History Main / AsteroidThicket

* ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'': The trope is turned UpToEleven; 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

** Taken UpToEleven in ''The Andalite Chronicles'', where an Andalite Dome Ship is destroyed by ''living asteroids''.

** The future [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//Lucy_(spacecraft) Lucy]] mission will take asteroid study UpToEleven, moving to investigate some of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids then transversing the inner Solar System to research the other Trojan asteroids -crossing the asteroid belt twice-. In addition another [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//Psyche_(spacecraft) probe]] will be sent to the belt, this time to study the metallic asteroid [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//16_Psyche Psyche]].

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' uses AsteroidThicket as a terrain, an equivalent of [[RecycledInSpace a forest]] where a unit can hide in and gain defense and evasive bonuses.

* ''Script/AHDotComTheSeries'': {{Invoked|Trope}} "The Machine", in which Captain Dr. What (whose knowledge of how the universe works is mainly based on old movies) tries to hide from [[LawyerFriendlyCameo the]] ''[[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Vendetta]]'' in an asteroid belt, and the most knowledgeable GBW keeps trying to point out that the asteroids are too dispersed for this to work.

%% * ''Series/DoctorWho'':

** %%[[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E5TheTsurangaConundrum The Tsuranga Conundrum]]%%: The ambulance ship the episode is set on travels through two over the course of the episode.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** %%[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E2IntoTheDalek Into the Dalek]]%%: The ''Aristotle'', headquarters of the human [[LaResistance resistance]] against the Daleks, is hiding in one.
** %%[[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.

** 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]].

* 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.

** ''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 TheForce 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.

* ''ComicBook/TheTransformers'': 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.

* ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizationsII'': 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.

** Season one has two "[[ArtisticLicenceSpace meteor storms]]", with lots of rocks hitting the ship as if it were a heavy hailstorm or an avalanche.

** ''Adventure 1: The Kinunir''. While ships are in the Shionthy asteroid belt, there is a 1 in 36 chance per hour that they will contact a speck of antimatter. The resulting explosion will severely damage the ship.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' sometimes has them, but this is justified since they are the remains of destroyed planets.

*** "[[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.

* ''WesternAnimation/LEGOStarWarsTheYodaChronicles'' loves this, to the point that it's a RunningGag for whoever is being chased to hide among the asteroids.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'':
** [[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.
** [[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.
** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS2E3ChildrenOfTheForce "Children of the Force"]]: Cad Bane's hideout, Black Stall Station, is located in an asteroid field.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'':
** [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS1E04BreakingRanks "Breaking Ranks"]]: There's an asteroid field in the background where Kanan and Hera intercept the Imperial convoy.
** 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]]...
** [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS2E11TheProtectorOfConcordDawn "The Protector of Concord Dawn"]]: The titular planet is a ShatteredWorld with an asteroid field trailing behind it in its orbit.
** [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS2E13TheCall "The Call"]]: The Mining Guild refinery is located in one.
** [[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.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsResistance'':
** [[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.
** [[Recap/StarWarsResistanceS1E10StationThetaBlack "Station Theta-Black"]]: The titular First Order mining station is located in one.
** [[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.

** Season one has two "[[ArtisticLicenceAstronomy meteor storms]]", with lots of rocks hitting the ship as if it were a heavy hailstorm or an avalanche.

* In the second season of ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato'', 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.)
%%* The "Cemetery Belt" in episode 6 of ''Anime/HeroicAge''.

* ''Anime/StarshipGirlYamamotoYohko'' episode 5.
* Though ''Anime/{{Macross}}'' 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.
** Episode 6 of ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' used the "rings of Saturn" variation.
*** The "rings of Saturn" variation also provided one of the most memorable setpieces for ''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]].
** In Episode 5 of ''Anime/MacrossDelta'', Messer, Keith, and Hayate pull off some fancy maneuvers by using their boosters and engines to jump off of asteroids to move around.
* ''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.
* In ''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.
* In ''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]].
* ''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.
* In ''Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly'', Lemo easily navigates one on the way to the planet Vampa.
* Weaponized in ''Manga/SoulHunter'' 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.

* In the [[Creator/MarvelComics Marvel]] ''[[ComicBook/TheTransformers Transformers Generation 1]]'' comic, our 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.
* The trope is turned UpToEleven in ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo''; 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

* In the [[Film/TheAdventuresOfCaptainProton Captain Proton]] ParodyFic ''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.

