''VideoGame/AssaultSuitsValken'': Jake has to destroy an enemy source of energy located in an asteroid cluster in the second mission. The smaller rocks can be destroyed, but the bigger ones can only be passed by.
201%%* ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}'': The asteroids just go through each other.
202* ''VideoGame/AstroBlaster'' has the player's ship flying through a meteor shower at the end of each level.
203* ''VideoGame/BattlefleetGothicArmada'': Small, dense swarms and clusters of rocky debris of varying sizes appear as terrain obstacles small enough for several to fit inside orbital battlefields. They can be used for cover, although they will damage any ships that actually pass through them. Larger, likewise unrealistically thick clusters of space rocks are common in the backgrounds. The feature returns largely unchanged in [[VideoGame/BattlefleetGothicArmada2 the sequel]], although now there's an upgrade available for your fleets that makes ships immune to the damage inflicted by asteroid fields.
204* ''VideoGame/{{Blasteroids}}'' features asteroids straying across the screen but also [[ColourCodedForYourConvenience red ones]], that once destroyed release crystals that give you extra energy, "popcorn asteroids" that once fired begin to grow until they stop in a place and are indestructible until you clear and leave the stage, and kamikaze asteroids that once hit will speed towards your ship.
205* ''VideoGame/ConquestFrontierWars'' has plenty of these, conveniently on the edges of map, these thickets slowed down ships travelling though them. [[AllThereInTheManual The manual]] explains that the fields in the game are just representations of what is actually going on, and that the ships slow down in order to navigate through the field (the slaloming is not actually shown in the game). The nebulae are even weirder with their strange abilities (knocking out [[DeflectorShields shields]], decreasing weapon effectiveness, hiding entire fleets, etc.).
206* ''VideoGame/{{Contact}}'': The introductory zoom-scene shows the solar system's own asteroid belt as one of these. The scene is otherwise fairly accurate on scales, however (except for the distance of radio transmissions). The team that created the opening said they did it on purpose partly for RuleOfCool and partly because most people would think a fully accurate portrayal of the entire sequence [[RealityIsUnrealistic would look "wrong."]]
207* ''VideoGame/CreatureShock'' have your player character, Jason, piloting his spaceship through an asteroid field in the very first stage. Later levels will throw {{Space Mine}}s instead.
208* ''VideoGame/CryingSuns'': Stationary asteroids are a common terrain feature during space battles. They come in two sizes: small asteroids, which slow any squadrons passing through them but also provide cover, and large asteroids, which are impassable obstacles that your squadrons must fly around. Some maps have only a few asteroids, while others have enough large asteroids to form a natural maze with chokepoints.
209* ''VideoGame/DeadSpace1'': {{Justified|Trope}}, as the thicket is actually the debris kicked up by the mining ship the game takes place on pulling a continent-sized chunk out of the planet it's orbiting.
210* ''VideoGame/DistortedTravesty 3'' has several of these during the [[https://youtu.be/DGcWhAaFJCE?t=58s shmups segment.]]
211* The first thing you have to blast your way through in ''VideoDame/{{Dove}}'' is a dense cluster of asteroids. The ending sequence also features a static image of this.
212* ''VideoGame/EdgeOfChaos'' has this in spades. The asteroids will blow up like bombs if you shoot at them a few times. There was even a mod that turned this up to 11 by making the asteroids fly around at ridiculous speeds, pelting everything like a space hail storm.
213* ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity'' has immensely thick asteroid belts, but ships cannot collide with them. Their purpose is simply to interfere with weapons fire, though they can also be [[AsteroidMining mined]] in ''EV:Nova''. (The original asteroid sprites were lifted from Creator/AmbrosiaSoftware's first published game, an ''Asteroids'' clone named ''Maelstrom''.)
214* ''VideoGame/EveOnline'' suffers from this trope in that of the 5000+ solar systems, a large majority of them have at least one "Asteroid Belt" orbiting a planet, and some have upwards of 20 or 30. This alone isn't enough... the asteroid belts themselves are composed of a belt maybe 100km from end to end with asteroids of various mineral types densely packed together; in some cases the asteroids are so large and so dense that avoiding their collision boxes is an exercise in futility. This is mostly due to decade-old design decisions. The asteroids are used for mining by players, and going from one rock to the other in a realistically sparse asteroid field in clumsy mining vessels would be ''very annoying'' to say the least. Various modifications and reforms to asteroid belt realism and the interactivity/fun of mining in general have been floated by CCP over the past few years, but so far they appear to be on the back burner. Finding a fix that doesn't destroy the economy is bound to be problematic.
