In the vast inky black expanse of space, a tiny object wobbled along, narrowly avoiding a passing meteorite. Inside were three young Neptunians [basically sentient blue blobs from the planet, Neptune], whose names were Nip, Eta, and Tep, and they were on an expedition.

“How much farther?” groaned Tep. “It feels like we’ve been travelling for ten solar cycles.”

“We should be approaching Jupiter soon,” said Eta, not taking her eyes off the map, which was sprawled across the entire front of the spaceship.

Nip nodded, maneouvering the spaceship’s controls to avoid another meteorite.

The inspiration for their expedition lay in a compartment in the front of the spaceship – a tattered and worn out book emblazoned with the words, Nep’s Incomplete Guide to Earth, although this was barely even visible anymore. The titular Nep, like the young adventurers, was also from Neptune. Many solar cycles ago, he accidentally launched himself into space and landed on Earth, and following his return to Neptune, he accidentally published a book about his adventures. (Yes, his entire life seemed to hinge on accidents. Even his eventual marriage was an accident, but then what marriage isn’t? Anyway, it was a running joke that he should have followed the book up with another volume titled, The Accidental Life of Nep). Nep’s Incomplete Guide to Earth was a huge hit, particularly among young Neptunians, although critics were not impressed, but then that was their job.

Nip and Eta were among the young Neptunians who adored the book, and after stumbling upon an old spaceship, they decided to visit Earth to see firsthand what they had read about all their lives. Tep, on the other hand, was one of the young Neptunians who had never bothered to even open Nep’s Incomplete Guide to Earth, but they invited him along because every effective interplanetary expedition required three members, a driver, a navigator, and a complainer, and they didn’t know a more skilled complainer than him.

The spaceship hummed along, travelling at 7 times the speed of light. When Nep landed on Earth, the highest speed of spaceships at the time was only 16, and certain spaceships now could hit 20, but for a spaceship that had been covered in ice for ages, this one fared surprisingly well.

Moments later (but what felt like another light year to Tep), Jupiter appeared, first as a little dot, which slowly grew.

“Jupiter is much smaller than I imagined,” said Tep.

A few more moments later, it finally grew to be larger than even Neptune.

“Oh,” said Tep.

Eta, who loved to live dangerously, directed Nip to brush perilously close to Jupiter’s orbit.

“Honestly, Eta!” exclaimed Tep. “A milimeter closer, and we would have ended up publishing Nip, Eta and Tep’s Incomplete Guide to Jupiter.”

Eta simply laughed mischievously, and Nip shook his head and continued on towards their destination.

And so, the spaceship hummed along, with Jupiter shrinking into the distance and Mars somewhere in the sea of stars beyond.