http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/quietearth.jpg
[[caption-width:400:There has been a malfunction in Project Flashlight, with devastating results.]]

->''"I could see the Earth and Moon in the sky of this strange world, Gaea...That's what they call this place."''
--> --'''Hitomi''', ''VisionOfEscaflowne''

You've used the TimeTravel machine on "random", "borrowed" the professor's [[ShinyLookingSpaceShips rocket ship]], or walked through the [[PortalNetwork strange glowy doorway.]] OK, everything seems normal, but for some reason you can't get your bearings. When you look up... it's an Alien Sky.

Used to bring home the fact that the heroes (and viewers just tuning in) are in ''another world!'' Maybe there are ''two'' moons. Perhaps Earth's all-too-familiar moon, the one in all the love songs, is broken into so many pieces it's become a ring of debris around the planet.

Having the planet orbit huge gas giants like Jupiter or Saturn that dominate the sky isn't rare, either. In the daytime, the sky could be a lovely shade of purple instead of blue, the sun could be a different color, or it could have a little and a bigger brother.

Sometimes used to comedic effect when our heroes just won't believe they've left Earth for good, and shrug off all other, often painfully obvious, hints as some kind of {{Masquerade}} ("Wow, great special effects! I'm on hidden camera, right?").

See also SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale, which is sometimes invoked for some of the more bizarre sky-types. Compare ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld.

----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* Two moons in ''ZeroNoTsukaima'' and ''SeireiNoMoribito.''
* A huge, red sun in ''NowAndThenHereAndThere''.
* In ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha [=StrikerS=]'', Midchilda seems to have, conservatively-speaking, at least ''six'' Earth-like planets hanging in its sky for absolutely no discernible reason. A number of other planets they visited in the previous season also have this unusually populated skyscape.
* ''VisionOfEscaflowne'' had Earth hanging in the sky.
* The Digital World in ''{{Digimon}} Frontier'' had three moons.
** The Digital World in Digimon Savers had rocks floating in the sky and it sometimes had electronic textures on it.
* Manabe Johji's ''{{Capricorn}}'' is set in a ''Lunar''-like alternate dimension in which our Earth is visible in the sky over the moon. The moon is itself a planet with Earth's density and gravity, if not its size.
* A variation: It's not the sky which tells Youko that she's arrived in the world of ''TheTwelveKingdoms'', it's the alien-looking ''sea.'' Later in the series, she flies to a palace on a high mountain and discovers there's ''another'' (watery) sea above the clouds.
** Similarly, it's the not so much the sky itself in ''EurekaSeven'' that looks alien, but the luminescent clouds of light particles that blow across it. The ground's not exactly normal, either, what with the huge chunks of coral-like stuff jutting out of it. [[spoiler:Against all odds, though, it's apparently still Earth.]]
* ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' played the double moon version during a chapter with the Moon [[spoiler:and the Hyper Galaxy Dai-Gurren]].
* ''DarkerThanBlack'' has as part of the back story that the normal sky of the Earth disappeared when Hell's Gate opened ten years ago, taking with it all constructs found above the Stratosphere. Attempts to reclaim space only result in silence from whatever is sent up there. Instead, the stars in the night sky are all artificial and bound to a particular contractor, blinking as the contractor uses its power and falling from the sky when the contractor dies. The moon has disappeared and even the sun is altered; every few years, the sunspots move around so much that the sun looks like a giant glowing eye for a while.
* ''{{Simoun}}'' takes place on a planet in a binary star system, which accounts for the FashionableAsymmetry in the clothes design of the Sybillae.
* In ''DragonballZ'', Namek has a green sky (and blue grass).
** Not to mention three suns.
*** And the lollipop-shaped trees.
* In StellviaOfTheUniverse space, and thus the night sky, is green now. This is justified in that Earth is in a part of space still suffering the effects of the supernova explosion of the star Hydrus Beta ( which almost destroyed human civilisation ) and so occupies what seems to be a nebula. [[spoiler:Space changes colour again later on]].
* CowboyBebop has a cracked moon in Earth's sky and tons of debris that rains down upon the Earth on a daily basis. Of course, few people live there, opting instead for other, terraformed bodies in the Solar System with even weirder views of the heavens.
