The Dark Star: The Planet X Evidence

by Andy Lloyd

  25 A. Morbidelli & H. Levison "Scenarios for the origin of the Orbits of the Trans-Neptunian Objects 2000 CR105 and 2003 VB12 (Sedna)", submitted to Astronomical Journal 2/4/2004 http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~hal/CR105.html

  26 V. Greffos “Planets - But How Many Are There In Our Solar System?” Science & Vie, Feb. 2003

  27 Z. Sitchin "The Case of the French Astronomer", http://www.sitchin.com, with reference to the February 2003 issue of "Science & Vie", featuring Alessandro Morbidelli ideas about a 'phantom planet'.

  16. The Dark Star System

  It might be a good idea to pause for breath at this point, and recap where we have gotten to. We have looked at the history of the search for a tenth planet in the solar system. That painstaking search initially provided science with a new planet called Pluto, but seemed to draw a blank with anything larger, although theoretical work had led scientists to conclude that something else should be there.

  Astronomers, building up their theories about how stars and planets form, concluded that another massive planet should not still be out there. They thought this because if it was quite close to Neptune, then it should have been detected by now; and if it was beyond the limits of detection, it should not have been able to form in the first place.

  The idea then emerged that a hidden Planet X could have an elliptical orbit. This provided a useful bridge between a previous proximity to the sun's other planets, in turn helping us to explain how it formed, and its current great distance, which would explain why it had not yet been detected. This idea has become the hallmark of Planet X hunters in more recent years, but was generally held in low regard by most "mainstream" astronomers. This idea became entwined in the interpretation of ancient myth, and associated alternative theories, which continue to remain highly controversial to this day.

  More ideas emerged about very massive sub-stellar objects called black and brown dwarfs occupying orbits in the outer Oort Cloud of comets. An object at the very great distances involved would be very, very difficult to detect, but its existence might be implied by the pattern of comets that visit us, or by the regularity of catastrophic events on this planet.

  My own contribution to this field has been to integrate many of these ideas, to create a coherent whole. Sometimes my efforts in this regard have fallen on stony ground, and I have been forced to rethink. Other ideas have moved things forward.

  Throughout, I have been open-minded to new possibilities - particularly when scientific discoveries have created new insights. This flexibility has its downside, however, because my essays and articles down the years have tended to shift their ground. This can easily create confusion among regular readers of the Dark Star material.

  It is helpful, then, to present a summary of my current theory about the Dark Star. We will then consider how this integrates with catastrophism and myth, and how the concept of the Dark Star might challenge Science to turn its attention to the peripheries of the outer solar system. As we have already seen, many scientific anomalies can already be explained in this way.

  What Is the Dark Star?

  It seems likely that the sun has a companion. It is not a star in its own right, but a Jupiter-sized planet. This planet is much heavier, and therefore denser, than Jupiter, and this creates a certain amount of heat and light generation. Such a world might be called a sub-brown dwarf, and occupies a particular category of planet which is not understood particularly well at the moment.

  This Dark Star is not a brilliant object, but it does give out heat. This, combined with gravitational effects, may allow habitable conditions to exist on its nearest satellites, or moons. This allows us to negotiate the problems suffered by Zecharia Sitchin's 12th Planet Theory, through the creation of warm conditions in an environment well beyond that of the other planets of our solar system.

  Where Is It?

  The Dark Star is currently lying somewhere close to the ecliptic, or plane of the planets. The constellation Sagittarius is a likely place to search for it. It probably lies in the dense star fields of the Milky Way, an area not properly searched by IRAS, or, indeed, by astronomers searching for Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects - who tend to limit their searches to dark regions of the sky.

  I think that it is at its furthest point from us, or aphelion. Its exact distance is unknown, but may be as far away as 1,000AU, or 1,000 times the distance from the Earth to the sun. Its lateral movement across the sky is very slow, and this makes it even more difficult to differentiate between an orbiting planet and a distant star. As a result, it is quite possible that it has already been detected and catalogued erroneously as a more distant star in the galaxy.

  Can We See it?

  The only chance of directly observing the Dark star without the use of a very powerful telescope is during its perihelion, or its closest passage to the sun. I originally thought that this would occur within the planetary zone of the solar system, coming relatively close to the Earth. However, there are a number of technical reasons why I now consider this to be highly unlikely. Instead, new scientific evidence about the outer solar system implies that the Dark Star moves through the Kuiper Gap at about 70AU distance at perihelion.

  There is still a possibility that it would be seen at this distance, but only if there was a significant interaction with the sun's extended magnetic field, as the Dark Star crossed through the Heliopause. This might make the sub-brown dwarf temporarily more active (and the sun, too, might experiences changes to its energy output). Then there might be a visible phenomenon associated with its perihelion passage, which was known to the ancients as Nibiru.

  A second, more likely possibility, is that other objects will be seen as the Dark Star crosses perihelion. These might be comets and minor planetary bodies locked into an inner LaGrangian point, that sweeps through the outer solar system. Or, it might be a more substantial planet that orbits the Dark Star at a significant distance. This planet might enter the planetary solar system and quickly move across the sky, seeming to head backwards. This may also be the phenomenon called Nibiru.

  If it turns out that the Dark Star does indeed enter the planetary zone at perihelion, then we could expect a very exciting visual phenomenon indeed. It would be a quite spectacular event to observe, and would without doubt become a major religious icon for many of the world's cultures.

  When I initially wrote about this subject, I proposed that the actual Dark Star was none other than the Messianic Star of the Christian Nativity. This must remain a possibility, but I now consider it to be more difficult to justify, at least on a scientific level.

  How Many Satellites Orbit the Dark Star?

  Astronomers often use the term "satellites" to denote moons. It's difficult to decide whether to call the satellites of a brown dwarf system "planets" or "moons" anyway. For instance, if a brown dwarf was behaving like Jupiter then we would naturally want to call its satellites "moons". But, if we were looking at a brown dwarf free-floating in space with its own planetary system, then we would more likely treat it as a low mass star system. Under those circumstances, we would certainly call the satellites 'planets'.

  Our proposed Dark Star is more like Jupiter than an independent star, although it may turn out to have been captured by the sun in the distant past. Its major satellites are likely to be to be substantial planets in their own right, but it seems sensible to call them "moons", because the brown dwarf is itself a planet orbiting a star. Another suggestion has been to call the satellites "planetars", but I think this generally confuses things further. So we shall stick to "moons".

  My thinking about the size and distribution of the Dark Star system is based largely upon mythical and esoteric symbolism. Some of that work is derived from Zecharia Sitchin, particularly with respect to his interpretation of Winged Disc symbolism from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. But there are many other sources of useful ideas too.

  My current thinking is that there are 7 moons orbiting the Dark Star. The closest of them may well have habitable environments; c
ertainly, I think one of them does - with that particular world being of a similar size and character to our Earth. The furthest planet is in a very wide orbit around the Dark Star, and is capable of passing through our solar system during the Dark Star's perihelion. Justification for this interpretation is complex and unfortunately, beyond the scope of this book; it delves heavily into myth and symbolism, and is naturally rather more speculative than the scientific work reviewed in this volume. As such, it would best be looked at in detail in a future book.

  But, there is more to the Dark Star system than its major planets. It no doubt has a distributed collection of minor planetary bodies, and probably belts of comets too.

  How Long is the Dark Star's Orbit?

  I originally concurred with the general consensus among alternative theorists, that Nibiru's orbit is about 3,600 years in length. This was originally derived from Zecharia Sitchin's original 12th Planet theory. He 'applied' the orbital period to the Sumerian value of 1 Sar, which was equivalent to 3,600 years.1 This was justified because of the centrality of this number within the complex numbering system of the Sumerians, and it seemed to Sitchin that the chronological returns of Nibiru would be a good reason for its importance.

  Based on this assumption, I argued for many years that the last visual sighting of Nibiru took place some 2,000 years ago and was in fact the Messianic Star of Christian tradition. This fairly straightforward assertion was actually rather more difficult to prove, and I found myself in a veritable minefield of theological contention. After a great deal of deliberation I considered it probable that the Star of Bethlehem was simply a mythological construct.

  That made an association with an actual sighting of the Dark Star problematic. Except, that the Dark Star might not actually be easy to observe at perihelion anyway...and, it was also possible that the ancient expectation of the observation of a Star was more important to our story, than whether one was actually seen at a particular time or not.

  You can appreciate the tangle this created in my mind. All that I could really say with any certainty was that the Dark Star was not about to become visible anytime soon - or else, it would have been detected by any number of astronomers, both professional and amateur, studying the stars across the entire face of the Earth.

  If the Dark Star's orbital period is Sitchin's 3,600 years, then I still contend that it must have passed through perihelion about 2,000 years ago, because it almost certainly is at its furthest point right now. How else could one explain away the lack of direct detection of such a massive body? So, there is still a reasonable possibility that the phenomenon of Nibiru is closely associated with Messianic prophecy of one form or another.

  However, this is another rather complicated subject which requires very comprehensive review. It is unfortunate that I cannot do that argument justice in this volume; to work through the Biblical Scholarship alone would require several chapters. It is best left to a future book more focused on these particular issues. Suffice it to say, for now, that a potential link between the phenomenon of Nibiru and the Messianic Star is an open one.

  However, the Messianic Star thesis would be more difficult to substantiate scientifically than the ideas we are currently looking at concerning a larger Dark Star orbit. If the orbital period was longer - in fact much, much longer - then the Dark Star's current position could be further away still, making it easier to explain why detection had yet to happen. In other words, if we challenge the acquired wisdom that the orbit of Nibiru is just 1 Sar in length, then the science underlying the prospect of a Dark Star becomes more realistic. The question then is how this can be justified, in terms of ancient textual references.

