China today upped the ante in the Star Wars race by firing a missile at the planet Mars and destroying it, according to reports from the Xinhua news agency. So far, no Western news agency has confirmed the elimination of a planet both loved and scorned by earthlings during the last hundred years.

Mars has long been a favorite of both writers and readers. From such classic works as C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet to H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, Mars has long held the fascination of poets, writers, and, apparently, the Chinese.

Now it’s gone.