Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, has appeared in works of fiction across several centuries. The way the planet has been depicted has evolved as more has become known about its composition; it was initially portrayed as being entirely solid, later as having a high-pressure atmosphere with a solid surface underneath, and finally as being entirely gaseous. It was a popular setting during the pulp era of science fiction. Life on the planet has variously been depicted as identical to humans, larger versions of humans, and non-human. Non-human life on Jupiter has been portrayed as primitive in some works and more advanced than humans in others.
The moons of Jupiter have also been featured in a large number of stories, especially the four Galilean moons—Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Common themes include terraforming and colonizing these worlds.
Jupiter
Early depictions
Jupiter was long believed, incorrectly, to be a solid planet onto which it would be possible to make a landing. It has made appearances in fiction since at least the 1752 novel Micromégas by Voltaire, wherein an alien from Sirius and another from Saturn pass Jupiter's satellites and land on the planet itself. In the 1800s, writers typically assumed that Jupiter was not only solid but also an Earth-like world and depicted it accordingly. In the 1886 novel Aleriel, or A Voyage to Other Worlds by W. S. Lach-Szyrma, the planet is covered in an ocean with a few islands and primitive aquatic humanoids living there. Jupiter resembles prehistoric Earth with a rich fauna full of lifeforms such as dinosaurs and mastodons in the 1894 novel A Journey in Other Worlds by John Jacob Astor IV. A few utopian works of fiction of the early 1900s are set on Jupiter, including the anonymously published 1908 novel To Jupiter Via Hell and the 1922 novel The Perfect World by Ella Scrymsour.
Jovians
Most writers portrayed the inhabitants of Jupiter as being human, including Marie Corelli in the 1886 novel A Romance of Two Worlds and Cornelius Shea in the 1905 novel Mystic Island; Or, the Tale of a Hidden Treasure. In the anonymously published 1873 novel A Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Paul Aermont among the Planets, the human inhabitants of Jupiter have heavier-than-air aircraft. Some portrayed Jovians as giant humans, including Albert Waldo Howard in the novel The Milltillionaire and William Shuler Harris in the 1905 novel Life in a Thousand Worlds. In the satirical 1886 novel A Fortnight in Heaven by Harold A. Brydges, an Earthling who visits Jupiter finds a futuristic version of America and discovers that the planet is populated by giant counterparts of Earth persons. Others took different approaches to portraying the natives, such as Fred H. Brown in the 1893 short story "A Message from the Stars", where the planet is inhabited by the spirits of the dead, and Homer Eon Flint in the 1918 short story "The King of Conserve Island", where Jovians are winged.
Pulp era
Jupiter made appearances in several pulp science fiction stories, including the final John Carter story by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the 1943 short story "Skeleton Men of Jupiter". The 1932 short story "A Conquest of Two Worlds" by Edmond Hamilton depicts a human invasion of a peaceable civilization on Jupiter, which leads an Earthling to rebel against the humans and side with the Jovians. In the 1933 short story "The Essence of Life" by Festus Pragnell, a social scientist is visited by human-looking beings from Jupiter who reveal that they have a kind of elixir of life that they are willing to share, but also that they are ruled by octopus-like beings who keep them as pets. Jupiter's Great Red Spot is imagined as a landmass of shifting solidity which is mined for radioactive deposits in the 1936 short story "Red Storm on Jupiter" by Frank Belknap Long, and it leaves Jupiter entirely in the 1937 short story "Life Disinherited" by Eando Binder.