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Nebulae, being often visually interesting astronomical objects, frequently find themselves used as settings or backdrops for works of science fiction.
- Earthmen meet an alien race for the first time within the Crab Nebula in the science fiction story First Contact (Astounding, May 1945) by Murray Leinster.
- According to Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States, the Crab Nebula was ceded to the United States by Spain, along with Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, Australia, Snooze Island, Antarctica, and France following their defeat in the Spanish-American War by the Boston Celtics at the Charge up San Juan Hill.
- In the Doctor Who serial, Colony in Space, the Master reveals that the Crab Nebula's creation was the result of the Super Race of the planet Exarius (or Uxarius) testing their Doomsday Weapon, a device which could project anti-matter at super-luminal speed.
The "Pillars of Creation" from the Eagle Nebula, Courtesy of
NASA/
ESA
- In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the planet Magrathea is located in the Horsehead Nebula.
- In the 1978 Captain Harlock series, Harlock is led to believe a Mazone base is located within the Horsehead Nebula.
- In the South Park episode "Free Willzyx", the voice of Jambu, the Denver Sea Park's Orca, tells the boys that the workers in the sea park are communists from the "Evil Horsehead Nebula".
- Isaac Asimov's novel The Stars, Like Dust involves a search for a rebellion world, which the characters suppose to be located in the nebula. Asimov exemplifies the geocentrism of the nebula's name by having one character expound the false etymology that the nebula (which, from most other vantage points, looks nothing like a horse's profile) is named for a pioneer explorer named Horace Hedd.
- In the video game The Orion Conspiracy, the entire Horsehead Nebula is sucked into a black hole that apparently appears out of nowhere. This freak formation of a black hole is in the game dubbed the Orion Effect.
- In the TV show Andromeda, the Horsehead Nebulae was the site of the last major stand between the Old Commonwealth and the Nietzschean Alliance. Nietzscheans tell a story of how the Angel of Death appears in the sky, and lit up the cosmos with fire. This effectively crushed both the remainder of the Old Commonwealth fleet, as well as crippled a good majority of the Nietzschean fleet - leaving the way for disorder and instability.
- Witch Head Nebula: In the TV show Andromeda the IC 2118 nebula (Witch Head Nebula) is the setting for a battle that will change the history of the universe.
- Object M8: In the science fiction TV show Battlestar Galactica, the Lagoon Nebula is seen in the episode "Home, Part II", in the Tomb of Athena on Kobol and along with the presence of the twelve zodiac symbols, it serves as a rough reference point to the location of Earth. Since the nebula looks the same from Earth, Kobol and the Twelve Colonies, all three lie in a relatively straight line. The nebula was erroneously stated to be in the constellation Scorpio in the episode; a mistake acknowledged by the producers. William Adama refers to the Nebula as "M8", its Messier catalog number.
