History Main / ConvenientlyClosePlanet

If characters not only find a planet but land next to what they're looking for see ItsASmallWorldAfterAll. Keep in mind that having FasterThanLightTravel would make things conveniently closer, but carries a laundry list of issues of its own. When asteroids are frustratingly close to each other, it's an AsteroidThicket. Compare RoadTripAcrossTheStreet.

* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' finds [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1958 SCP-1958]], a nasty aversion to this. A group of space-traveling beatniks (ItMakesSenseInContext) attempt to leave Earth for Alpha Centauri in a somehow space-worthy minibus, apparently believing that traveling at 80 mph the whole way would get you there in four weeks. One of them realize something's wrong when it takes them two months just to pass the moon. By the time they figure this out, it is too late for them to return to Earth.

* ''WesternAnimation/KaenaTheProphecy'' features two planets, the smaller of which is about the size of the Earth, which are distant about 6000 miles tops. Useless to say those planets should by all means collide.

Space is huge, and the distances involved are far beyond normal human experience. On Earth, if your car breaks down on a country road, you can reasonably expect a rest stop or a gas station within 50 km (ca. 30 miles). Space, however, is not like that country road. If you set your space RV in a randomly-selected trajectory and continue going straight until you get within 50 ''million'' kilometers of a star, the chances are (quite literally) astronomically high that you will reach the edge of the galaxy, keep going, and never enter another galaxy... ever. For another example, every planet orbiting the sun (including the likes of Jupiter and Saturn) could easily fit between the Earth and its own moon. That's how few planets there are in our big solar system.

* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' [[ComicBook/TheTransformers comics]] feature outer space as a place where planets are seen as big, brightly, and often overlapping colored spheres.

-->'''Fred Kwan:''' Hey, Commander. Listen, we found some beryllium on a nearby planet, and we might be able to get there if we reconfigure the solar matrix in parallel for endothermic propulsion. What'd'ya think?

* The ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' in general is a pretty big [[{{Pun}} (heh)]] offender, but ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' deserves a special mention: ''every'' time something goes wrong with a starship, it is able to land on a Conveniently Close Planet with breathable atmosphere in just a few minutes.

A subtrope of SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay and ArtisticLicenseSpace. A common side effect of SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale. A sort of ArtisticLicenseGeography, though the term "Geography" isn't usually applied to space because it's so big and different. Generally a necessity for CasualInterplanetaryTravel.

A subtrope of SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay and ArtisticLicenseAstronomy. A common side effect of SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale. A sort of ArtisticLicenseGeography, though the term "Geography" isn't usually applied to space because it's so big and different. Generally a necessity for CasualInterplanetaryTravel.

** The UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 games depict all the worlds to be close enough to fly to in a spaceship at highway speeds. Either [[AlienSky all 20 planets should be visible from each other]], or [[RealityEnsues Ratchet should die of old age before the end of the first game]]. Not helped is that the original game describes the local worlds as being part of a solar system, yet the Galaxy Map and every ''other'' depiction suggests it's actually a galaxy.

** The [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2016 game based on]] [[WesternAnimation/RatchetAndClank the movie]] is an interesting example: like ''Into the Nexus'', it uses loading screens instead of showing Ratchet's ship traveling in space. However the movie it's based on has no mention whatsover of faster-than-light travel, playing the trope straight [[RunningGag like the game the movie's based on]].

The solar system and the universe are far bigger than anyone expected them to be. People who are interested in space are pretty much flabbergasted when they try to take it in. The Moon is about 384,400 km (238,900 mi) away from the Earth. Ignoring the air/gravity/etc issues, if there was a highway to get to the Moon (there isn't), it would take you ''five straight months of driving'' (no stops) in your space RV at normal lead-foot highway speeds to get there. Despite this, the Moon is ridiculously close by astronomical standards. At the same speed, it would take 150 years to get to the Sun (150 million km) and ''4460'' years to Neptune (4.3 billion km when it's closest to Earth). As for things outside the Solar System? Well, try Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun. At 1.3 parsec (40.3 trillion km), it would take no less than '''41.8 million years''' at the same speed to get there. Have fun figuring out how long it would take to go to things like the Andromeda Galaxy (770 kiloparsecs from Earth).[[note]]A rough estimate is 24.7 trillion years. That's 1795 times older than the age of the universe.[[/note]]

A subtrope of SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay and ArtisticLicenseAstronomy. A common side effect of SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale. A sort of ArtisticLicenseGeography, though the term "Geography" isn't usually applied to space because it's so big and different.

If characters not only find a planet but land next to what they're looking for see ItsASmallWorldAfterAll. Keep in mind that having FasterThanLightTravel would make things conveniently closer, but carries a laundry list of issues of its own. When asteroids are frustratingly close to each other, it's an AsteroidThicket. Compare RoadTripAcrossTheStreet.

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' takes place in multiple close-together solar systems that, [[AllThereIntheManual according to the official materials]] orbit a massive red giant, with the cluster totaling 5 stars, 8 gas giants, 67 terrestrial planets, and 148 moons spread across a diameter of about 500 astronomical units (a little under one percent of a light year). While the odds of so many stars and inhabitable bodies being this close together are extremely thin, the series still makes a big deal out of how far apart things are. In the episode "Out of Gas", the eponymous ship breaks down in the back of beyond, and the crew is well aware that they are out of range of anything habitable by shuttle, due to the lack of FasterThanLightTravel in the setting.

* It was first averted in ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'' where ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' and a Russian cosmonaut were sent careening into space at faster than light speed on a sabotaged uncontrollable ship and spend months running out of breathable air and food without ever encountering another planet, only surviving due to the messages they were broadcasting for aid drawing in SalvagePirates. Then the same arc plays it straight with several planets shown as huge overlapping spheres within the Sangtee Empire.

