Review of the conference: Dr
Michael Salla, Exopolitics, 3/7/11,
"Is Comet Elenin an incoming spacecraft heralding a New Age?"
Comet Elenin
2012 is nearly upon us, and
there is great concern that an in-coming Planet X body might bring catastrophe
to our fragile world. The environmental calamities of recent times do not augur
well. There has been a spate of earthquakes around the globe; Chile, Japan, New
Zealand.
Even Spain has not escaped our
planet's seismic ripples, on the very same day that an earthquake was predicted
for Rome almost 100 years ago (1).
Predicting earthquakes is
practically impossible, we are told, unless, of course, you're a small animal
sensitive to mysterious fluctuations before the quake strikes.
Comet Elenin is currently
moving through the solar system (2) . Many have expressed concerns about this
body, which appears to have disappointed astronomers with its relatively
pathetic celestial showing (3). But it's appearance preludes the 2012 period we
are moving into, so it's reasonable to ask whether this small comet might be the
first of many, or even the front rider for a much more substantive body.
YouTube is bubbling over with rumours.
Amid the hype, there is an
intriguing bit of science. Dr Mensur Omerbashich of Sarajevo, who received a
PhD from the University of New Brunswick in 2004, has presented a paper
outlining his assertion that there is a tangible link between cosmic alignments
and seismic activity on Earth, based upon his theory of hyperresonance (4). He
presents evidence that some earthquakes are coincident with planetary
alignments, or with Full Moons. He argues that the Comet Elenin is a case in
point - it has been noted that it was on the exact opposite side of the Sun to
us during the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. From this data he extrapolates:
"The
Elenin will continue intensifying the Earth's very strong seismicity until
August-October, 2011. Approximate forecast of earthquakes based on my
discoveries is feasible." (4)
And there's the thing. Could
Omerbashich's theory predict earthquakes from planetary, cometary and lunar
alignments? Does the Earth respond to such cosmic goings on, performing some
kind of seismic astrology? Did Elenin really cause the Japanese quake? To give
credence to his theory, Omerbashich needs to pick up the trail of a future
in-coming comet and plot its course until an alignment is achieved with the
Earth and Sun, and then predict trouble here on Earth ahead of time. If he's
proven right, then we should all sit up and take notice. And if you listen to
the many concerned voices on the internet about 2012, then such a predictive
tool cannot come soon enough.
Which brings me to the issue of
whether Comet Elenin is actually the returning Dark Star, as many are thinking
at the moment. To be totally honest, people are excited about the hype over the
alleged arrival of Planet X, and jumping to conclusions about a simple comet
that, itself, is unspectacular. Let me lay out what a multi-Jupiter mass brown
dwarf would look like right now if it was as close as is being speculated by
many (i.e. that it's actually comet Elenin).
This Dark Star would appear in
the night sky as a red/magenta planet about the same size as Jupiter. In other
words, it would be one of the brightest objects in the night sky, very probably
brighter than Venus. In addition, I believe that it would have a visible aura,
or tail, that would be rather spectacular. That fiery aura would extend out from
the planet itself by some considerable degree, possibly extending out to the
very edge of the Dark Star's very considerable magnetosphere ( which would be
about 4 x the moon's diameter across, or more).
The combination of the bright planet, its contingent of large moons, and in
particular its fiery aura would produce the 'winged' disk' effect in the sky,
like a mighty red celestial dragon.
Now I don't know about you, but when I pop outside at night to look in the
direction of Elenin, I'm not seeing this at all. Frankly, that's because Elenin
is a comet, and not a very good one at that. It is clearly not an incoming Dark
Star/Planet X/Nibiru object. Curiously,
Comet Elenin attained opposition twice during its perihelion passage. The first
one, on 14th April, was coincident with the Japanese earthquake on 11th April.
The second opposition is on 22nd November 2011 (2). If Dr Omerbashich's theory
is correct, then one would be forgiven for predicting a major earthquake around
that date somewhere on Earth. Of course, his theory may be flawed, and Comet
Elenin may break up as it head around the Sun, so the threat must be seen to be
low.
Andy Lloyd, 15th-24th June 2011
References:
(1) "All roads lead OUT of
Rome: Streets of Italian capital empty after 1915 prediction of ‘big one’
earthquake" 11th May 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1385815/Rome-quake-rumours-Streets-1915-big-earthquake-prediction.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
(2) C/2010 X1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2010_X1
(3)
JPL Press Release, 4th May 2011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-135&cid=release_2011-135
with thanks to David
(4)
Mensur Omerbashich "Astronomical alignments as the cause of ~M6+
seismicity" Submitted on 11 Apr 2011 http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.2036
with thanks to Kerry Cassidy
Migrating Jupiter explains
Fun-size Mars?
