Predicciones del fin del mundo: Astronomía y ciencia ficción en los magazines de editorial Zig-Zag (1900-1920)^*1

The predictions of the end of the world associated with damages caused by celestial phenomena have been in our history for a long time. During the first decades of the 20th Century, thanks to the modernization of the publishing industry, this theme circulated in magazines as a leitmotiv of literature and dissemination texts, producing an expansion of science fiction beyond literary limits. Possible collisions of stars with the Earth and scientific theories about the toxicity of the tail of comets, caused that in the editions of the magazines near the Comet Halley passage in May 1910, has proliferated science fiction works, as well as informative texts that imagined possible apocalyptic situations caused by this celestial phenomenon. In this sense, our work analyzes the use of astronomical knowledge for literary purposes, as well as the use of the literary tone to disseminate and popularize science in magazines of the Zig-Zag publishing house.