** In ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'', the confrontation between the Enterprise and a BigBad vessel is out near the moon ~250,000 miles out. In pretty much no time at all they are caught in Earth's gravity and end up in Earth's atmosphere. Now it is possible if the Enterprise was drifting fast it could get to Earth that quickly, [[ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale but at the speed it would go through the (only ~200-mile-thick) atmosphere of Earth and smack into the surface in no time at all, barely having a chance to slow down in the atmosphere and think about their situation.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' ''[[ComicBook/TheTransformers comics]]'' feature outer space as a place where planets are seen as big, brightly, and often overlapping colored spheres.

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' takes place in multiple close-together solar systems that, [[AllThereIntheManual according to the official materials]] orbit a massive red giant, but it makes a big deal out of how far apart things are. In the episode "Out of Gas", the eponymous ship breaks down in the back of beyond, and the crew is well aware that they are out of range of anything habitable by shuttle.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfSuperman'' episode "Rain of Iron". A {{villain}} fires iron balls out of a cannon in a specific direction. They fly through space, hit an asteroid and bounce back to Earth at a specific location. Asteroids (a) aren't close enough to Earth for this to work and (b) travel in orbits around the Sun, so firing the balls in a specific direction would only work once.

* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' finds [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1958 SCP-1958]], a nasty aversion to this. A group of space-travelling beatniks (ItMakesSenseInContext) attempt to leave Earth for Alpha Centauri in a somehow space-worthy minibus, apparently believing that travelling at 80 mph the whole way would get you there in four weeks. They realize something's wrong when it takes them two months just to pass the moon. The severe vitamin deficiencies they were all suffering from by that point (their forward planning was somewhat lacking) may explain why they didn't turn around and go home.

The solar system and the universe are far bigger than anyone expected them to be. People who are interested in space are pretty much flabbergasted when they try to take it in. The Moon is about 384,400 km (238,900 mi) away from the Earth. Ignoring the air/gravity/etc issues, if there was a highway to get to the Moon (there isn't), it would take you ''five straight months of driving'' (no stops) in your space RV at normal lead-foot highway speeds to get there. Despite this, the Moon is ridiculously close by astronomical standards. Under the same speed, it would take 150 years to get to the Sun (150 million km) and ''2800'' years to Neptune (2.7 billion km when it's closest to Earth). As for the stars? Well, try Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun. At 1.3 parsecs (40.3 trillion km), it would take no less than '''41.8 million years''' under the same speed to get there. Have fun figuring out how long it would take to go to things like the Andromeda Galaxy (770 kiloparsecs from Earth).[[note]]A rough estimate is 24.7 trillion years. That's 1795 times older than the age of the universe.[[/note]]

The solar system and the universe are far bigger than anyone expected them to be. People who are interested in space are pretty much flabbergasted when they try to take it in. The moon is about 384,400 km (238,900 mi) away from the earth. Ignoring the air/gravity/etc issues, if there was a highway to get to the moon (there isn't), it would take you ''five straight months of driving'' (no stops) in your space RV at normal lead-foot highway speeds to get there, and the moon is pretty close! It would take ''150 years'' to get to the sun.

[[AcceptableBreaksFromReality This does not deter sci-fi writers, though!]] A chance to visit a SingleBiomePlanet or a [[TownWithADarkSecret planet with a dark secret]] offers [[TropesAreTools far more story options]] than a spacecraft silently [[GhostShip cruising for eternity]], running out of power and with a [[EverybodysDeadDave group of mummifying bodies on board]].

* Many comics - some of ''Franchise/StarWars'' or ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' for example - where scientific accuracy takes a long break, feature outer space as a place where planets are seen as big, brightly, and often overlapping colored spheres.
** ''Star Wars'' is a ''big'' offender. The closest example possible may be the jungle planet Onderon and its moon Dxun - the reason the two share most of the same fauna is because they apparently pass so close to each other that, once a year, their atmospheres ''merge'' and the beasts of Dxun can simply ''fly'' over to Onderon.
* While the DCU at large plays fast and loose with this trope it was first averted in ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'' where Diana and a Russian cosmonaut were sent careening into space at faster than light speed on a sabotaged uncontrollable ship and spend months running out of breathable air and food without ever encountering another planet, only surviving due to the messages they were broadcasting for aid drawing in SalvagePirates. Then the same arc plays it straight with several planets shown as huge overlapping spheres within the Sangtee Empire.

* ''Film/KaenaTheProphecy'' features two planets, the smaller of which is about the size of the Earth, which are distant about 6000 miles tops. Useless to say those planets should by all means collide.

* In a 1324 Christian epic called ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'', the seven planets in {{Heaven}} are so close the narrator doesn't realize he's left the Sun and been flown to Mars until he sees the planet's blood red beneath a MindHive crucifix. Medieval astronomy and ArtisticLicense are a strange mix.

* All five ''Franchise/StarTrek'' series are guilty of this, though it's forgivable because, as stated here and at SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale, a centuries-long journey between any two given inhabited places [[TropesAreNotBad doesn't make a very]] [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality interesting show]]. Anyway, many are the times something happens to a shuttlecraft. Not only is there almost always a planet nearby, it's almost always habitable enough for its occupants to survive for the time being.

* In ''Ride/ETAdventure'' at Ride/UniversalStudios, it apparently only takes three or-so seconds of lightspeed to reach the Green Planet. Of course, the fact that it takes that ''long'' means you're not really at lightspeed; to a hypothetical particle traveling at the speed of light, it takes exactly zero time to go any distance, no matter how long.