The Shooting Star

The Shooting Star (L'Étoile mystérieuse)
Cover of the English edition
Date	1942 (colour)
Series	The Adventures of Tintin
Publisher	Casterman
Creative team
Creator	Hergé
Original publication
Published in	Le Soir
Date of publication	20 October 1941 – 21 May 1942
Language	French
Translation
Publisher	Methuen
Date	1961
Translator	Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper Michael Turner
Chronology
Preceded by	The Crab with the Golden Claws (1941)
Followed by	The Secret of the Unicorn (1943)

The Shooting Star (French: L'Étoile mystérieuse) is the tenth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised daily in Le Soir, Belgium's leading francophone newspaper, from October 1941 to May 1942 amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin, who travels with his dog Snowy and friend Captain Haddock aboard a scientific expedition to the Arctic Ocean on an international race to find a meteorite that has fallen to the Earth.

The Shooting Star was a commercial success and was published in book form by Casterman shortly after its conclusion; the first Tintin volume to be originally published in the 62-page full-colour format. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with The Secret of the Unicorn, while the series itself became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. The Shooting Star has received a mixed critical reception and has been one of the most controversial instalments in the series due to the anti-Semitic portrayal of its villain. The story was adapted for both the 1957 Belvision animated series, Hergé's Adventures of Tintin, and for the 1991 animated series The Adventures of Tintin by Ellipse and Nelvana.

A giant meteoroid approaches the earth, spotted from an observatory by Professor Decimus Phostle, while a self-proclaimed prophet, Philippulus, predicts the end of the world. The meteoroid misses the earth, but a fragment of it plunges into the Arctic Ocean. Phostle determines that the object is made of a new material which he names Phostlite, and sets off to find it with a crew of European scientists. Accompanied by Tintin and Snowy, their ship, the Aurora, is helmed by Tintin's friend Captain Haddock. Meanwhile, another team has set out aboard the polar expedition ship Peary, backed by the financier Mr. Bohlwinkel; wherefore, the expedition becomes a race to land on the meteorite. On the day of departure, Bohlwinkel has a henchman plant a stick of dynamite on the Aurora, but it is found and thrown overboard. In the North Sea, the Aurora is almost rammed by another of Bohlwinkel's ships, but Haddock steers out of the way. Further setbacks occur at the Icelandic port of Akureyri, when Haddock is informed that there is no fuel available. He and Tintin then come across an old friend of his, Captain Chester, who reveals that there is plenty of fuel and that the Golden Oil Company (which has a fuel monopoly) is owned by Bohlwinkel. The three then secretly run a hose from Chester's ship, Sirius, to the Aurora, and thus trick Golden Oil into providing the fuel they need.