* Speaking of space westerns, {{Trigun}} appeared to take place on wild west Earth at the beginning, but the twin suns, five moons, and purple night sky caused by three or more moons shining at one time is a tipoff to the contrary...along with all those alien-looking people and weaponry...and those giant Plant systems.
* ''AllisonAndLillia'' has, in addition to its Alien Geography, a moon which is much closer to the Earth, orbiting every eight days and producing spectacular solar eclipses on a disturbingly frequent basis. Strangely, however, calendar months are still roughly 30 days long...
* In ''TrinityBlood'', Earth has two moons: the normal moon, and a new "Vampire Moon", which is [[spoiler:the colony ship the Methuselah used to travel to Mars and back.]]
* End of Evangelion ends up with Earth surrounded by reddish ring [[spoiler: made of blood]]. The sky looks even worse in the middle of the film.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* The setting of the ''{{Elfquest}}'' comics also has two moons -- and is called the World of Two Moons, in honor of the fact.
* The planet Elekton in ''TheTriganEmpire'' has two moons and two suns.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* ''StarWars'' had Luke framed against a simple but gorgeous twin sunset in the first movie--it's the first shot in the film to really drive home the point that this isn't Earth, and succeeds spectacularly, despite being one of the film's simplest effects - it's just a double exposure of a real sunset. It also featured the rebel base on an Earth-like moon orbiting a giant, red gas-planet.
** [[FridgeLogic Shouldn't everything on Luke's planet have two shadows?]]
*** Not necessarily. The suns are pretty close together in the sky and one is noticeably more dim than the other.
* The 2002 remake of ''TheTimeMachine'' had a cracked moon and debris field circling the Earth, the product of the man-made disaster that prompted the Morlock/Eloi Earth in this version.
* ''TheDarkCrystal'' makes a big deal out of the Great Conjunction of the Triple Sun, during which time huge world-changing events are known to occur.
* ''TheQuietEarth'' (see the illustration) ends with Zac on an alien world, or radically changed Earth, immediately obvious because of the weird clouds and ringed planet rising in the sky.
* The unnamed planet in ''PitchBlack'' has three suns, which causes it to be constantly daytime, except once every 22 years, when there is a triple eclipse. [[FridgeLogic One also has to wonder how the photophobic creatures that menace the characters afterwards managed to survive after killing off the surface creatures.]] (maybe ''they'' are nocturnal as well, and everyone hibernates! Anything's possible, but [[RuleOfCool what matters is that it was scary and dark]]) The gas giant it orbits also has two sets of rings parallel to each other, which isn't even physically possible.
** The creatures were shown to emerge from underground, it can be assumed that's where they normally lived.
** It also seems pretty likely that the nocturnal monsters didn't kill ''all'' of the surface creatures. The alien graveyard that the main characters discover might just be a herd of them that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
* The world ''Krull'' rotated around two suns. There were no double-shadows, we never saw the sky enough to find both suns, and there was no plot-significant reason for there being two suns. It was [[RuleOfCool just cool]].
* TheReveal in ''GalaxyQuest'', when the huge dome opens and Taggart finally realizes where he ''really'' is.
** In the theatrical showing, there was another level to this. The opening minutes, where the 'clip' of Galaxy Quest is played, was in 4:3. When this ended, the aspect ratio pulled back to "standard" 1.85:1. When the doors open the ratio was again increased, this time to 2.35:1. The DVD, of course, ignores this.
* ''VanillaSky''. The sky is the same milky orange with white clouds because [[spoiler:it was David's mother's favorite time of day, so his subconscious made it that color ''all the time''.]]
* ''Stargate'' (the movie) showed an alien sky with three full moons visible at the same time.
* The 1980 version of ''FlashGordon'' features an immense sky full of vivid, multi-colored clouds visibly surging and roiling. The "sky" may in fact be more akin to a nebula, as continent-sized "moons" are seen to float in it. Its relationship to the "Sea of Fire" the heroes fly through to reach Mongo is unclear.
** Mongo probably orbits a companion star that spins around a red giant that has become a planetary nebula. It looks similar to the Helix Planetary Nebula when Zarkov's ship approaches it prior to reaching the Sea of Fire (the red giant's corona).