The word planet is derived from the
Greek word meaning 'wanderer', as they were the stars which weren't fixed in
the firmament like the others. Perhaps the term is imbued with more meaning
than we usually credit it for. Astronomers have known for some time that
the gas giants were capable of wandering, or migrating, during the lifetime
of the solar system. Those considerations are strengthened by the
discoveries of the strange extra-solar planetary systems, where
Jupiter-sized planets exhibit very strange, and often seemingly unstable,
orbits. It indicates a potential volatility that knocks received notions of
solar system stability. As such, nowadays astronomers feel more comfortable
with playing around with planetary orbits, when they do their computer
simulations of the solar system's evolution.
A team from the Southwest
Research Institute had simulated what would happen if they allowed Jupiter
to migrate way into the inner solar system, and their results are startling
(1). They don't actually have a mechanism available to them to explain
Jupiter's assumed wild deviation, but the results explain aspects of the
asteroid belt's distribution and the small size of the planet Mars. Simply
put, Jupiter swept a collection of debris along with it as it moved in, and
then moved out, of earth's zone. That debris added to the mix we can see
today.
Dr. Kevin Walsh of the
Southwest Research Institute explained the findings of his team's work thus:
"If
Jupiter had moved inwards from its birthplace down to 1.5 AU
from the Sun, and then turned around when Saturn formed as
other models suggest, eventually migrating outwards towards
its current location, it would have truncated the
distribution of solids in the inner solar system at about 1
AU and explained the small mass of Mars. The problem was
whether the inward and outward migration of Jupiter through
the 2 to 4 AU region could be compatible with the existence
of the asteroid belt today, in this same region. So, we
started to do a huge number of simulations. The result was
fantastic. Our simulations not only showed that the
migration of Jupiter was consistent with the existence of
the asteroid belt, but also explained properties of the belt
never understood before."
This scenario is not the
only possible game in town. It doesn't need to actually be Jupiter
to be a Jupiter-sized planet in the solar system causing these effects early
in the life of the solar system. Hell no. There's another candidate which
would fit the bill equally well, bringing with it a completely different
assortment of asteroid belt-building debris. Of course, I am talking about
the Dark Star. And these simulations would similarly work for this outer
solar system wanderer that had made its move on the planetary zone.
Andy Lloyd, 6th June 2011
1)
"A wandering Jupiter stunted Mars’s growth and reshaped the asteroid belt"
http://io9.com/5808700/a-wandering-jupiter-stunted-marss-growth-and-reshaped-the-asteroid-belt
with thanks to Shad
The British Museum Evidence
My latest essay looks at
artefacts in the British Museum collection, including new photos, and how
academic scholars are too ready to jump to conclusions about Zecharia Sitchin's
work. I also revisit the controversy of the mummified remains of Nin Puabi:
British Museum Evidence
Free-floating Planets "Twice
as common as Stars"
Japanese
astronomers have discovered 10 free-floating Jupiter-sized planets during a sky
survey of a portion of the Milky Way (1).
Confirming the existence of
these wandering interstellar planets, which have no parent star, they have been
able to extrapolate a remarkable statistic for the number of such planets in our
galaxy:
"The
discovery indicates there are many more free-floating Jupiter-mass planets that
can't be seen. The team estimates there are about twice as many of them as
stars. In addition, these worlds are thought to be at least as common as planets
that orbit stars. This would add up to hundreds of billions of lone planets in
our Milky Way galaxy alone.
"Previous observations spotted a handful of free-floating, planet-like objects
within star-forming clusters, with masses three times that of Jupiter. But
scientists suspect the gaseous bodies form more like stars than planets. These
small, dim orbs, called brown dwarfs, grow from collapsing balls of gas and
dust, but lack the mass to ignite their nuclear fuel and shine with starlight.
It is thought the smallest brown dwarfs are approximately the size of large
planets." (2)
What is clear is that the
galaxy must be teeming with planets - some conventionally orbiting stars,
but many flung into the dark void between stars. Apart from this being a
remarkable discovery that changes how we think about planets in our galaxy, it
must also have far-reaching consequences for our understanding of cosmic
catastrophism. The implication is simple. Increase the density of populations
of brown dwarfs, gas giants and regular planets all swirling about in the void,
and you increase the potential for visitations to our solar system over the
lifetime of our Sun. Hence, statistical probabilities of the captured objects,
close-flybys and, yes, collisions with the planets in our system all increase.
Back to the drawing board for many astrophysicists, and an enhanced appreciation
of the dark objects that fill the sky between the stars for the rest of us.
Andy Lloyd, 18th May 2011
1)
"'Exciting' find: Possible planets without orbits" 18th May 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110518/ap_on_sc/us_sci_wandering_planets_4
2)
NASA press release, " Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars" 18th
May 2011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-147&cid=release_2011-147
Io and the Dark Star
Jupiter's closest Galilean
moon, Io, is a furnace of volcanic activity across its entire surface - making
it the most active of all the worlds in the solar system. This is attributable
to its proximity to Jupiter, whose immense gravitational power and magnetic
field play havoc with the tiny world's interior. This is an important
consideration for the Dark Star Theory, because it shows how a similar scenario
could play out in the much colder outer solar system. In other words, a
Earth-sized moon orbiting a sub-brown dwarf in the outer solar system could be
significantly warmed internally by the same mechanism.
Recent work by scientists has
shown that Io has a global magma ocean about 30 to 50 kilometres (20 to 30
miles) beneath its crust. It's a remarkable find in a world so small: before
this, magma oceans have been known to exist only on Earth.
"Krishan
Khurana, lead author of the study and former co-investigator on Galileo's
magnetometer team at UCLA, says "It turns out Io was continually giving off a
'sounding signal' in Jupiter's rotating magnetic field that matched what would
be expected from molten or partially molten rocks deep beneath the surface.""
(1)
Over ten years since I first presented my
hypothesis, I still get emails from other Sitchinites who argue that a
terrestrial world in the outer solar system could be internally warmed,
independently of a Dark Star. In his final book, the late Zecharia Sitchin
defended his stance on this issue, believing that a sufficiently robust
atmosphere would hold in the heat generated by Nibiru's core (the heat is
presumably generated by radioactivity in his scenario) (2). Regrettably, this
seems seems almost impossible (I say 'almost' because one can never say
"never" in science. It just seems hopelessly unlikely). Instead, the gases of
a fledgling Nibiruan atmosphere would simply precipitate out in the intense cold
of the outer solar system, to form a thick layer of ice across the planet's
surface. Without an external source of gravitational, magnetic and infra-red
energy, Nibiru would be dead in the water. Only a neighbouring Dark Star offers
a tangible solution to this issue: a habitable surface on a warm terrestrial
world orbiting a sub-brown dwarf.
Andy Lloyd, 13th May 2011
(1) Galileo Data Reveal Magma
Ocean Under Jupiter Moon NASA Press release 12th May 2011 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-141&cid=release_2011-141
with thanks to David
(2) Zecharia Sitchin
'There Were Giants Upon the Earth' Bear & Co, 2010, p136
Hot Jupiters with
Reverse Swing
Extra-solar planets are
plentiful, and often bizarre. Here's a very odd example. It's in the Scorpius
constellation, about 1000 light years away, and is called WASP-17. Unusually,
its orbit proceeds backwards, and is tilted at a spectacular 150 degrees, whilst
lying extremely close to its own sun (1). It is twice the size of Jupiter, with
half the mass, so is too small to be classified even as a sub-brown dwarf.
Nevertheless, it shows some interesting Dark Star characteristics.
Astrophysicists now think the backwards-spin may be attributable to a
gravitational coupling between two planets:
"In some
solar systems, the sun spins one way while a giant gassy planet, known as a hot
Jupiter, orbits in the opposite direction. Scientists, reporting in the journal
Nature, attribute the effect to gravitational coupling between two planets as
they near each other, which leads to the planet nearest its sun, over time,
having its orbit flipped as it is hauled much closer to the star."
(2)
The whole scenario of
oppositely-spinning planets is a bizarre one. It defies conventional wisdom.
To explain such blatant anomalies, scientists have to reach for some
unconventional concepts. Like highly remarkable migrations of gas giant
planets. The concept of such immense migration is outlined here:
"'How can
one be spinning one way and the other orbiting exactly the other way? It's
crazy. It so obviously violates our most basic picture of planet and star
formation.' Astronomers have long theorised that big gas planets form further
away from their stars, while Earth-like rocks are born closer in But just
because a Jupiter-like planet forms in the outer reaches of a solar system
doesn't mean it stays there,
[Frederic Rasio of Northwestern University] and his colleagues reported. When
planetary systems contain more than one planet, in addition to a star, each
planet has its own gravitational force, causing the planets to interact and
eventually pulling the gas giants close to the star and even reversing its
orbit, the scientists found. This process is known as gravitational
perturbation, or an exchange of angular momentum."
