10 Times Doctor Who Accidentally Predicted Our Future
9. Ice Volcanoes
Terry Nation's 1973 serial Planet of the Daleks was the latest in a long line of serials involving treacherous jungles, Daleks, and rebels. It also accidentally predicted a major scientific discovery of the late 1980s.
The climax of the story sees the Doctor, Jo, and the Thals stop the Daleks by exploding an active volcano around them, with Nation's unique twist being that the planet has ice volcanoes. Therefore, rather than molten lava, the Daleks are destroyed by molten ice. If ice can be molten. By the end of the story, the Dalek Supreme is forced to defrost his army and call for rescue from High Command.
In the real world in August 1989, the Voyager spacecraft flew past Triton, Neptune's largest moon. On the fly-by, Voyager obtained images of something very similar to what Nation had imagined back in 1973. NASA's website elaborates:
"Many of these pits are aligned in chains similar to those seen in basaltic volcanic areas on Earth, such as Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho, except the lavas on Triton are water and other ices that erupted onto the surface."
Who said Nation was a lazy writer?