* In ''TheConeheads'', the Conehead's home planet has three moons. The rare even of all three lining up perfectly in the night sky is commemorated as a holy day.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Jennifer Fallon's ''SecondSons'' series takes place on a planet with two suns. The driving event of the story is one sun eclipsing the other for a period of many years, allowing a corrupt cult to take over the world.
* Malacandra[[spoiler:, otherwise known as Mars,]] in C. S. Lewis's ''Space Trilogy'' has giant chunks of pink coral for clouds, set in an electric blue sky.
* The novelizations of ''MagicTheGathering'''s Mirrodin block had the four moons (corresponding to four of the five colours of mana) as its main plot element. The third set in the block, Fifth Dawn, is about what you'd expect.
* IsaacAsimov's short story (and later, novel) ''{{Nightfall}}'' takes place on Lagash, a planet with six (!) suns and one moon. This is a major plot point, as when the moon eclipses the sole sun remaining on one side of the planet (as the others have all set), Lagash's people go insane, not being used to the darkness, and destroy their civilization; this, according to the novel, happens once every 2049 years. It wasn't just the darkness that drove the people insane; it was the millions of stars hanging in the night sky that destroy their mind. It had been suggested there might be other star systems, as many as twenty or even a hundred! One protagonist whistles at how there being another hundred star systems would shrink their world into insignificance. Unfortunately for them their system was far closer to their galactic core than Sol is to ours and as you get closer to the galactic core the density of star systems increases. Seeing a night sky like that visible from Earth would have been a shock as that would have been far more stars than their highest estimate. Seeing a night sky with hundreds of times as many, thousands or tens of thousands as many as they thought would shrink them into insignificance, well…
* The ''{{Dragonlance}}'' novels are set in Krynn, a planet which initially has three moons. Each one has a color, the larger one is white, the medium one is red and the smaller one is black, and also invisible on regular circustances. Sometimes the moons align and make a "eye" in the sky.
* ''The Andalite Chronicles'', a prequel to ''{{Animorphs}}'', has a piece of {{Phlebotinum}} create a small universe based on the memories of the main characters. The sky is a patchwork of bright blue with fluffy clouds (Loren), deep red (Elfangor), and sickly green with lots of lightning (Esplin 9466).
* Near the end of Monica Hughes's ''InvitationToTheGame'', the small tribe of main characters believes they're still in a virtual-reality world until they realize that they can see the Milky Way from outside it, and there's no moon.
* {{Marion Zimmer Bradley}}'s {{Darkover}} has four moons and a dark red sun, colloquially known as "the bloody sun."
* {{Dragaera}}'s sky is covered with a reddish-orange overcast for some reason. Also, in ''[[OntologicalMystery Issola]]'', this is one of the weird quirks of the place they're trapped.
** The overcast is apparently a side effect of the use of sorcery.
* Played with in ''[[BookOfAmber The Chronicles Of Amber]]''; sky color is one of the ways to tell where you are when walking between worlds.
* The "pre-reviz" ''MagicTheGathering'' novels--written and released before the ''Mirage'' block was released and ''Weatherlight'' ended up heavily revising what people thought they knew about the setting--features, as the main setting, a world with two moons.
* In the ''[[CoDominium Warworld]]'' series, the AlienSky is an important plot point, as the moon Haven has a day/night cycle 87 hours long, so having a heat-radiating Brown Dwarf in the sky can mean the difference between freezing to death and merely losing a few toes.
** Another CoDominium setting is the twin planets of New Washington and Franklin, which are tide-locked so that each sits unmoving in the same part of the sky every day when seen from the surface of the other.
* In the {{Riverworld}} series, the sky is moonless, but has brighter stars than Earth, including some still visible in the daytime.
* ''{{Ringworld}}'''s sky is dominated by the Ring, and "night" is produced by the Shadow Squares.
** [[LarryNiven Larry Niven's]] SmokeRing is, if anything, more bizarre. The "planet" ''is'' the sky. The Ring is a (mostly) gas torus from a supermassive gas giant in close orbit around a neutron star, which is a binary with a yellow dwarf.
* Used in the StarWars ExpandedUniverse to drive the point home as to just how powerful the Yuuzhan Vong are - they take one of Coruscant's moons and shatter it, turning it into a planetary ring. This ring and another of the planet's moons were thrown out of orbit when the living (and hyperspace capable) planet Zonama Sekot entered the system in the last NJO book.