(2)
In these crucial lines I see
mechanisms for how a massive Planet X body could find itself in a wide
elliptical orbit around the Sun. The Dark Star may have formed initially nearer
to the Sun, causing cataclysms early in the solar system's history. It was
those fateful interactions that 'exchanged angular momentum' through
'gravitational perturbation' and flung the Dark Star out into its current wider
orbit. One does not need to imagine a captured planet at all - a key
critique of Sitchin's 12th Planet Theory down the years, especially by the late
Tom van Flandern.
Andy Lloyd, 13th May 2011
(1) Daily Mail, "Backwards galaxy: First planet found that orbits in opposite
direction to its star", 14th August 2009,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1206148/Backwards-galaxy-First-planet-orbits-opposite-direction-star.html
(2) Daily Mail "Reason why giant planets in other solar systems orbit the
'wrong' way finally explained" 12th May 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1386261/Reason-giant-planets-solar-systems-orbit-wrong-way-finally-explained.html#ixzz1MAxeolUQ
with thanks to Mart
Gurdjieff,
Beelzebub, and Zecharia Sitchin
Author P.T. Mistlberger has
kindly given me permission to reproduce an abridged essay from his new book "The
Three Dangerous Magi", which looks at remarkable similarities between the
fictional writings of Gurdjieff, and the theories of Zecharia Sitchin.
Gurdjieff's writings predate those of Sitchin's by a couple of decades, and
there appears to be no link between the two men. Yet amazingly similar ideas
evolved independently of each other, across continents and time:
Gurdjieff, Beelzebub, and Zecharia Sitchin
Gurdjieff, Belcebú, y Zecharia Sitchin
Photosynthesis near a Dark Star
As many of my readers will
know, I've looked closely down the years at how a habitable environment might
exist on a terrestrial-sized moon in close orbit around a failed sub-brown dwarf
star. Where it is relatively straightforward to show how water would exist on
such a world, a more tricky question has arisen around how vegetation would grow
in such an environment. The so-called extremeophiles found on Earth are
testament to the sheer tenacity of life in harsh environments. But if we're
talking about actual vegetation growing on the surface of the terrestrial world
orbiting a Dark Star, then greater complexity is involved.
This has been presented as a
sticking point for my theory. Vegetation on Earth needs UV/blue light radiation
from the Sun to thrive, through photosynthesis. But could a Dark Star provide
the kind of energy required to sustain plant life? And if not, then how could
animal life be sustained on a world devoid of vegetation? Well, recent research
offers us a glimpse of how this might work:
Determining
which of these two possibilities is correct is not as straightforward as one
might think. Serious astrophysicists have toyed with the idea of a
Jupiter+ object out in the Oort Cloud, however controversial that may seem.
One of those academic astrophysicists is Professor John Matese, and he has
christened his putative planet 'Tyche'. At a recent astrophysics conference held
in Nantes, France, he presented on a set of four possible candidates that he has
pinpointed in WISE's preliminary data (1). One of them he quickly ruled
out, but that leaves us with three possible objects circling the Sun at around
20,000AU (his preferred distance). 
The
latest comet to be analysed in this way has opened a door of
hope on the Late Veneer Theory:
"About
4 billion years ago, some 600 million years after our solar
system formed, scientists think the Kuiper Belt was disturbed by
a migration of the gas-giant planets Jupiter and Saturn. This
jarring shift in the solar system's gravitational balance
scattered the icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt, flinging the vast
majority into interstellar space and producing cold dust in the
belt. Some Kuiper Belt objects, however, were set on paths that
crossed the orbits of the inner planets.
In
the above Youtube video, NASA scientist Amy Mainzer discusses the WISE
mission, and how one of the potential discoveries might be a brown dwarf closer
to us than the nearest star (1). Bear in mind that an actual full-on brown dwarf
could be as massive as 80 Jupiter masses. The object I describe on this website
is a sub-brown dwarf, below 17 Jupiter masses (and possibly as low as 3 or 4 Mj).
Potentially, such an object might lurk much closer to us than this video
implies. But the video nevertheless spells out how such a concept is realistic.
Sceptics take note...
"We
found that the dynamical simulations starting with a resonant system of four
giant planets have a low success rate in matching the present orbits of giant
planets, and various other constraints (e.g., survival of the terrestrial
planets). The dynamical evolution is typically too violent..." (2)
Trojan
asteroids are known to exist - orbiting around the Sun along
Jupiter's path. Theorists also think that the Mars-sized
object that battered the Earth early in its existence (to
create the Moon) might have been previously lurking around
in a LaGrangian point along Earth's orbit. Only recently,
however, have astronomers been able to detect an example of
two planets moving along what appears to be the same orbital
path - in the system KOI-730 (2). For this to work, one of
the planets must be located in the LaGrangian point of the
other.