215* ''VideoGame/{{Evochron}} Legends'': Most asteroids are clumped together, with 10-20 asteroids in a 10x10x10 KM area. Some solar systems however, have asteroids very thinly spread out across the system.
216* ''VideoGame/EXTRAPOWERStarResistance'': Stage 1 opens with an approach of the Satellite Mesa by way of an asteroid field. It starts off light to get players accustomed to the controls before thickening and introducing asteroids outfitted with defense lasers.
217* ''VideoGame/TheFeebleFiles'': Feeble ends up flying into an asteroid belt by accident during the intro. The player then gets an idea of what kinds of {{Moon Logic Puzzle}}s they are about to get themselves into when Feeble is shown trying to get past a huge asteroid by attempting to blast a tunnel through it, instead of maybe ''flying around it''.
218* ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'' carefully examines this trope. First, due to their thickness, most asteroid fields in the game are hiding places for criminals. Second, also due to their thickness, several asteroid fields are also suitable for mining operations. Third, some of these asteroid fields are actually made of junk (one of them is even a minefield!). And finally, the spacecraft manufacturers must be very aware of the difficulty of navigating these places by hand, because in order to get across an asteroid field, you just have to set a waypoint to your target, press the Go To button, and the computer will do the slaloming for you.
219* ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'' has this as a relatively common hazard to deal with during battles. Perhaps unusually, asteroid hits are easily blocked by even a minimal shield, and their main game effect is thus to create small gaps in which the shields are weaker than normal. This normally acts to the player's advantage; a common tactic is to send a flurry of laser fire in just behind the asteroid, whereas the game's AI is incapable of doing this intentionally.
220* ''VideoGame/GaiaSeedProjectTrap'' have multiple stages in space where you'll need to navigate and shoot your way through asteroid fields. Including on Saturn's surface after destruction of Saturn's moons.
221* ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizationsIIDreadLords'': It's justified in the representation of asteroid fields on the galaxy map (what else would you use as a map symbol for an asteroid field?) -- but not justified in the cutscene when you investigate your first anomaly.
222* ''VideoGame/GalaxyAngelII'': In Chapter 4 of Mugen Kairo no Kagi, Kazuya, Anise and Roselle have to navigate through a hazardous asteroid field in order to set up a surprise attack on Calvados. As it's close to her homeworld, Anise has flown through it in the past and knows the route, and is impressed when Roselle is able to keep up, prompting her to goad Roselle into having an impromptu race, much to Kazuya's dismay who can only scream in terror when they accelerate their ships.
223* ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'': The series is no stranger to including thickets of space debris to dodge, even shifting the asteroid rocks to similar obstacles of ice chunks, volcanic fireballs, cubes, and "kidney stones" inside a giant bioplanet.
224* ''VideoGame/HaegemoniaLegionsOfIron'': Ships passing through asteroid fields are slowly damaged, implictly from constant micrometeorite strikes.
225* ''VideoGame/HaloReach'': The introductory cinematic at one point passes through a very dense ice belt. A collision between two ice bodies can actually be seen as the camera moves onward.
226* ''VideoGame/HeavenlyBodies'': You'll spend most of "Minerals" navigating through several clusters of tiny asteroids. It is easily the largest area in the game, though it houses little of relevance aside from a collectible, a nod to the last mission, and large asteroids with the precious minerals the level's all about.
227* ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'':
228** One mission puts you right in the center of a swarm of [[MalevolentArchitecture malicious asteroids]], your objective being to get your smaller ships out of harm's way while blasting apart asteroids that are about to collide with the Mothership. There's a margin for error in that the Mothership can handle a few hits, but it's still not quite as easy as it sounds.
229** In another mission, a large asteroid is deliberately steered into the path of the mothership (via a huge engine built into the asteroid's "back"), as it cannot change direction when in hyperspace, and will automatically exit hyperspace when a potential collision is detected.
230* ''VideoGame/LoversInADangerousSpacetime'': Most levels take place in clusters of floating space rocks, interspersed with Baby Planets and miniature stars. Dense swarms of moving asteroids also appear as navigational hazards.
231* ''VideoGame/MarioParty6'':
232** The minigame Mass Meteor has two dueling characters race against each other through an asteroid cluster in outer space. They have to swim between the asteroids (BatmanCanBreatheInSpace applies here) and avoid clashing against them (as doing so leaves them stunned for a long time). Interestingly, some of the asteroids are shaped like Koopa Shells. Whoever reaches the goal first wins; but if both reach there at the same time, the minigame will end in a tie.
233** The minigame Asteroad Rage has two dueling characters driving their spaceships across an asteroid-filled path that leads to Saturn. The characters have to avoid the asteroids along the way while they drive. Whoever gets hit by one of them will lose and render the other player victorious; but if both are hit at the same time or manage to survive during 30 seconds, the minigame ends in a tie.
234* ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
235** The Serpent Nebula the Citadel sits in plays this straight; the Codex entry {{lampshade|Hanging}}s the improbability of such a dense nebula, notes that it makes navigation (and therefore, external attack) extremely difficult outside the perimeter of the Citadel's mass relays, and cites an in-universe theory that the Citadel itself creates and maintains the nebula artificially with its waste disposal systems. Oddly, the Serpent Nebula can't really be seen from the surface of Bekenstein, a habitable planet some distance away from the Citadel.
236** ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'': The end sequence manages to create a asteroid-maze sequence with fewer scientific issues. When the ''Normandy'' goes through the Omega-4 relay, it emerges in a frequently-replenished junkyard of wrecked ships that have passed through without the proper preparations and run into things.
237** ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'': {{Deconstructed|Trope}}. The various asteroid belts found throughout the Heleus Cluster are much thicker than a real asteroid belt should be, but it is heavily implied that they are the debris left behind by Earth-sized or larger planets that were destroyed by [[NegativeSpaceWedgie the Scourge]]. Incidentally, the Scourge itself serves this purpose, creating obstacles across space and having the troublesome habit of reaching out towards mass effect fields such as those used by most starships, and at least once being used for a TryAndFollow pursuit. [[spoiler: It is revealed that the Scourge was intended as a weapon, being more comparable to a literal minefield than an asteroid field.]]
238* ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion'': The tactical battle map in some systems have squares randomly occupied by asteroid patches. Ships can't pass through them, and any missile clusters trying to pass through one of those squares get their count reduced, potentially[[note]]if not regularly, statistically speaking[[/note]] turning a OneHitKill salvo into one that does little more than tickle a ship's passive defenses (shield/armor).
239* The final mission of ''VideoGame/MetalSlug'' 3 has the space segment, where you're allied with the rebel army to thwart a Martian invasion. En route to the Martian base, you'll need to cross an asteroid field while dodging Martian probes, but luckily for you several destroyed asteroids (mostly marked in colouring) contains power-ups and weapon upgrades.
240* ''VideoGame/{{Meteos}}'': While Arod's asteroids are so close together that its snake-like inhabitants like to jump from one to another, it is still one of the more realistic portrayals in a game series with purposely unrealistic and physically impossible worlds.
241* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'':
242** During the opening of ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'', Samus' ship crashes into one of those. The asteroids look like they're only a few hundred feet across, and tightly packed.
243** A minor one shown in the opening cinematic of ''VideoGame/MetroidDread'', where Samus maneuvers her ship between several closely-packed asteroids during her approach to ZDR.
244* ''VideoGame/MillenniumReturnToEarth'': The first probe to be sent to the Outer Solar System gets destroyed while passing through the Asteroid Belt. The technicians then apologize for not anticipating how dense the field is and claim the next probes and ships will fly above or below the belt. Interestingly, this does not add to the travel time. The Belt is also used for {{Asteroid Min|ers}}ing.
245* ''VideoGame/NoMansSky'': All systems have them, starting in low orbit and extending through pretty much the entire system, and you can blow chunks of them away to create pathways through them for easier navigation or mine for minerals to fuel your Pulse Jets and Deflector Shields.
246* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'': The minigame Getting Trashed has Travis gather pieces of debris floating above the Earth's atmosphere to prevent it from falling down into the planet. The problem is that there are several meteors moving aimlessly through his vicinity, and getting hit by them will mess up his mobility. For extra difficulty, Travis has to keep and eye on his OxygenMeter so he can refill it periodically by returning to the spacecraft, and not falling down into the atmosphere (which can happen easily due to the meteors). The minigame has four levels, and each following one increases the number of meteors present.
247* ''VideoGame/{{Parsec}}'': Asteroid belts are unusual indeed. The game is a HorizontalScrollingShooter, where you fly a ship ''around the planet''. Despite this fact, you encounter asteroid belts regularly! And each "belt" contains an identical pattern of asteroids, starting with a huge column of rocks coming at you. Each subsequent belt comes ever faster, which suggests they should have crashed into each other ages ago.