* In ''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.]]
* ''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.

* The lunar shuttle in ''Film/AirplaneIITheSequel'' 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?

* In the 2011 film ''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]].

* Variation: Instead of an asteroid field, ''Film/GalaxyQuest'' 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.

** The TropeCodifier comes from ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', in which 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.
** ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' has a {{Justified|Trope}} example -- it's Geonosis' ring, planetary rings actually being that dense in RealLife. It was also done as an echo of the ''Empire'' sequence above.
** In ''Film/ANewHope'' the "asteroids" are fragments of Alderaan, which has just been destroyed.
*** The unreality of the ''Empire Strikes Back'' sequence is lampooned in [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/482.html this]] ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic''. See also the page quote.
* ''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.

* Averted in ''Literature/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''. While passing through the asteroid belt, ''Discovery'' passes within visual range of one asteroid. They deliberately chose their route to bring them close enough to make observations of that asteroid.

** Averted and explained in "Literature/TheMartianWay", where 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.
%%** Asimov's first published story, "Literature/MaroonedOffVesta", embodies this trope; but as explained in the ''2001'' example above, this is ScienceMarchesOn.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Literature/TheAstronautsApprentice The Astronaut's Apprentice]]'' by Literature/PhilipThreadneedle. 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.
* ''Future Hope'' 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.
* Creator/RobertAHeinlein

** In Heinlein's Young Adult novel ''Literature/SpaceCadet'', 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.
** In ''Literature/TheRollingStones'', the book 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.
* The ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' ExpandedUniverse is actually quite good at treating asteroid belts realistically:
** A straight example is actually justified in Creator/TobiasBuckell's ''[[Literature/HaloTheColeProtocol The Cole Protocol]]''. 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.
** The Kig-Yar (aka Jackals/Skirmishers) 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 in ''[[Literature/HaloMortalDictata Mortal Dictata]]'' 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.
** The Eridanus asteroid belt, depicted in ''[[Literature/HaloTheFallOfReach The Fall of Reach]]'' and ''[[Literature/HaloFirstStrike First Strike]]'', 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.
* Subverted in Creator/AllenSteele's ''A King of Infinite Space'', where 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.
* Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'' universe
** Completely averted in Earth's solar system. Larry is well known for [[ShownTheirWork Showing His Work]]. Belters are explicitly described as spending months at a time alone, flying their singleships between asteroids on prospecting runs. He even extrapolates and uses the ramifications in his stories. Not everyone has the kind of personalty to handle that amount of nothing for the length of time that is required to get from place to place. The ones who can't never come back to port. Belter society is made of the ones who can.
** Justified in the vaguely truer-to-Trope 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 1/3 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.
* Averted in ''Literature/{{Lacuna}}''. Liao hides the ship in the Solar System asteroid belt and Summer complains about how it's a terrible place to hide because it's so empty.
* In ''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.
* The ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' novel ''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.]]
* Justified and lampshaded in ''Literature/{{Starfire}}: Crusade'' by Creator/DavidWeber. 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."]]

* The Boneyard in the ''Literature/StarTrekTheGenesisWave'' series. The titular wave, an InterstellarWeapon, is launched from a base concealed within it.

** In Creator/TimothyZahn's ''[[Literature/HandOfThrawn 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.

** Asteroid thickets come up once in the Literature/XWingSeries, 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.
** There's an asteroid belt near Ithor in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'' 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 TheForce 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.
** The Hoth asteroid thicket is revisited in ''Literature/Darksaber'', 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.
* It's strongly averted in Creator/StanislawLem's ''Literature/TalesOfPirxThePilot''. The protagonist's ship was maneuvering in an asteroid cloud for several hours without actually seeing one asteroid. This trope is also lampshaded when a panicking passenger who doesn't know much about space wonders why the captain isn't trying to evade the asteroid cloud, and then declares the captain insane when he is told the asteroids aren't dangerous.

* ''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.
* Averted in the 1958 ''Gold in the Sky'', by Alan. E. Nourse. Tom Hunter is bored with seeing only the occasional tiny asteroid and asks when they're going to enter the Asteroid Belt. An AsteroidMiner laughs and says they've been inside the Belt for the past forty-eight hours.

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}''. Guilty as charged. Rather surprising given that it's usually relatively accurate when it comes to astrophysics.
* ''Series/BlackMirror'': In [[Recap/BlackMirrorUSSCallister "USS Callister"]], it's justified because this is a game obstacle.