** In other novels sky colors are occasionally mentioned. Not a color as such, but it's said that Coruscant, with all that pollution, has an unbelievably beautiful sunset.
* Rond, the setting planet of [[http://thelonelywinds.com/library.php The Lonely Winds ]] has two moons, one a volcanic hell, while the other has been hinted at being inhabited.
* GeneWolfe's ''{{Book of the New Sun}}'' is set so far into Earth's future, the terraformed Moon is covered in green forests, and the sun has dimmed to the point that stars are visible in the daytime.
* In the novel [[http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/pamela-f-service/under-alien-stars.htm Under Alien Skies]], the title actually refers to the alien character in the book (which involves Earth becoming a backwater world between two empires who are at war), since pretty much the entire book is set within Earth's gravity well. That is, it is Earth's sky that is alien.
* ''AgainstADarkBackground'' by Iain M Banks is set within a lone solar system that is outside a galaxy. This is revealed two-thirds through the book, but hinted at a several points, notably in night-time scenes where starlight is not mentioned but "junklight" (light reflected from satellites & space junk in orbit above) is.
* [[DragonridersOfPern Pern]] has two moons--Belior is the larger one, Timor is the smaller one. Since the dragonriders often use the moons' positions as coordinates for going ''between'', it's likely that they can be seen during the daytime. However, the plot-important aspect of the sky is the Red Star, which starts raining Thread onto the planet once it gets closest to the sun.
* In DanAbnett's GauntsGhosts novel ''His Last Command'', when Mkoll and Maggs have gone through a [[CoolGate Chaos warp gate]] -- the stars are all wrong, and there are massive stone blocks floating in the air.
* In GrahamMcNeill's {{Warhammer 40000}} {{Ultramarines}} novel ''Dead Sky Black Sun'', not only is the sun black, it never moves.
* PerryRhodan had for Earth or alternate main mankind worlds:
** A failed teleport put Earth and Moon in interstellar space, with "atomic suns" in orbit providing light and heat, then was moved into a system with a red star.
** During Earth's absence, the main human world was Gaea, around a normal star, but inside a dark nebula.
** The newest "main" human worlds are in the Stardust system, with the 3rd to 6th planet habitable, the main (4th) having 2 moons, the 5th 4 moons, several gas giants further out in the system - and the system is in a globular cluster so it only really gets dark when it's cloudy.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* The ''{{Sliders}}'' episode "State Of The A.R.T." changed the color of the sky to lilac. The RidiculouslyHumanRobot gives it a {{Handwave}} about pollution particles-- not one that makes scientific sense, of course, but at least it was acknowledged.
** [[SeasonalRot Later episodes]] brought us green skies (for worlds hidden in hyperspace), and a sky with a moon ''plus two additional Earths'' [[YouFailAstronomyForever (incorrectly said to be "in syzygy.")]]
* ''{{Space 1999}}'' actually takes place on the moon after it's been blasted out of Earth orbit and the solar system.
* ''DoctorWho'': Pick an alien planet, it's there.
** The Time Lord homeworld Gallifrey is perhaps the most well-known example with its fabled "burnt orange sky", although the Doctor never arrives there at random (and it isn't shown on-screen much at all).
** An early example was the planet Vortis, in "The Web Planet", which had an atmosphere so thin that the stars (and multiple moons) were visible during the day.
** During the eighties, a particular new postproduction technique resulted in a minor run of planets with pink skies, including Thoros Beta in "Mindwarp" and the unnamed planet in "Survival".
** A story arc in the eighteenth season upped the ante with a trip to the pocket universe E-Space - where, of course, all the planets had a particular sort of alien sky
*** Only at night - space was green in that universe (and since it was later established that inter-universe portals were built to drain off entropy, [[TechnicolorScience entropy is green]].
* Pylea in ''{{Angel}}'' has two suns, not that we see either more than once. Conveniently for any vampires present, neither are of the undead-frying variety.
* The ''LandOfTheLost'' has three moons (and sometimes two suns), but given what's learned about the Land during the series, they may not be exactly... real.
* Planet Hell (the "planetary surface" soundstage) from ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', which always had a different-colored backdrop. I mean, sky.
