The Dark Star: The Planet X Evidence

by Andy Lloyd

  2. There is a bound companion external to the disk that is affecting it over time with each orbit

  3. The effect is due to embedded Jupiter-sized planets, despite the youthful nature of the system

  To figure out what is going on, the astronomers carried out calculations to model the effect. They compared their theoretical results, based upon a set of reasonable starting assumptions, with the observed patterns of the disturbed proto-planetary disc, and looked for a close match.

  The results have shown that the spiral pattern is consistent with a highly eccentric binary system.3 This implies the existence of a binary companion which passed within 930AU of HD 141569A. It directly caused the observed effects; the spiral structure in the disk and a wide gap in the disk.

  The system is actually more complicated than this, with other effects providing additional headaches at about 150AU. However, it seems clear that the continued action of the binary companion, as its moves through many orbital passages, creates the observed effect, particularly if that orbit is an eccentric one.4 This is very interesting when comparing HD 141569A to our sun with its own proposed Dark Star.

  HD 141569A has two neighboring stars, HD 141569B and C, which are each potential candidates as bound companions. So, it may be that one or both of these objects is bound to the main star in eccentric orbits. This scenario seems more likely than the alternative of a single flyby of another star, which would only partially truncate the proto-planetary disc.4 Not only that, but the passing star scenario also has to reckon with the dearth of stars in the immediate neighborhood, making the chances of such a close passage remote. This is a crucial point when we come to consider the observed anomalies of our own solar system.

  Three Options for Our System

  While HD 141569A is a very young star system, ours is not.

  So the third option listed above becomes possible in our case: that the Kuiper Cliff, or truncation, is the result of an embedded planet in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Disc sweeping it out and creating the edge. This was the scenario explored by Brunini and Melita, as discussed in the Chapter, The Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. Their studies indicated that this was a distinct possibility, and that the body should exhibit a low eccentric orbit.

  However, it should also be sufficiently close to have been readily discovered by now, which seemed to be a stumbling block: the semi-major axis of the Mars-sized planet would be only 60AU, bringing it well within detection limits.5 So this third option is not without its problems, even in this older star system of ours.

  Some might consider such a scenario to adequately fit the requirements for a 'Planet X' type-body. However, the kind of orbit described by Brunini and Melita would keep the planet within the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt at all times. This would imply no possibility of prior movement through the planetary zone of the solar system. This might turn out to be the case, of course, but such a body would not be in keeping with that of Zecharia Sitchin's Marduk. Dr. Melita has indicated to me that they would be carrying out calculations for more eccentric bodies in the future6, which might possibly be more reminiscent of the classic 'Nibiru/Marduk' scenario.

  The Dark Star solution may become the middle ground between the 'embedded planet' and the possibility of the passage of a stellar body through the early solar system. The complexity of the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt may have resulted from a complex interaction early in the life of the solar system, or it may even be ongoing. Scientists usually prefer a simple, straightforward solution to any given problem, according to the philosophical mantra of Occam's Razor, but sometimes the complexities of reality get in the way.

  Let us look closely at the possibility of a passing star creating the truncated Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. Perhaps the sun's proto-planetary system was disturbed by the action of a passing star within the sun's primordial star nursery.7 Even though he favours the embedded planet hypothesis, Dr. Melita concedes that a small star 1/10th the size of the sun passing by could have created some of the observed effect in the EKB.5 But, can it explain the truncation completely?

  If the sun was born in a 'stellar nursery' surrounded by many thousands of other young stars, such an event increases in likelihood.8 Such young stellar clusters can be 10,000 times more dense than the sun's current location in the Milky Way, increasing the chances of interaction between neighboring stars dramatically. But does such a scenario provide all the answers?

  Calculations have been carried out to determine whether a small passing star that approached the planetary zone of the solar system could have sculpted the EKB.8 In the work carried out by Alice Quillen, et al., the disturbing influence could be either a passing star whose own trajectory is influenced temporarily by the sun's gravity, or it is a binary companion, which becomes disrupted by external influences. So, a candidate object need not have been simply a 'field' star or a neighbor in the stellar cluster that the sun was born in, but it could also have been a binary star in a wide orbit around the sun, that could have affected the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt during a close sweep past it. This is useful, because of the potential for a small binary companion in a generally great circular orbit to periodically pass close to the planetary zone.

  Such a scenario was predicted by John Matese, when calculating the orbital properties for his small brown dwarf at 25,000 AU. He called this occasional transient sweep towards the solar system an "oscultation".9 These are complex matters, but it boils down to this; a star causing a distortion of the sun's proto-planetary disc might be a loosely bound companion in a rather changeable orbit, or it might simply have been a completely independent object, passing close to the sun as it traveled through interstellar space.

  Bound or unbound, it somehow managed to draw close to the sun's planetary zone. What interests us tremendously, is whether that object is actually part of the solar system or not. This would give us a clue as to the origins of the Dark Star.

  In Dr. Quillen's calculations, it is assumed that the object ― a dwarf star ― moves though the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt, as it draws close to the sun. The outcome of the calculations is initially encouraging. The simulation creates a complex pattern, including both a set of objects with high inclinations and eccentricities, and also an additional set of objects with low inclinations and eccentricities. This reflects the reality observed in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt, as far as the distribution of objects within the observed disc go.8 However, the 'passing star' scenario encounters difficulties when it comes to explaining the Kuiper Cliff itself.

  The Kuiper Cliff

  Despite the promising distribution pattern of EKBOs, the 'passing star' solution is unable to tackle the very problem it sets out to solve: it simply fails to create a 'truncation' in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt.8 This is a big problem for the 'passing star' scenario, leading us to suspect that the origin of the massive object involved is homegrown.

  There is a greater degree of complexity apparent in the observational data that the passage of a passing star struggles to explain in these calculations. Stellar encounters seem to be able to drag out the bodies in the disc to a variable degree, but cannot account for the Kuiper Cliff in its entirety. Dr. Quillen, an Assistant Professor of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Rochester in the USA, concedes this point in her paper, describing another possibility that is of tremendous significance to our investigation: she concludes that if the existence of the Kuiper Cliff is eventually confirmed, then it is much more likely to have formed as a result of “a companion, either stellar or planetary”.9

  I was quite surprised by this conclusion when I read it, because it wasn't the direction the paper initially seemed to head off in. Her calculations not only ruled out a stellar flyby scenario for the solar system, they also pointed in the direction of a massive companion. This was a promising lead which needed following up.

  Game, Set and Match?

  I wrote to Professor Alice Quillen and asked her about a few points to do with her paper, and put it to her that a bound companion must have caused the anomalous edge in the Edg
eworth-Kuiper Belt, as she had so quietly stated. After urging a little caution about how concrete science's knowledge of the alleged Kuiper Cliff was, she confirmed the point. The edge in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt could not be the result of a single stellar fly-by, because this would be incapable of producing a sharp enough edge.

  She considers it likely that the effect was produced by a bound companion that is no longer there. That bound companion would have to have been moving around the sun in an eccentric orbit. She argued that it must have been expelled from the solar system some time ago, simply because it must be large, and thus readily detectable even at great distances:

  Alice Quillen:

  So suppose we believe that the edge is real and sharp. Then a flyby can't have produced it. Something bound could, because it gets multiple passes. A bound low mass planet could do it, but would have been detected even out at 10000 AU in the Oort cloud. An Earth out there would probably not work, but might not have been detected. You can't have anything further than a few times 10^4 AU, because nearby stars would scatter and remove it. I think that leaves something that was previously bound and is no longer in the solar system. Oort cloud comets are removed from the solar system too. So, it's not inconceivable that there was a planet or nearby star bound to the sun, in an eccentric orbit that is no longer around.10

  Andy Lloyd:

  Did you mean 'low mass star' (rather than “low mass planet”)?

  Alice Quillen:

  I meant a Jupiter-mass planet. Yes, you have remembered things correctly: Earth-mass type things can evade detection in the Oort cloud, but Jupiter-mass things can't. It's hard to imagine an Earth-mass object being able to truncate the KBO (though maybe this should be checked numerically to make sure). It's easy to imagine a Jupiter-mass planet doing the job (don't need to check, I have done enough simulations with Jupiter-mass objects to be pretty sure about this). A low-mass star can truncate the KBO, too.11

  This statement by a professor of astronomy seems quite remarkable. She considers it probable that the sun once had a bound companion, either a star or a massive planet, which was capable of creating the edge in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt over the course of many orbits. Its orbit must also have been eccentric. This conclusion has been reached because nothing else fits the observed facts.

  This is the Dark Star Theory, but with the proviso that the Dark Star is no longer there. Not because the observed facts don't imply its existence, but because its existence implies its detection. However, as we have seen, such faith in the assumed ability to observe such a body may be misplaced.

  The binary companion existed in the past, though, and either left the solar system at some point, or it is still orbiting the sun and has evaded detection to date. Either way, we seem to have clear scientific evidence that the sun has been, and may still be, part of a binary system.

  The Heretical Planet

  I pressed Dr. Quillen a little further about the probable size of this binary companion. She described it as a Jupiter-mass planet, or larger, and that she had run enough simulations with Jupiter-mass planets to be sure that it would truncate the EKB. A low-mass star could also fit the bill.

  However, a terrestrial world of the size of Earth probably wouldn't be large enough.11 So, the range of objects that were capable of creating the observed effect is effectively the same as that covered by the brown dwarfs. Her calculations showed that the truncation of the EKB was caused by nothing other than a brown dwarf companion bound to the sun!

  It may turn out to be true that a Jupiter-sized object cannot have evaded detection up until now, but this is an arguable point, as discussed already in this book. Certainly, Dr. John Murray thought that such a body could have evaded detection in the Oort Cloud12, when he proposed his giant planet solution at the same time as Professor John Matese.9

  This remains a controversial issue, but Dr. Quillen's viewpoint also should be respected. The lack of discovery of a Jupiter-sized planet (which is clearly leaving its footprints in the butter, so to speak) is a puzzle, there's no doubt about that. I personally do not share the opinion that the lack of direct detection to date automatically rules out its existence. I'm not the only one.

  Our correspondence confirmed that a body with a mass of Jupiter, or greater, could produce the observed truncation effect in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. I wondered why Dr. Quillen hadn't published those particular calculations as well. After all, she seems very clear about what has created the effect in the EKB. One would have thought this was newsworthy. Bear in mind that I had only asked her about this aspect of her work because I had spotted one or two short lines written into the body of a scientific paper. Because I'm already interested in the potential for a brown dwarf companion, I had pursued the matter.

  One can compare this episode directly with how the paper was reported in New Scientist, under the ominous title: ”Rogue star smashed up the solar system”. The article describes a fly-by of a small star, creating a redistribution of the objects in the EKB. It doesn't discuss the fact that Dr. Quillen concluded that such an event could not have produced the observed truncation of the Belt. The origin of the "interloper" is described vaguely, but the clear implication is that the object was not bound to the sun, but came from the neighboring star cluster:

  "In a paper submitted to Astronomical Journal, the researchers suggest that the interloper probably came from the star cluster in which the sun was formed, and that the close encounter would have occurred within a billion years of the birth of the solar system".13

  Reading the article in New Scientist, one would be forgiven for thinking that the 'passing star' is the solution concluded by the researchers; the article fails to report that this is only half the story. If the Kuiper Edge is for real, then the 'passing star' scenario simply fails to explain it. Why was this not reported?

  I suspect that the writer of the article did not delve too deeply into the paper being reviewed. Perhaps a larger article might have brought up the possibility of a bound Jupiter-sized planet being perfect for the task of explaining the Kuiper Cliff, but somehow I doubt it. Somehow, the idea of a binary companion the size of a brown dwarf creating this observed effect seems too incredible.

  Yet, it is eminently plausible.

  When confronted by the twin problems of an astronomer burying her real conclusion within her paper, and the scientific news media subsequently reporting only half the story, one could be forgiven for wondering whether the possibility of a rogue brown dwarf companion to the sun is just a little too much for everyone's reputations to withstand. One must wonder whether such a notion is tantamount to a modern scientific heresy.

  Binary Disassociation

  It is clear that we cannot rely upon a singular stellar encounter to explain the anomalies observed in the EKB. It seems quite plausible that such an event could have happened during the early days of the solar system, but only if the sun was part of a dense cluster of stars. The potential for such an encounter increases if the intruder is already associated with the sun, as in the case of an early binary companion whose orbit then fluctuates, bringing it closer to the planets and outer proto-planetary disc.

  Dr. Quillen was at pains to point out to me that the massive solar companion must have exited solar system some time ago. This is not all that unlikely, it seems. Such a parting of the ways is known as "binary dissociation". It can occur at orbital periods greater than about 3,000 years, corresponding to separations on the order of a few hundred AU.7 This allows astronomers to explain how stars born in dense stellar clusters end up as simple binaries, or on their own. Such dense clusters early in the life of a star system then allow astronomers to argue the case for stellar fly-bys, which might otherwise be rather unlikely.

  This is a rather neat trick that explains a condensed initial environment when stars are born, helping to build mechanisms for the kind of chaos often observed. It also allows astronomers to square that aspect with the observed nature of older, more mature systems which are less dynamic. Of impo
rtance to us is the very real potential for transient binary companions early in the life of a star system. These then move on when the star cluster breaks up. At least, that's the theory.7

  If the sun formed in a stellar nursery in close proximity to other stars, then there was a good likelihood that one of them passed through the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt early in the solar system's history. Given what we now know about the formation of brown dwarfs, such a body could just as easily have been a smaller 'failed star', which may have been tempted sufficiently by the sun's greater gravitational influence to have been captured by it, as it moved through the EKB. This capture could have caused the brown dwarf to move through the proto-planetary disc, interacting with the other planets in a similar way to that outlined by Sitchin. His interpretation of the ancient myths thus correlates well with the science we are currently discussing.

  Secondly, the Dark Star 'Marduk' may have been born as a binary companion in the first place, and migrated inwards to a new orbit that caused its interaction with the planets. This migration might have resulted from a stellar encounter with another young star in the relatively dense birth cluster. This would prevent us having to worry about the sheer chance of such an object being captured by the sun from interstellar space. In fact, Sitchin's scenario appears to receive tentative support by this mode of thinking.

  The astronomer Shigeru Ida describes the point at which a 'binary dissociation' can take place, as about 3,000 years for the binary companion's orbit.7 Zecharia Sitchin's proposed planet Nibiru/Marduk is said to have an orbit of 3,600 years, which would put it on a knife-edge, as far as this effect is concerned. So the Dark Star could be disassociating right now, and at the very least, the implication is that this isn't a terribly stable orbit. Or it may have already dissociated, leaving only a remnant signature on the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt at about 50AU.