** Season one had two "[[ArtisticLicenceAstronomy meteor storms]]", with lots of rocks hitting the ship as if it were a heavy hailstorm or an avalanche.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E2IntoTheDalek "Into the Dalek"]]: The ''Aristotle'', headquarters of the human [[LaResistance resistance]] against the Daleks, is hiding in one.
** [[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.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E5TheTsurangaConundrum "The Tsuranga Conundrum"]]: The ambulance ship the episode is set on travels through two over the course of the episode.
* ''Series/{{Farscape}}''
** The pilot (episode, not the character Pilot) had an asteroid thicket.
** 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.
* ''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.
* The premiere episode of ''Series/LostInSpace'', "The Reluctant Stowaway", featured the ''Jupiter 2'' being pummeled by asteroids as it drifted off course into the belt.
* The ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "[[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.
* Part of the race course in the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "Space Race" goes through what appears to be an Asteroid Thicket composed of house-sized chunks of ice.

* Franchise/StarTrek:
** The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[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.
** In the 7th season episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E18Genesis}} Genesis]]" of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', 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'.
** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' manages to avert this in the overall setting. The wormhole (and station) are both located in the system's asteroid belt but all the shots of the station and wormhole don't show any asteroids in the immediate area and they're never mentioned as a navigational hazard.
*** The Denorios belt is actually a radiation belt. The station and wormhole are located between the star and the belt, and the planet Bajor is located outside it.
** In a 7th season ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' 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.

** Episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E7TheLonely The Lonely]]". During the episode (which takes place in Earth's solar system), a spaceship crewman says that the ship is "almost out of fuel" because they've been "dodging meteor storms". The only way this could happen in our solar system is if it had suddenly developed an area with a high concentration of asteroids.
** Episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E20Elegy 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.

* There's one in the "Asteroid Threat" mission of ''Pinball/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. Possibly justified since they may be the debris from the lone giant asteroid they just blew up.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' sometimes has them, but this is justified since they are the remains of destroyed planets.
* The ''Franchise/StarWars''-Risk boardgame used an impenetrable asteroid field to represent planets destroyed by the Death Star, rendering travel in the region problematic.
* ''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.
* The Asteroid fields in ''TabletopGame/BattlefleetGothic'' 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.

* In ''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.
* SPI's ''TabletopGame/{{Universe}}'' ''[=DeltaVee=]'' rules. Whenever a ship enters an asteroid field it must check for collision (roll speed or higher on a 6 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.
* ''Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters'' 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.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'''s ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'' setting.
** 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.
** ''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.
* In ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'' the Asteroid Belt is full of fast moving debris, making mining incredibly dangerous. Not that anyone lets that stop them.
* ''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.
* ''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).

* These show up scattered throughout the sector on the more interesting settings in ''VideoGame/ArtemisSpaceshipBridgeSimulator''.

* The ''VideoGame/{{X}}-universe'' series of games 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.
* The classic arcade game ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}'', where the asteroids just go through each other: either they cheat, or their dodging skills make them smarter than [[TwoDSpace the player]]. Clearly the player's ship is actually a huge arrow-shaped tower.
* The arcade game ''VideoGame/{{Blasteroids}}'', a SpiritualSuccessor of ''Asteroids'', features not only as per the latter asteroids straying across the screen but also others [[ColourCodedForYourConvenience red]], 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.
* The first set of starship battles in ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando'' 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.
* The Meteo area in the ''VideoGame/StarFox'' games. "Use the boost to get through!"
* In ''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.
* The classic Space Sim ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' and ''VideoGame/{{Freespace}}'' both used this trope, the former as a DeathCourse for fighters. The latter creates a very distinct mix of infuriating and awesome by making the asteroids too slow and clumsy to be a threat to fighters, then having missions where a desperate capital ship plows through them and has its small craft [[EscortMission play point defense]] against the [[MalevolentArchitecture Malevolent Asteroids]] that continually appear out of nowhere to converge on the target ship.
** To elaborate, in ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'', collisions (including with asteroids) don't do that much damage—you'll take some hull damage from the impact, but unless your ship is already about ready to fall apart, you'll be mostly fine. But capital ships are big, the asteroids are numerous, and the damage from asteroid hits will add up fairly quickly if you aren't diligent in blasting them apart before they hit. Made worse by the fact that these missions usually also involve some enemy or another attacking the ship at the same time...
** ''VideoGame/FreeSpace 2'' makes asteroid defense missions especially infuriating because of a bug in the game's engine that causes big ship turrets to not shoot at incoming asteroids (despite one mission briefing explicitly stating that the turrets ''will'' shoot at asteroids, "so we shouldn't have too much trouble"). When the campaign from the original ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' was ported over to the new engine by fans, the otherwise-faithful port ended up making these missions much harder than they were originally.