** And the "demon-class" planet, which had both AlienSky and Alien ''ground''.
** An [[TVTropesWikiDrinkingGame egregious]] example is when Vulcan was seen in ''StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' with two really big moons in the sky, even though it had previously been said that Vulcan doesn't have any moons. A FanWank RetCon turned these into a sister planet with its own moon ... And then the ninth movie actually put characters and a starbase ''on'' the sister planet so one of them could watch [[spoiler:Vulcan get destroyed]] in a flashback.
* StargateSG1 loves putting many moons and big moons into an alien sky - probably because [[BBCQuarry nine-tenths of the planets look like British Columbia]], so you have to show variation somehow. The trend started in the Stargate film, where Abydos has three moons.
** The only trouble is that these moons are usually bigger and closer than our own, and Earth's moon is already towards the big-and-close end of the moon spectrum - any bigger and closer and our tides would probably become massively destructive.
** This only applies to the planets of the same size. If the planes is lesser, a moon the same size displays bigger. Also, the show almost never takes place anywhere near an ocean.
*** [[DidNotDoTheResearch No]], [[SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay no]], [[YouFailPhysicsForever no,]] [[BigNo noooooooooo]]! The only thing which affects an object's (in our case, a moon's) apparent size is the object's size and its distance (and the magnification of the optical system which you use to look at the object relative to the naked eye, but since naked eye is assumed, it's 1×). If you are standing on a 100m asteroid which is 350.000 km away from Earth's moon, the moon will seem to be the same size as it seems to be on Earth. Period. Tidal effects don't only affect water bodies - if Earth's moon were closer or bigger, the volcanic and tectonic activity were affected too (more volcano eruptions, more earthquakes). However, there can be a moon bigger and closer to the planet without the disastrous effects - only it has to be less dense than Earth's moon, or the moon and the planet have to be tidal locked.
* ''{{Firefly}}'' does this all the time, as the series is set in a solar system with lots of gas giants and habitable moons. The "first episode" features, in its first scene a celestial object hanging in the sky that you really wouldn't want to see on Earth, because it would mean the moon had suddenly and drastically reduced the distance between itself and Earth and altered its surface features.
* ''PowerRangers'' often depicts alien planets as [[BBCQuarry generic rocky wastelands]]... but with a color filter over the camera so you know it's definitely not Earth. The Earth's moon ([[ArtisticLicense which has a breathable atmosphere]], by the way, [[MagicAIsMagicA ever since the first season]]), has a distinct blue colour, while the hot planet Kalderon has a red atmosphere. Etc.
** Done on ''earth'' in PowerRangersRPM, to show just how much damage Venjix has caused. Outside of the DomedHometown of Corinth, which projects blue skies onto the underside of the dome, the world is covered with a yellow filter to suggest yellow toxic clouds, high radiation levels, and storms of dust.
*The skies of Arrakis in the miniseries {{Dune}} deserve a special mention because of the final shot. The hero and his new wife are depicted silhouetted dramatically against a sky which has two moons - ''in different phases.'' The creators were going for AlienSky, and ended up with something way more alien than they were hoping for. [[CriticalResearchFailure Anyone else see a problem here?]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* In the music video for The Sword's "Fire Lance of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians", the moon is cracked during a global nuclear war. This corresponds to the lyrics, "Within a shattered planet, beneath a broken moon."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* Many ''DungeonsAndDragons'' settings have multiple moons.
** ''Greyhawk'' has two moons.
** ''{{Dragonlance}}'' has three [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience morally-aligned]] moons -- Solitari (good, white), Lunitari (neutral, red), and Nuitari (evil, black) -- but only so long as the gods are around.
*** Also, they have a constellation for each of the gods, which vanish from the sky when their god is wandering about on Krynn.
** ''{{Eberron}}'' has a whopping ''twelve'' moons, and it is said that there was once a thirteenth. To top it off, it also has a ring composed of [[MineralMacGuffin dragonshards]].
** Toril (''ForgottenRealms'') while only having one moon (Selûne), has visibly trailing behind it a string of asteroids (called Selûne's Tears). Plus, it's also worshipped as a goddess. Or seen as a personification of goddess. It's complicated.
*** And if you [[SpellJammer roam]] the Realmspace, Selûne in inhabited, but they think entire Toril wants to conquer them so entire visible lifeless surface is an impenetrable illusory disguise woven by goddess (and ''not'' the same goddess). But then, ''for {{Spelljammer}}'' it's not too weird.