  I have occasionally come across passages like this one by Harold T. Wilkins:

  "Censorinus, the Roman chronologist of the third century A.D. said that, at the end of every great year of six Babylonian sars (a period of 21,600 years), our planet undergoes a complete revolution. Polar and equatorial regions change place, the tropical vegetation and swarming animal life moving towards the forbidding wastes of the icy poles...Catastrophes attend the change, with great earthquakes and cosmical throes".2

  It seems that it would be legitimate to consider the orbit in terms of multiples of Sars. After all, the length of the reign of gods as described by the ancient Mesopotamians were also set out in Sar multiples. One such multiple, or 10,800 years, is equivalent to the orbital period of Sedna. This points towards a resonant relationship between these outer solar system bodies.

  Given all the other anomalous properties of this new minor planet, I wondered whether drawing a analogy was justified. Quite what the exact relationship between the Dark Star and Sedna is, I don't yet know. But it seems more realistic to argue that the Dark Star's orbit is much greater than 3,600 years, and this figure of 10,800 years has real promise, for reasons we shall now consider.

  If we work with the premise that the Dark Star's orbital period is 10,800 years, then its orbit is very similar (but exactly opposite) to Sedna. In that case, the Dark Star's aphelion will take place over the next 100 years, coincident with Sedna's imminent perihelion. That means that the Dark Star last encountered the edge of the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt about 5,300-5,400 years ago, around 3350BCE. This was during Sumerian times, and around the time of the emergence of Dynastic Egypt. There is also strong evidence of severe climate change during that period of time, connected with dramatic changes in the sun's activity.3

  The period between then and now roughly fits in with the current Mayan Age, which will come to an end on 21st December 2012. This date may be associated with changes in the sun's activity, or possibly even a reversal of the solar system's neutral sheet.4 Does that Age coincide with half an orbit of the Dark Star?

  A Distributed System

  Last chapter we dealt with the concept of Lagrangian points, or positions in space which were stable for minor bodies in a dynamic three body system. So, for a system with the sun at the centre, with a massive body like the Dark Star orbiting it, regional positions relative to the Dark Star could play host to masses of minor planetary bodies. Sedna may well sit in just such a position; at the co-linear Lagrangian point on the opposite side of the sun to the Dark Star.

  If so, then Sedna may be one of many, many bodies clustered together within a particular region of space, made relatively stable by a positional relationship with the sun and Dark Star. Clusters of relatively small objects located at these regions will orbit around the sun just like the Dark Star does, and feel no net acceleration. This works the same for elliptical orbits as for circular ones, with the Lagrangian points being similarly located at 60 degree intervals around the orbital path.5

  I have no idea how many minor planetary objects might be trapped in such a cluster, but it is useful to bear in mind that there may be an effective distribution of total system mass, as described by John Bagby.6 Arguably, such a widespread distribution of the mass of the Dark Star system might help to explain other anomalies, like the apparent slowing down of the Pioneer spacecraft as they move away from the planetary solar system towards the Heliopause. This anomaly has puzzled astronomers and physicists for years.

  Trouble with Pioneer

  The earliest spacecraft to leave the planetary solar system, on their way to the stars, such as Voyager and Pioneer, have covered vast distances in the intervening years. They are still able to send small packets of data back to us, but we no longer monitor their weak transmissions. Instead, their positions are monitored by periodically sending them a signal from the Earth, and timing how long the response takes to return.

  A few years ago, it became apparent to NASA scientists that the probes were not making the progress expected, possibly indicating they were subject to greater solar system gravity than previously thought. Early in 1999, NASA scientist John Anderson described how Pioneer 10 and 11, as well as the spacecraft Ulysses - which is in a polar orbit around the sun, were displaying anomalous behavior. This anomaly had been picked up by scientists studying the
doppler shift of the radio signals from the craft, enabling them to work out the current velocity of the craft (7). Various possible causes have been ruled out, leading some scientists to quite seriously question whether there is some kind of new physical force at work. The fact that this effect is observed in four quite separate cases is exacerbating the issue.

  It should be noted that John Anderson is fairly forthright about the possible existence of a tenth planet in the solar system. He was presumably hoping that this anomalous behavior would be a further clue to its existence. Dr. Anderson, a "Celestial Mechanics Investigator" with the Pioneer program, went on record to indicate his belief that Planet X would indeed be found, although no data available at that time supported the notion.

  He adhered to the conclusions from nineteenth century astronomical data that the outer planets were being perturbed by a distant gravitational force. He considered it likely that the perturbing influence lay in a plane perpendicular to the ecliptic, and that the orbital period of the planet was between 700 and 1000 years.8 Although this description is not in keeping with the one we are currently considering, it is worth noting the anticipation among the Pioneer team that a breakthrough would one day result.

  The two Pioneer spacecraft appears to be slowing down, so much so, that it seemed that they would eventually begin to fall back towards the sun.9 NASA, as an institution, officially denies that these craft are being affected by an unusual gravity effect that was unknown at the time of their launches. Instead, they claim that the phenomenon has been attributed to a mechanical problem with the probes themselves. This is a U-turn from the information presented above, first was made public in 1998. NASA's position at that time was that all mechanical anomalies had been thought of and ruled out.