* The ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity'' series (plays like ''Privateer'', looks like ''Asteroids'') 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''.)
* In ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'', 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.

* The various ''Franchise/StarWars''-based space sim/shooter 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).

** Stage 3 of ''VideoGame/ShadowsOfTheEmpire'' 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.
** In the first ''VideoGame/RebelAssault'' 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.]]

* ''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.
* Avoided in the classic 1984 space simulator ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'' and its sequels. Whereas the first game had several classic examples of artistic license such as no star system containing more than one planet and one sun, it did, more or less, bang asteroids on the head. As the game was randomly generated, it was not unusual for players to never come across an asteroid ''ever'' when playing the game!
** In the sequel ''Elite: Frontier'' star systems were more realistic, usually having several planets of various sizes.
** ''VideoGame/EliteDangerous'', mostly goes the realistic route, where the planetary rings (namely Saturn-like ones) are dense, and the belts around a star are very diffuse with a few pockets of a handful of close asteroids.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' and ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'': the Ceres Research Lab is stationed in the middle of an asteroid field (possibly ''the'' Asteroid Belt, given the name of the station) and the asteroids therein are completely static in relation to one another, if densely packed. In the sequel, Samus only crashes into an asteroid because the X Parasite infection had knocked her out.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/DarkstarOne'', where navigating an asteroid field is pretty easy, with the asteroids being large, slow and very dodgeable. The only marginally difficult part is entering into special asteroids to collect pieces of the Darkstar.
* Justified in ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'', 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.
* Similar to the ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' example, ''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.
* Doomsday Zone from ''[[VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles Sonic & Knuckles]]'' 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.
* In the UsefulNotes/TI99 game ''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.
* ''Edge of Chaos'' 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.
* Then there's also ''VideoGame/{{Zanac}}'' and ''Zanac Neo''. Thick asteroid field can be seen in arer 5 in the original and thicker one is in the second stage of ''Zanac Neo''.
* In ''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.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'' averts the dense nebula version; the Horse Head Nebula is home to various chunks of the story and sidequests, and its perfectly livable. The Serpent Nebula the Citadel sits in appears to follow this straight, but the Codex entry [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] 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; it is, perhaps, so close to the edge of the nebula that the gasses have thinned out.
** That bit about the Citadel becomes HarsherInHindsight Foreshadowing when it is revealed [[spoiler: the Citadel is basically a trap set by the Reapers]].
** The end sequence of ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' also manages to create an awesome 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.
** [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] in ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda''. 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.]]
* ''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.).
* In ''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.
* If you fight a battle in an asteroid belt in the ''VideoGame/SpaceEmpires'' games, they tend to damage missiles and fighters heavily. They can even damage capital ships in strategic movement sometimes.
* In ''VideoGame/TheBabylonProject'', the raider bases are generally located here.
* ''VideoGame/HaloReach's'' 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.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion II'', where battles in asteroid fields don't actually feature any asteroids. However, blowing up a planet with a [[WaveMotionGun Stellar Converter]] and then rebuilding it with a colony in the same system can result in a larger and richer in resources planet than the original. So, apparently, a planet is more than the sum of its parts. Which actually makes sense as normally the core is filled with dense elements (more valuable ones, like gold or rhodium) -- rebuilding the planet from the debris doesn't have to be done in the same way, causing more resources to be on the surface and without millennia of gravitational compression the size could be larger at first (although not the mass).
** In the original game, however, the tactical battle map in some systems had 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).
* In ''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.
* In ''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.
* ''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.
* Ships passing through asteroid fields in ''VideoGame/HaegemoniaLegionsOfIron'' get slowly damaged, possibly from micrometeorite strikes.
* Area 7 of ''VideoGame/SuperAleste''.
* Arod in ''VideoGame/{{Meteos}}''. It's somehow developed intelligent life of its own adapted to the asteroids' extremely low gravity and total lack of atmosphere. While the 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.
* In ''[[VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations Galactic Civilizations II]]'', 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.
* The introductory zoom-scene from ''VideoGame/{{Contact}}'' 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."]]
* The asteroid field from ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' V serves as the current page image.
** The series itself 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.
* ''VideoGame/AstroBlaster'' has the player's ship flying through a meteor shower at the end of each level.
* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' uses AsteroidThicket as a terrain, an equivalent of [[RecycledInSpace a forest]] where a unit can hide in and gain defense and evasive bonuses.
* Played straight in the otherwise realistic game ''VideoGame/StarCitizen'' for purposes of the RuleOfCool.
* ''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.
* ''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.
* This is actually {{Averted}} in ''VideoGame/{{Rodina}}'', where the asteroid field is much closer to what you would find in real life, with them being too far apart to see without the aid of your radar.
* Stage 5 of ''Andro Dunos''. The small asteroids near the beginning 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.
* The old arcade game ''SDI -- Strategic Defense Initiative''[[note]]The UsefulNotes/SegaMasterSystem version is named ''Global Defense''[[/note]], by Sega, 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).
* Another old arcade game, ''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.
* ''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.
* ''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.
* ''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.