** The Iron Kingdoms setting uses three moons, on very different orbital planes. It is mentioned that the interplay between the moons causes violent and unpredictable tidal effects and maritime weather.
** ''Wilderlands of High Fantasy'' features a ring of asteroids in the sky, which change colour every few hundred years.
** ''Mystara'' has two moons, one of which is ''invisible'', the other of which is home to the gods.
** Different Clusters within the ''{{Ravenloft}}'' setting may have different constellations, and specific domains' skies may differ in other ways. Bluetspur's sun never rises, but traces a path just beneath the domain's mountainous horizon; the Nocturnal Sea's skies are always overcast.
* {{Warhammer}} features a world with two moons, one normal looking, the other a sickly, evil green.
** The green moon is actually made entirely out of the powerful, but incredibly dangerous [[GreenRocks magical substance]] known as Warpstone.
* In the home of the gods in {{Exalted}}, the sky changes depending on which god is currently winning the Games of Divinity.
** Also, it has Malfeas, home to TheLegionsOfHell, whose fake sky is lit by a green sun, [[GeniusLoci which is itself]] an exceptionally powerful demon.
*** A sun which is stated to have shared the sky with the Unconquered Sun before the Primordials were overthrown.
*** [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu You can punch it.]]
* In MagicTheGathering, Dominaria has two moons. One of them is artificial. And Mirrodin has four (and later, five) "suns."
** Don't forget Esper, with its star chart for a night sky and bisected clouds.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''SkiesOfArcadia'' deserves a special mention here. Six moons (and no visible sun, despite there being a normal day/night cycle), and they're arranged in such a way that you can only see each one in a particular region of the world. Besides the Moons hanging over their country of choice, just try to fathom how that map works when you really think about it. (The two ends of Glacia should not be connected to each other if the world is round...) Of course, the game is premised on the assumption that there's no ocean and [[FloatingContinent all the landmasses of the world are floating in the sky]], so maybe we should just relax.
** This troper always assumed they were in some bizarre sort of gaseous planet (not a giant because they wouldn't survive.) Also, this can be easily (although not practically or probable in any way) explained by the fact the these moons orbits were geosynchronous.
* ''{{Lunar}}'' takes place, appropriately enough, on the moon, so it has a huge floating Earth in the sky.
* The ''RatchetAndClank'' series, taking place on multiple worlds, naturally gives a good number of odd skies to look at when you're not blowing everything to Kingdom Come.
* One of the many links between ''{{Tales of Symphonia}}'' and ''{{Tales of Phantasia}}'' is the names of Phantasia's two moons: Sylvarant and Tethe'alla, the names of the two worlds in Symphonia. When the original world was split in two, the residents of each world named the one moon that remained in their world after the other world, to "explain" where the missing people went. This caused some confusion when someone from the world of Tethe'alla came to Sylvarant (whose people had long forgotten about the other world).
**Not to mention that after the magical seal holding Sylvarant and Tethe'alla together [[spoiler:-as well as a third world, Derris Kharlan- gets broken]], the both world's skys get all purple and cloudy.
* The world of ''ChronoCross'' has six moons, each one represented by a Dragon God.
* Many of Psygnosis's Amiga games, usually featuring a blue-to-pink/green-to-pink gradient and an impossibly large moon.
* ''SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' has a binary star system. Though the sky is rarely shown in the cutscenes, one of the stars reaches perihelion in an 80-year cycle, each time causing Planet's native life to pester your bases even more for a period of 20 years.
** The name of the trope is also used, when the [[OpeningNarration opening video]] refers to the settlers seeking a new life "under an alien sky."
* In ''{{Drakengard}}'', after the final seal is broken, the world's sky turns from a happy blue to a blood-red. This also accompanies fireballs that rain from heaven and explode with the force of a nuclear blast, turning your recent major military victory into a devastating loss.
* The first few levels of ''SeriousSam: The Second Encounter'' are supposed to take place in South or Central America, on our Earth, in the Mayan age. However, as you near the end of this set, the sky goes completely dark, and a bit later on the night-time sky is blue-purple and... is that a nebula? Cool and beautiful but quite bizarre.
* TheElderScrolls Series features two moons in the sky: Masser and Secunda. One of these moons is reddish-brown while the other is grey. Oh, and when the moons aren't full, you can see stars behind the dark parts (AWizardDidIt) The constellations and nebula shown on the night sky are also completely different, creating a beautiful spectacle that can sometimes lead to players just standing around at night doing nothing but watching the sky. In [[{{Another Dimension}} Oblivion]], the skies are even wierder, even during daytime.
** The skies in Oblivion feature prominently a huge nebula streaking across the night sky. [[WildMassGuessing Could the world of Tamriel be in another galaxy?!]]
** In the second game, the sky would occasionally turn green for a few hours, with no reason given. Perhaps it was a bug; perhaps it was intentional and meant to drive home the point that Tamriel isn't Earth.
** Concept art and early beta footage of ''Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind'' having a daytime sky that is a pleasant shade of orange. This was scrapped in favor of a normal blue one.
** Also in ''Morrowind'', the sun is '''fucking huge.'''
** In Oblivion, entering the eponymous Oblivion World lands you in somewhere closely resembling hell, with a red stormy sky. Going near an Oblivion Gate in Tamriel causes the same sky effect, which can be very unsettling.
* ''FinalFantasyIV'' follows the "one normal moon like Earth's, one special plot-related moon you get to visit" pattern.
** The game confirms that [[spoiler:the world of FinalFantasyIV ''is'' (sort of) Earth, and that the Lunarians on the second moon (which wasn't always there) came from a planet that was between Mars and Jupiter before it was destroyed, causing the Lunarians to move to a second moon orbiting Earth. The moon that the heroes don't get to visit is the one that exists in real life. The Lunarians move their moon away in the epilogue of the game.]]
* The world of ''FinalFantasyVIII'' has a fairly normal blue sky with one moon... except that the moon is enormous, taking up at least a quarter of the sky in most of the backdrop images. It is also, as the characters learn during the third disc, covered with monsters, and the "Lunar Cry" which carries those monsters to the planet below causes the planet-facing side of the moon to temporarily sport a huge blood-red spot with a milky white center that makes it look like a giant alien eye.
* In ''TheLegendOfZelda: Majora's Mask'', an intimidating moon growing ever-larger in the sky serves as both a timepiece and to remind players that (despite widespread recycling of character models) they're in the parallel world of Termina, not in Hyrule. Additionally, as the moon nears collision, the sky turns a sickly green during the day and reddish during the night.
** Termina being a parallel world to Hyrule is still debatable.
* ''[[{{Grandia}} Grandia II]]'' has a moon similar to ours, and a smaller red one -- Valmar's Moon. [[spoiler:You get to land on it.]]
* ''JakAndDaxter'': the (unnamed) planet has a green sun. No, the colours aren't all screwy. In the third game, [[spoiler:a second one appears. This one is purple.]]
* The titular {{Halo}} of the game series has a sky that looks like a normal Earth sky....except that you can see the horizon curling up and narrowing in the distance, stretching up above you, and coming back down around to the other side.
** When you reach [[spoiler:the Ark]] in Halo 3, the sky is blue but stars are visible. The Milky Way itself dominates the skyline.
* The world of ''[[WildArms Wild ARMs]]'' contains two moons. The usual boring old moon, and the new moon Malduke [[spoiler:which is actually a huge orbiting military base built by the {{precursors}} and also serves as {{the very definitely final dungeon}}]].
* {{Doom}} features several variations on a red sky for FireAndBrimstoneHell. One sky is even ''made out of screaming, grimacing faces''.
* {{Mass Effect}}. One of the few things that was unique about the otherwise cookie-cutter secondary planets were the sometimes awesome exotic skies. This is particularly true with moons.
* ''Unreal''. Some of the most breathtaking skies ever seen in a videogame, especially for the time.
* Although it was never seen on screen, the manual of ''Tass Times in Tonetown'' (a game mostly set in a [[TotallyRadical Totally Radical]] dimension) mentions a triangular moon.
* WorldOfWarcraft has Alien Skies all over the place. Often, merely walking from one zone into the next is enough to turn the sky a completely different color (ostensibly it's always an effect of smoke or haze or the like, but it's far more dramatic than this could account for). The skies of Outland are even more exotic (and utterly gorgeous), full of an effect akin to a particularly dramatic aurora.
*** The aurora-like things you see in Outland are actually parts of the Twisting Nether that is bleeding physical world after Draenor was ripped apart by opening too many portals to the Nether. The Netherstorm zone is a result of an extreme version of this process.
** Azeroth used to have two moons, but the smaller one disappeared in a patch that introduced weather effects. It's still mentioned in the background, tho.
* In the first ''{{Quake}}'' game the sky was filled with ominous purple clouds; in ''Quake 2'' the sky of the alien planet Stroggos was reddish-orange and sometimes had orbiting asteroids visible.
* {{Spore}}'s space stage allows you "Atmospheric coloring tools", which let you dye the skies of various planets.
* Heavily utilized in the ''Myst''/''Uru'' series of games, to distinguish Ages located on different planets.
* In ''{{Fable}}'', the moon takes up a fifth of the sky, even during daytime.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''[[http://brokenspacecomic.com Broken Space]]'' features Veldin, a world with an electric yellow sky, made all the more shocking for the protagonist because his home [[DomedHometown lacks a visible sky]].
* ''TalesOfTheQuestor'' has two moons in the sky, one of which is twice the apparent diameter of the other, and which have 7 and 28 day orbits (a 13 month year, with 4 weeks to a month exactly. You can literally tell what day of the week it is by the phases of the moons.)
* ''SlightlyDamned'' has hell with a featureless sky that gets bright or dark instantly. Medius itself has a red moon and green moon.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''ThundarrTheBarbarian'' actually had a plot-related reason for its AlienSky: The moon was broken in half by a "runaway planet" passing between the Earth and the moon, plunging the world into a new dark age. This gave many tropers copious amounts of Nightmare Fuel in their youth, especially as the show indicated it would happen in the far-off year of 1994.
* The planet in ''{{Transformers}}: BeastWars'' had two moons. But, of course, one [[ThatsNoMoon wasn't really a moon]], revealed as part of the PlanetOfTheApesEnding of the first season.
* The ''{{Futurama}}'' episode "My Three Suns" took place, appropriately, on a planet with three suns, one of which stretched from horizon to horizon. The humans and robot had no problems functioning there, though it was Death-Valley-level hot. In the AlternateUniverse episode "The Farnsworth Parabox", the second universe has a psychedelic-colored sky.
** Any differences between the two universes were caused by coin-flips going one way instead of the other. That must have been some coin-flip...
** Amusingly, later in the Alternate Universe episode there's a shot of the (alternate) Earth from space, and it shows that the weird psychedelic sky is only a small patch over New New York. The rest of the planet looks normal, which indicates that it's probably Farnsworth's fault.
* Most {{Filmation}} shows set in outer space have planets with green skies.
* An interesting variant in SupermanTheAnimatedSeries. It's a cloudy day, and [[CardCarryingVillain Luminous]] taunts Superman, saying he can bring Superman to [[BroughtDownToNormal normal human levels]]. Indeed, Superman has been getting weaker and weaker. Finally Superman goes outside city limits to punch rocks and the clouds break. And that's when it hits him... the sun is RED.
*''{{Visionaries}}'' The alignment of Prysmos's triple suns acts as a catalyst for the Age of Magic/Science. They are often seen throughout in the background of the series.
* ObanStarRacers. If you're actually paying attention to the sky.
* In the JusticeLeague multi-part episode "Hereafter", Superman [[spoiler: is sent to a post-apocalyptic future Earth, where the sun is now red and the moon has a ring around it.]]
** This is later revealed to be the work of [[spoiler:Vandal Savage, as an unfortunate side effect of his invention: a machine that controlled gravity.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Many real-life planets have skies that look very different from Earth's. Mars, for instance, has a tan-gray sky normally (Weather does effect the sky color, A violet sky has also been photographed) and two (tiny) moons, while Venus is enveloped entirely in yellow-brown clouds(Which doesn't change, unlike Mars and Earth). Furthermore, there are many differently-colored stars in the universe that have planets orbiting them, meaning that those planets do indeed have differently-colored suns. Which in turn means that not only atmospheres are different, they are differently highlighted, which widens variety of dayglow hues.
** Moons also have vastly different skies. The Moon (Yes, ''that'' moon) has a perpetual black sky (due to lacking a atmosphere) and Titan (the largest moon of Saturn) has a dark tan-orange, due to its thick atmosphere (And sadly lacking a view of Saturn because of that).
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