It is definitely known that there are not eight planets in our solar system, as previously thought. But the history of the ninth is shrouded in darkness. Someone calls it a comet, someone a giant, like Jupiter, but someone calls it Nibiru and predicts the destruction of the Earth.
Who is right? And could extraterrestrial life exist right under our noses?
Why eight and not nine?
In 2006, Pluto was stripped of its title and named a minor planet. The reason is the development of technology. Back in the fifties, Soviet scientists claimed that the hype around Pluto was exaggerated, and it was in vain listed as the ninth planet of the solar system.
According to their version, Pluto is one of the large planet-like celestial bodies near the Kuiper belt. And the predictions worked. At the moment, several more baby planets have been discovered – Sedna, Makemake, Orcus and other bodies that are almost identical to Pluto, and Eris is completely heavier than it.
But analyzes of the mass, trajectory and gravity of celestial bodies still declare that in our system something unequivocally draws to the title of a planet. Research began when Pluto was still considered the ninth planet, so the mysterious body was called planet X, which in Latin means the number 10.
When Pluto passed into the category of dwarfs, the unknown planet was again called X, but from the side of an unknown variable.
And yet it is
Initially, there were no signs of trouble. Back in 1846, astronomers noticed how something affects the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. An intensified search began, which led scientists to Pluto, and, it would seem, the problem was solved. Until 1978, when the mass of the baby celestial body was calculated and it turned out that it was not capable of influencing the orbits of the giant planets.
In 1982, the legendary Voyager 2 flew over Neptune and corrected its mass by half percent. This solved the problem of the anomaly of Uranus. The two giants influenced each other and it seems that the question of the unknown planet could be closed.
In 2014, it was discovered that something was wrong with our system. It’s hard to explain astronomers’ suspicions without scientific terms, but in short, some Kuiper belt objects that encircle our system fly as if there is another planet far, far away.
Minor planets like Sedna orbit the Sun unimaginably far. For example, the same Sedna is maximally removed from the Sun by 960 astronomical units. For comparison, the Earth is removed by one, and distant Pluto by 49 astronomical units. Sedna and her brethren fly far beyond the Kuiper belt, which is considered by many to be the boundary of the solar system. And from the point of view of modern astronomy, there is no answer to this anomaly.
Astronomers Batygin and Brown in 2016 came to an interesting conclusion – the orbits of baby planets are identical, and the probability of such a coincidence is only 0.007%. The most logical explanation is the presence of a remote, but incredibly huge planet that “tracks” them, preventing them from leaving the system.
The probability that a hypothetical planet X with a mass of ten Earth exists is 90%. Simply put, the planet is more likely to exist than it is not, and here the fun begins.
This insidious Nibiru
For hundreds of years, conspiracy theorists sleep and see that the planet Nibiru will destroy the Earth. Based on the Sumerian writings, the Bible and the predictions of various prophets. In short, the asteroid belt was once the planet Tiamat, which collapsed just because of the collision with Nibiru.
According to this version, Nibiru rotates in an orbit very distant from the Sun, and once every 3600 passes between Mars and Jupiter. At one point, another passage hit the planet Tiamat, turning the latter into an asteroid belt.
It soon became clear that our ancestors took either Jupiter or Sirius for Nibiru. Do not forget that the Earth was then represented as flat.
It is convenient for fans of the planet Nibiru to assume that Nibiru and planet X are one and the same, and also to state that life on Earth appeared thanks to the Anunnaki, the inhabitants of Nibiru. The trouble is that on a real planet X, life is not only impossible, but unthinkable.
Even on Pluto, the surface temperature does not rise above -200 degrees. Now imagine what happens on a planet 50 times further away. Absolute zero definitely reigns there, and not the one that appears on the Celsius scale, but the one that is equal to -273 degrees which it’s not just called absolute. At such a temperature, the chaotic motion of particles stops, that is, not just atoms freeze, but their smallest components.
Is planet X dangerous?
The ninth planet poses no threat. It makes a circle around the Sun about once every 10,000 years and the point of passage of its orbit closest to the star is five times farther than Pluto. It’s very far. So much so that hypotheses are put forward that the Sun stole the planet from another star that flew by. Someone could even think that planet X has long been torn off from the “owner” and set off for free roamming.
And here we come to the main question. Almost every day, scientists find exoplanets hundreds of light-years from Earth. Why can’t we find something under our noses? The answer is simple – you need to know where to look.
There are no problems with long distances. Astronomers simply point their finger in any direction and look for themselves. But to find planet X, you need to know at least its approximate location in orbit.
When looking for Neptune, they pushed off from Uranus. In order to search for Nibiru, you need to start from tiny celestial bodies that are dozens of times farther from the Sun. This is a practically unrealizable task in the current conditions, especially when you consider how slowly the planet is moving.
Scientists promise that they will find it within five years, and it will be a titanic work. It is possible that we have already found planet X, we just did not notice it. So it was with Pluto. Percival Lowell searched for the baby planet for ten years until his death. In 1930, when the dwarf was finally discovered, it turned out that Pluto was on Lowell’s maps back in 1915, he just didn’t notice it.
Therefore, in 2017, NASA launched a whole project where those who wish can search for the ninth planet in the vast archives of the space agency.
Well, we should not worry that planet X will destroy us – conspiracy theorists are moving the last date of the end of the world farther and farther. The cause of the apocalypse is most likely here on Earth, and has nothing to do with the ninth planet.