* In ''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''.
* In ''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.

* ''Webcomic/{{Far from Home|MightyMartianStudios}}'': For scouting.
%%* In ''Webcomic/{{Parallels}}'', [[http://www.mightymartianstudios.com/2012/11/18/parallels-sci-fi-webcomic-badlands/ they are the badlands.]] %%Broken link + zero-context example.
* Though we don't actually see any in ''Webcomic/CommanderKitty'', 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]]".
* The Asteroid Thicket in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' is, of course, parodied in ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'':
-->'''Princess''': Chewie, get up here! We're going through an asteroid field!
-->'''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.
-->'''Princess''': Okay, fine. We're going into a massive region of randomly moving, closely packed, enormous giant space rocks.
-->'''Han''': Gaa'''''aa'''''aah!
-->'''GM''': It's my proudest creation.
* And in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' parody comic ''Webcomic/PlanetOfHats'' (also by David Morgan-Mar), 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".
* ''Webcomic/{{Spacetrawler}}'': [[http://spacetrawler.com/2011/08/09/spacetrawler-160/ Brograhm's Teeth]], justified in that it's a generated by miniature Big Bang constantly spewing out debris that's often the size of a planet into a black hole.

* [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in the ''Script/AHDotComTheSeries'' episode "The Machine", in which Captain Dr. What (whose knowledge of how the universe works is mainly based on old movies) tries to hide from [[LawyerFriendlyCameo the]] ''[[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Vendetta]]'' in an asteroid belt, and the most knowledgeable GBW keeps trying to point out that the asteroids are too dispersed for this to work.
* In ''Literature/PayMeBug'', Tyrelos Station is surrounded by the debris from a recently (in astronomic terms) destroyed moon.
* ''Literature/LandInTheStars'': A large asteroid debris belt called, the Marches, surrounds the primary systems of the Avalon Cluster.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ThreeTwoOnePenguins'' episode ''Compassion Crashin'', the Rockhopper crew encounters an asteroid belt.

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'', "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.
* Averted/lampshaded in the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuyPresentsLaughItUpFuzzball adaptation]] of Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack when Threepio (played by Quagmire) says in the asteroid scene "Sir, the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 2-1!". To which Han (portrayed by Peter) replies "Never tell me the o-oh... well that's not bad. Never mind, let's keep going."
* ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'':
** The episode "A Flight To Remember" [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] 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.
** In "Love and Rocket", Leela is having to swerve about like she's driving on ''ice'' whilst piloting through a field of asteroids.
* ''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''.
* ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' had this in one episode. Zim piloted a ship into the asteroid belt during a dogfight with Dib and it was 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.

* Episode "Lost in Space" of the ''Saturday Superstar Movie'' series. 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.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBus'': In the episode "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.
* The ''WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw'' episode "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.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' episode "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.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeriesS2E1ThePiratesOfOrion The Pirates of Orion]]". The title opponents' 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.

* The episode "Little Girl Lost, Part 1" of ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' 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.
* This happens in the first episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'', where going through an asteroid belt causes the [[TransformingMecha Autobots]] and [[AliensAreBastards Decepticons]] to crash on [[InsignificantLittleBluePlanet Earth]].

A SubTrope of ArtisticLicenseAstronomy, SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay and SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale.