10 Times Doctor Who Accidentally Predicted Our Future
1. The Tenth Planet
William Hartnell's swansong The Tenth Planet not only introduced one of the series' most enduring monsters in the form of the Cybermen, but it also predicted the existence of a tenth planet.
Of course, the planetary status of the ninth, Pluto, is contentious. In 2005, another celestial body was discovered in our galaxy by a team of scientists. The discovery was announced as the tenth planet in our solar system, but the status of the body was uncertain, and the discovery fed into ongoing discussions around ninth planet Pluto's planetary status.
This tenth planet was eventually named Eris, after the Greek goddess of strife and discord. Before this, it was referred to as Xena, in reference to Lucy Lawless' warrior princess! Like Pluto, Eris is classified as a "dwarf planet", the new classification introduced in the mid-2000s.
The Tenth Planet was set in 1986, so the discovery of Eris was a few decades late. Though mercifully, it wasn't heralded by a horde of advancing Cybermen.