248* ''VideoGame/{{Philosoma}}'': The very first stage begins with the player's spaceship entering a canyon filled with floating asteroids, which they'll need to blow up to clear a passage through, a course which takes maybe two minutes before they face actual enemies. There are also certain areas containing ''indestructible'' asteroids, which the player will need to avoid by moving to the side of the screen.
249* ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando'': The first set of starship battles take place in such a region, though again this may be justified by the fact that it seems to be gathered around a possible mining station.
250* ''VideoGame/RenderingRangerR2'' contains asteroid fields in several of the spaceship-themed stages, including a boss battle in between two humungous asteroids. Which the boss will use it's grappling hooks to snatch both asteroids and slam them together in an attempt to crush you.
251* ''VideoGame/SDIStrategicDefenseInitiative'' features a stage in the asteroid belt. All those floating rocks, however, are just scenery background that often have bases and/or weapons mounted and can be fired upon (and vice-versa).
252* ''VideoGame/SonicAndKnuckles'': Doomsday Zone teaches us that there's a dense asteroid field in Earth's orbit. Who knew? Barely room to fit a hedgehog between the rocks, even.
253* ''VideoGame/SpaceEmpires'': If you fight a battle in an asteroid belt, they tend to damage missiles and fighters heavily. They can even damage capital ships in strategic movement sometimes.
254* ''VideoGame/SpaceEngineers'' is set within an asteroid field, where you [[AsteroidMiners mine asteroids]] within space-walk distance from each other. Pre-release videos showed even ''denser'' fields -- to the point of making one of the default ships difficult to fly without shearing the engine nacelles off -- though the density was toned down for release, likely for performance reasons.
255* ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestVTheNextMutation'': The crew of the SCS ''Eureka'' is forced to evade the SCS ''Goliath'' and hides the ship in a nearby asteroid field. While the asteroids are not shown moving or colliding, they do spin quite fast and appear to be close together. When Roger is forced to go EVA to rescue Cliffy, there is a mini-game that requires the player to navigate the EVA pod. However, the asteroids are only in the background and do not pose a danger.
256* ''VideoGame/StarControl'': Every single space battle, no matter where it occurs features a ridiculous amount of ship-sized asteroids. They are continually spawned to maintain a stable number, never lose momentum, and are sometimes spawned aimed directly at your ship. Fortunately, they can't actually hurt your ship, unless they bump it into the planet (another feature that's always somehow present regardless of where the battle takes place). They can be a major nuisance for the slower ships that need to spend quite some effort to get going in any specific direction.
257%%* ''Franchise/StarFox'': The Meteo area.
258* ''VideoGame/{{Starscape}}'': Most of the gameplay involves {{Asteroid Min|ers}}ing: shooting moving asteroids and collecting the resources inside to research and build better weapons and ships.
259* ''Franchise/StarWars'': The various games tend to have at least one mission with a whack o' asteroids, probably in deference to Episode V, though in this case the asteroids tend to be much less harmful in and of themselves (though they might prove to be excellent platforms for a starfighter hangar, well-defended space-base, or weapons turrets).
260** ''VideoGame/EmpireAtWar'' uses them as well; large ships will usually fly around them to avoid losing shields.
261** ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' starts out in a thicket created by a mining accident causing a chunk of the planet to explode and be ejected into space.
262** ''VideoGame/RebelAssault'': In the first game, the player (Rookie One) is chased through an asteroid field, similar to the scene in ''The Empire Strikes Back''. Towards the end of the run, a torus-shaped (doughnut) asteroid appears. [[spoiler:Fly directly ''through'' the center of the asteroid. The pursuing TIE fighters will be clipped by the asteroid as it spins past the point where you get through.]]
263** ''VideoGame/ShadowsOfTheEmpire'': Stage 3 has the ''Outrider'' trying to escape from the Empire in an asteroid field, but Dash leaves the piloting to Meebo, so the player really doesn't even have to think twice about them.
264* ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'': Asteroids tend to come in dense swarms and clusters, with vast gulfs of empty space separating each thicket but only narrow gaps standing between individual asteroids in each swarm. In general, most asteroids tend to be close enough to one another that the gaps between them are easily crossed by bridges or hanging vines. The Ormswold, in which the Royal Society is built, particularly stands out: flying through it is very perilous as the gaps between asteroids are very narrow and it covers a fifth of the Albion outer ring.
265* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' uses AsteroidThicket as a terrain, an equivalent of [[JustForFun/RecycledInSpace a forest]] where a unit can hide in and gain defense and evasive bonuses.
266* ''VideoGame/SuperStardustHD'' has asteroids that swoop down, and then start orbiting around the planet you're guarding. This appears to be because of an incredibly powerful planetary shield whose existence is for some reason entirely dependant on the existence of your ship. The [[AllThereInTheManual backstory]] explains that the asteroids are being thrown at those planets by the attacking aliens to distract you when they attack.
267* ''VideoGame/TreasurePlanetBattleAtProcyon'' features unrealistically dense asteroid belts on some maps as hazards, some of these asteroids are slow moving, but others can move quickly. Asteroids will break apart into smaller asteroids if they take enough damage.
268* ''VideoGame/{{Tyrian}}'' has them in the appropriately titled asteroids 1 and asteroids 2. As TwoDSpace is in full effect here you sometimes need to blast your way though rather than just go around them, which can be tricky when you have weak weapons and have a chunk of rock ten times your size heading your way.
269* The space level of ''VideoGame/UltraXWeapons'' have players trying to bypass an asteroid field while battling saucer beasts and alien spacecraft.
270* ''VideoGame/Wild9'' has one level, Light Armada, with Wex pursuing an enemy through an asteroid field.
271* ''VideoGame/{{X}}'' plays this trope straight 90% of the time; one sector has about 80 asteroids (about 1-2km in diameter) crammed into an area about 80km on each side. Most sectors have much lower concentrations, but even those have 3-10 asteroids in a sector, which have only 80-200km between the two pairs of jump gates.
272* The third level of ''VideoGame/{{X2}}'' (unrelated to the above) have the player navigating their ship through an asteroid field while firing at alien enemies. Unlike other examples of this trope, here the asteroids ''can't'' be blown into bits - the player will need to move quickly and dodge their way across instead.
273* ''VideoGame/XaindSleena'', had an asteroid thicket at the beginning of the third stage in space. You can destroy them for extra points while dodging them, but being careful with the nasty SpaceMines scattered among them.
274* ''VideoGame/{{Zanac}}'': Thick asteroid field can be seen in area 5 in the original and thicker one is in the second stage of ''Zanac Neo''.
275[[/folder]]
276
277[[folder:Webcomics]]
278* ''Webcomic/CommanderKitty'': Although none are actually seen, Morris refferences the trope by describing the swarm of [[SpacePolice Triple-I]] [[StarFighter Skyflies]] as being "[[http://www.commanderkitty.com/2012/06/03/this-years-model/ thick as asteroids]]".
279* ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'': The Asteroid Thicket in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' is, of course, parodied. Han reassures Leia that the asteroids are separated by hundreds of thousands of kilometers and in stable orbits, so running into one is a nonissue... so the GM changes things to have the ship fly through a dense, chaotic swarm of rocks.
280-->'''Princess''': Chewie, get up here! We're going through an asteroid field!
281-->'''Han''': That's no problem. Just don't hit whatever asteroid might be within a hundred thousand kilometres. They're in nice, stable orbits too, so it's easy to avoid them.
282-->'''Princess''': Okay, fine. We're going into a massive region of randomly moving, closely packed, enormous giant space rocks.
283-->'''Han''': Gaa'''''aa'''''aah!
284-->'''GM''': It's my proudest creation.
285* ''Webcomic/DriveDaveKellett''. Skitter loses a pursuing Continuum ship in one. Subverted, in that it's not your typical SpaceIsAnOcean thicket -- they could easily go around it, and it's only dangerous because they're navigating it at FTL speeds.
286%%** ''Webcomic/FarFromHomeMightyMartianStudios'': For scouting.
287%%* ''Webcomic/{{Parallels}}'': [[http://www.mightymartianstudios.com/2012/11/18/parallels-sci-fi-webcomic-badlands/ They are the badlands.]] %%Broken link + zero-context example.
288* ''Webcomic/PlanetOfHats'': Spock's line from "Mudd's Women" that the asteroid belt has a "Schiller rating" of 3-5 is defined as "2^35 denser than a real belt".
289* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'': The Toughs [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2020-05-04 end up facing one of these]], thanks to an angry [[spoiler:[[EldritchAbomination Pa'anuri]]]] using [[GravityMaster massive gravitational power]] to sling planets (yes, plural) at their vessel and indirectly "stirring the pot" within the area to try and get them with the massive, scattered fragments, as it was unable to get to them directly.
