The Hermit Planet is one of the smallest planets in the Solar System.
Description[]
The Hermit Planet, located "beyond the Moon" but still fairly close to Earth, is an extremely small telluric planet (though its gravity strangely doesn't seem markedly different from Earth's) whose habitat resembles a tropical island (complete with banana-like fruits edible to Earthlings). Also present on the planet is a small volcano ready to erupt if the very thin crust of rock keeping it lidded is broken. Hermit Dragons are the only animal life known to exist on the planet; these creatures lay eggs which persist for immense amounts of time (long enough for the previous generation to die off), waiting for the volcano to erupt to cause them to hatch.
The Hermit Planet was accidentally discovered in 1962 by Professor Hermit of the Duckburg Space Exploration Academy, who crashed there while testing a new rocket and found it so heavenly that he refused to leave. He lived on the Planet for a whole year, assumed dead on Earth, until his colleagues worked up the courage to send a second rocket after the first to try and find out what had happened to their friend Hermit. After accidentally causing the volcano to erupt and the new generation of Dragons to be born, the rescue mission (consisting of Donald Duck and Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck) managed to get back to Earth alongside Hermit.
Behind the scenes[]
The Hermit Planet is central to the 1963 story Beyond The Moon.