290-->'''Tagon:''' [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2020-05-03 Cindy, what's it look like out there?]]
291-->'''Cynthetic Certainty "Cindy":''' "Look"? It "looks" ridiculous. It's a B-movie version of an asteroid field. The rocks are too close together
292-->'''Ennesby:''' I think it looks more like [[Videogame/{{Asteroids}} a videogame]].
293-->'''Tagon:''' Does it look like we're winning?
294-->'''Cindy:''' [[ThisIsGonnaSuck That WOULD be ridiculous]].
295* ''Webcomic/{{Spacetrawler}}'': [[http://spacetrawler.com/2011/08/09/spacetrawler-160/ Brograhm's Teeth]] is a dense, dangerous swarm of space rocks -- and justified in that it's generated by miniature Big Bang constantly spewing out debris that's often the size of a planet into a black hole.
296[[/folder]]
297
298[[folder:Web Original]]
299* ''Literature/LandInTheStars'': A large asteroid debris belt called the Marches surrounds the primary systems of the Avalon Cluster.
300* ''Literature/PayMeBug'': Tyrelos Station is surrounded by the debris from a recently (in astronomic terms) destroyed moon.
301[[/folder]]
302
303[[folder:Western Animation]]
304%%* ''WesternAnimation/ThreeTwoOnePenguins'': In "[[Recap/ThreeTwoOnePenguinsS1E8CompassionCrashin Compassion Crashin']]", the Rockhopper crew encounters an asteroid belt.
305* ''WesternAnimation/{{Dogstar}}'': The Valiant is halted by one in "The Quick and the Dog", where the asteroids are no more than a few feet apart.
306* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'': In "[[Recap/DuckTalesS1E4WhereNoDuckHasGoneBefore Where No Duck Has Gone Before]]", Launchpad -- [[AndYouThoughtItWasaGame the only person aware that a field of asteroids is real and deadly]] -- has an absolutely terrifying time trying to keep the ''Phoenix'' from running into them. Ultimately, he brings it "right through without a scratch", but the toll the experience took on him is clear as he staggers upstairs to inform the others.
307* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': Averted/lampshaded in "[[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuyPresentsLaughItUpFuzzball Laugh It Up, Fuzzball]]", a parody of ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', when Threepio (played by Quagmire) says in the asteroid scene "Sir, the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are two to one!". To which Han (portrayed by Peter) replies "Never tell me the o-oh... well that's not bad. Never mind, let's keep going."
308* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'':
309** "[[Recap/FuturamaS1E10AFlightToRemember A Flight to Remember]]" {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this. Zapp Brannigan deliberately makes a "course correction" to the safe flight of the pleasure cruise to take the spaceship through an field of comets. After several near misses (and one hit), he then pilots the ship directly into a black hole.
310** "[[Recap/FuturamaS4E3LoveAndRocket Love and Rocket]]": Leela is having to swerve about like she's driving on ''ice'' whilst piloting through a field of asteroids.
311* ''WesternAnimation/IlEtaitUneFois Space'' features the asteroid belt so densely populated that one has to wonder how ships manage to cross it to move from Mars to Jupiter and vice-versa (the rings of Saturn are reallistically presented). Another that appears in the show follows this trope to a T, including to hide among the asteroids to evade the pursuing Cassiopeian ships ''a la'' ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''.
312* ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' has this in one episode. Zim pilots a ship into the asteroid belt during a dogfight with Dib and it's destroyed by the asteroids. They were, respectively, piloting ''Mars and Mercury''. Somewhat of a JustifiedTrope due to the fact that these planets are quite large compared to the asteroids' distances from each other.
313* ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBus'': In "[[Recap/TheMagicSchoolBusS1E1GetsLostInSpace The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space]]," the class field trip is through the solar system, including a stop in the asteroid belt. There are multiple (oddly small) asteroids around the bus, all in close proximity to each other, and the bus even gets hit by one, which knocks out the map on the computer. Oddly, this trope is not mentioned in the producer's segment.
314* ''WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw'': "[[Recap/MiloMurphysLawS2E36MiloInSpace Milo in Space]]" has one of the ships [[BornUnlucky Milo]] travels in destroyed by a small cluster of asteroids floating together. {{Justified}}, of course, because ''[[TheJinx of course that would happen to Milo]],'' scientific probability be darned.
315* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': Subverted [[PlayedForLaughs for laughs]] in the episode "Bethic Twinstinct", where Morty receives an alien game console that's supposed to have the most realism of any system. He's confused when he starts playing a space ShootEmUp resembling ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}'' because the graphics are extremely primitive. He puts the "realism" slider from four up to ten, only for the graphics to remain the same, except the asteroids disappeared. Rick and Morty are even more confused until Rick puts it together that the "realism" meant the ''gameplay'', not the graphics: the asteroids are gone because, ''[[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome realistically]]'', asteroids are incredibly far apart from one another.
316-->'''Rick:''' Oh. Oh, I get it, okay. It's- it's more ''real''. The vast majority of space is empty.\
317'''Morty:''' What? Who cares! Th-then what am I ''doing''?!
318* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'': In "[[Recap/SamuraiJackS4E8JackAndTheFlyingPrinceAndPrincess Jack and the Flying Prince and Princess]]", the titular royal figures evade enemy spaceships by maneuvering through a planetary ring system as an homage to the ''Star Wars'' films.
319* ''WesternAnimation/SaturdaySuperstarMovie'': In "Lost in Space", while the shuttle Jupiter II is on route from Earth to Saturn, it runs into a cluster of "meteorites" (asteroids) so close together that they threaten the ship.
320* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeriesS2E1ThePiratesOfOrion The Pirates of Orion]]", the pirates' ship flees into an asteroid field that consists of a large collection of rocks close together. There are so many asteroids that it's easy for the Orion ship to hide among them.
321* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'' includes a justified example: the asteroids are the remnants of a small planetoid destroyed by a particularly strong solar flare, launched into the gravity well of a nearby planet. The ''Cerritos'' attempts to navigate through the debris less than a day later, before the asteroids have a chance to settle in to stable orbits or burn up in the planet's atmosphere.
322* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
323** ''WesternAnimation/LEGOStarWarsTheYodaChronicles'' loves this, to the point that it's a RunningGag for whoever is being chased to hide among the asteroids.
324** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'':
325*** "[[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS1E2RisingMalevolence Rising]] ''[[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS1E2RisingMalevolence Malevolence]]''": When Plo Koon's cruisers are destroyed by the ''Malevolence'', their debris field becomes an artificial version of this after settling as a dense cloud of jagged metal shards, ruined machinery and general wreckage. It proves difficult to navigate through, but is also useful for characters to hide in while trying to evade the Malevolence.
326*** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS1E6DownfallOfADroid "Downfall of a Droid"]]: Anakin sets up an ambush for General Grievous in a [[JustifiedTrope planetary ring]], having placed [=AT-TEs=] on the chunks of rock to catch Grievous in a crossfire.
327*** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS1E18MysteryOfAThousandMoons "Mystery of a Thousand Moons"]]: Iego's moons are portrayed as one. Let's just say it got the nickname "World of a Thousand Moons" for a reason.
328*** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS2E3ChildrenOfTheForce "Children of the Force"]]: Cad Bane's hideout, Black Stall Station, is located in an asteroid field.
329*** "[[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS5E11ASunnyDayInTheVoid A Sunny Day in the Void]]": At the start of the episode, Gascon and the droids run into a dense swarm of comets, none much larger than their shuttle and all moving in the same direction and very close to another, which damage their ship and force them to crash-land.
330** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'':
331*** [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS1E04BreakingRanks "Breaking Ranks"]]: There's an asteroid field in the background where Kanan and Hera intercept the Imperial convoy.
332*** The first season episodes [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS1E05OutOfDarkness "Out of Darkness"]] and [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS1E07GatheringForces "Gathering Forces"]] involve the shattered remains of the planet Anaxes, last seen intact in ''The Clone Wars''[='=] Bad Batch arc, fifteen years before InUniverse, the [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS7E4UnfinishedBusiness last episode]] of which just ''happened'' to involve a (disarmed) [[EarthShatteringKaboom planet-busting bomb]]...
333*** [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS2E11TheProtectorOfConcordDawn "The Protector of Concord Dawn"]]: The titular planet is a ShatteredWorld with an asteroid field trailing behind it in its orbit.
334*** [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS2E13TheCall "The Call"]]: The Mining Guild refinery is located in one.
335*** [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS3E01TheHolocronsOfFate "The Holocrons of Fate"]]: The abandoned base where [[spoiler:Maul]] has Kanan and Ezra rendezvous with him, Vizsla Keep 09, is located in an asteroid field.
336** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsResistance'':
337*** [[Recap/StarWarsResistanceS1E6SignalFromSectorSix "Signal from Sector Six"]] reveals there's one near Castilon. Poe and Kaz fly into it on a training mission, and pick up a DistressCall from a derelict freighter attacked by pirates.
338*** [[Recap/StarWarsResistanceS1E10StationThetaBlack "Station Theta-Black"]]: The titular First Order mining station is located in one.
339*** [[Recap/StarWarsResistanceS2E9TheVoxxVortex5000 "The Voxx Vortex 5000"]]: The titular race is run through a massive one of these, which Vranki's Hotel and Casino is located in.
340* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': In [[Recap/StevenUniverseS3E24Bubbled "Bubbled"]], Steven and Eyeball go through an asteroid field that consists of mostly human-sized rocks. How they managed to find an asteroid field after going from the Moon and meeting a satellite without having any acceleration besides being blown out of the airlock isn't mentioned.
341* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'': "[[Recap/SupermanTheAnimatedSeriesS2E27E28LittleGirlLost Little Girl Lost, Part 1]]" very neatly and subtly averts this one. While scanning the shattered remnants of Krypton, which have slowly begun forming into an asteroid belt, he receives a distress call from just outside the system. Rather than play "Asteroids" in his protective ship, he simply drops down and ducks under the field to get there as quickly as possible.
342* ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'': In the first episode, two very large asteroids collide and break apart, creating a thick shower of small asteroids that slows down the [[TransformingMecha Autobots']] ship and enables the [[AliensAreBastards Decepticon]] spacecraft to catch up. The subsequent chase and battle leads both ships to crash on [[InsignificantLittleBluePlanet Earth]].
343[[/folder]]
344
345[[folder:Real Life]]
346* Until the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_10 Pioneer 10]] space probe passed through the asteroid belt, nobody really knew how dense the belt was. Only several thousand big lumps had been spotted up to that time, but there was a well-founded worry that the craft would be peppered with impacts from many small or tiny rocks. Luckily Pioneer (and all later missions that went beyond Mars) met with nothing whatsoever.
347** And there's the [[http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov Dawn spacecraft]], that went to the asteroid Vesta and after studying it for more than a year moved across the belt (of course without having to dodge asteroids ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''-style) to (the now [[ScienceMarchesOn minor planet]]) Ceres, that is currently orbiting and expected to remain so after its mission has ended.
348* Analyses of identified extrasolar asteroid belts indicate that they are much thicker than our own. Granted that's just the ones that we can see from several light-years away, so there's probably a lot more that are just as sparse if not sparser than the one in our system. Of particular note is Tau Ceti, which has an asteroid belt ten times as dense as the one orbiting the Sun.
349* The closest this trope gets to real life--in our own solar system, anyway-- is companion asteroids, where small asteroids orbit larger ones, sometimes as little as 90 meters from each other. This is generally rare, though, and it would still take appalling luck or monumental idiocy for a spacecraft to impact one.
350** There is now evidence that one asteroid actually has [[http://www.wired.com/2014/03/asteroid-ring-system/ its own ring system]], which may mean that others could as well.
351* In its earlier stages of development, the Solar System had a lot of debris floating around crashing into each other and eventually forming the inner planets. The Late Heavy Bombardment was the final cleanup of this debris by the inner planets absorbing them via impacts, the craters of which can still be seen on the Moon, Mercury, and Mars[[note]]... which has probably suffered the worst, as an oblique impact by a Moon-sized body has led to it losing a full half of its crust and is a root cause of the current difference between its northern and southern hemispheres.[[/note]]. However, even this hodgepodge would have been extremely thin compared to its fictional counterpart, with the "cleanup" taking hundreds of millions of years.
352** One other reason is that Jupiter and Neptune effectively serve as the giant vacuum-cleaners of their respective regions of the Solar System, thinning out any errant asteroids.
353* Planetary rings have large numbers of rocks, though they're generally smaller than what this trope uses. However, in Saturn's A and F rings there are moonlet belts, which are similar to this trope, in that they contain relatively large rocks (some moonlets are 8 meters across). The belts appear to be small moons that recently disintegrated. This trope usually does not occur in gaps in rings around planets in fiction, so it is not a direct analogy.
354* Many space probes that pass through the asteroid belt have their trajectory given a small change so they can pass near an asteroid and get some data. The Cassini mission to Saturn, however, passed through the asteroid belt but did not have the budget for this. [[http://sci.esa.int/cassini-huygens/12080-asteroid-masursky/ This is the closest it got to an asteroid.]]
355[[/folder]]

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