Re: ZetaTalk and Spaceguard UK
Jonathan TATE <fr77@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>> This is a planet that assumed an odd orbit around BOTH
>> suns in your binary system, when your solar system was
>> first formed.
>
> Binary system? Surely we are not invoking the old "Nemesis"
> hypothesis?
Old? About as old as your teenager. It's not old, it was just stuffed
into the closet by NASA and JPL.
From the Rogue Planet TOPIC of Troubled Times:
http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tword262.htm
Astronomy
Search for the Tenth Planet, Dec 1981
Astronomers are readying telescopes to probe the outer
reaches of our solar system for an elusive planet much
larger than Earth. Its existence would explain a
160-year-old mystery. ... The pull exerted by its gravity
would account for a wobble in Uranus' orbit that was
first detected in 1821 by a French astronomer, Alexis
Bouvard. Beyond Pluto, in the cold, dark regions of
space, may lie an undiscovered tenth planet two to five
times the size of Earth. Astronomers at the U.S. Naval
Observatory (USNO) are using a powerful computer to
identify the best target zones, and a telescopic search
will follow soon after. ... Van Flandern thinks the tenth
planet may have between two and five Earth masses
and lie 50 to 100 astronomical units from the Sun.
(An astronomical unit is the mean distance between
Earth and the Sun.) His team also presumes that, like
Pluto's, the plane of the undiscovered body's orbit is
tilted with respect to that of most other planets, and
that its path around the Sun is highly elliptical.
New York Times
June 19, 1982
A pair of American spacecraft may help scientists
detect what could be a 10th planet or a giant object
billions of miles away, the national Aeronautics and
Space Administration said Thursday. Scientists at
the space agency's Ames Research Center said the two
spacecraft, Pioneer 10 and 11, which are already
farther into space than any other man-made object,
might add to knowledge of a mysterious object
believed to be beyond the solar system's outermost
known planets. The space agency said that persistent
irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune
"suggest some kind of mystery object is really there"
with its distance depending on what it is. If the mystery
object is a new planet, it may lie five billion miles
beyond the outer orbital ring of known planets, the
space agency said. If it is a dark star type of objet, it
may be 50 billion miles beyond the known planets; if
it is a black hole, 100 billion miles. A black hole is a
hypothetical body in space, believed to be a collapsed
star so condensed that neither light nor matter can
escape from its gravitational field.
Newsweek, June 28, 1982
Does the Sun Have a Dark Companion?
When scientists noticed that Uranus wasn't following
its predicted orbit for example, they didn't question
their theories. Instead they blamed the anomalies on an
as yet unseen planet and, sure enough, Neptune was
discovered in 1846. Now astronomers are using the
same strategy to explain quirks in the orbits of Uranus
and Neptune. According to John Anderson of the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., this odd
behavior suggests that the sun has an unseen companion,
a dark star gravitationally bound to it but billions of miles
away. ... Other scientists suggest that the most likely
cause of the orbital snags is a tenth planet 4 to 7 billion
miles beyond Neptune. A companion star would tug the
outer planets, not just Uranus and Neptune, says Thomas
Van Flandern of the U.S Naval Observatory. And where
he admits a tenth planet is possible, but argues that it
would have to be so big - a least the size of Uranus - that
it should have been discovered by now. To resolve the
question, NASA is staying tuned to Pioneer 10 and 11,
the planetary probes that are flying through the dim
reaches of the solar system on opposite sides of the sun.
Astronomy, Oct 1982
Searching for a 10th Planet
The hunt for new worlds hasn't ended. Both Uranus and
Neptune follow irregular paths that observers can explain
only by assuming the presence of an unknown body whose
gravity tugs at the two planets. Astronomers originally
though Pluto might be the body perturbing its neighbors, but
the combined mass of Pluto and its moon, Charon, is
too small for such a role. ... While astronomers believe that
something is out there, they aren't sure what it is. Three
possibilities stand out: First, the object could be a planet -
but any world large and close enough to affect the orbits of
Uranus and Neptune should already have been spotted.
Searchers might have missed the planet, though, if it's
unusually dark or has an odd orbit. ... NASA has been
recording velocities for a year now and will continue for
as long as necessary. This past spring, it appeared that
budget cuts might force the end of the Pioneer project.
The space agency now believes that it will have the money
to continue mission operations. Next year, the JPL group
will begin analyzing the data. By the time the Pioneer
experiment shows results, an Earth-orbiting infrared
telescope may have discovered the body. ... Together,
IRAS and the Pioneers will allow astronomers to mount
a comprehensive search for new solar system members.
The two deep space probes should detect bodies near
enough to disturb their trajectories and the orbits or
Uranus and Neptune. IRAS should detect any large body
in or near the solar system. Within the next year or two,
astronomers may discover not one new world, but several.
New York Times
January 30, 1983
Something out there beyond the farthest reaches of the
known solar system seems to be tugging at Uranus and
Neptune. Some gravitational force keeps perturbing the two
giant planets, causing irregularities in their orbits. The
force suggests a presence far away and unseen, a large
object that may be the long- sought Planet X. ... The last
time a serious search of the skies was made it led to the
discovery in 1930 of Pluto, the ninth planet. But the story
begins more than a century before that, after the discovery
of Uranus in 1781 by the English astronomer and musician
William Herschel. Until then, the planetary system seemed
to end with Saturn. As astronomers observed Uranus, noting
irregularities in its orbital path, many speculated that they
were witnessing the gravitational pull of an unknown planet.
So began the first planetary search based on astronomers
predictions, which ended in the 1840's with the discovery
of Neptune almost simultaneously by English, French, and
German astronomers. But Neptune was not massive enough
to account entirely for the orbital behavior of Uranus.
Indeed, Neptune itself seemed to be affected by a still more
remote planet. In the last 19th century, two American
astronomers, Willian H. Pickering and Percival Lowell,
predicted the size and approximate location of the
trans-Neptunian body, which Lowell called Planet X.
Years later, Pluto was detected by Clyde W. Tombaugh
working at Lowell Observatory in Arizona. Several
astronomers, however, suspected it might not be the Planet X
of prediction. Subsequent observation proved them right.
Pluto was too small to change the orbits of Uranus and
Neptune, the combined mass of Pluto and its recently
discovered satellite, Charon, is only 1/5 that of Earth's moon.
Recent calculations by the United States Naval Observatory
have confirmed the orbital perturbation exhibited by
Uranus and Neptune, which Dr. Thomas C Van Flandern,
an astronomer at the observatory, says could be explained by
"a single undiscovered planet". He and a colleague, Dr.
Richard Harrington, calculate that the 10th planet should be
two to five times more massive than Earth and have a
highly elliptical orbit that takes it some 5 billion miles
beyond that of Pluto - hardly next-door but still within the
gravitational influence of the Sun. ...
US News World Report, Sept 10, 1984
Planet X - Is It Really Out There?
Shrouded from the sun's light, mysteriously tugging at the
orbits of Uranus and Neptune, is an unseen force that
astronomers suspect may be Planet X - a 10th resident of
the Earth's celestial neighborhood. Last year, the infrared
astronomical satellite (IRAS), circling in a polar orbit 560
miles from the Earth, detected heat from an object about
50 billion miles away that is now the subject of intense
speculation. "All I can say is that we don't know what it is
yet," says Gerry Neugesbeuer, director of the Palomar
Observatory for the California Institute of Technology.
Scientists are hopeful that the one-way journeys of the
Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes may help to locate the
nameless body.
And then there was the discovery of a Pioneer 10 Probe route diagram,
complete with the dead star and Planet X/10th Planet, explaining the
primary purpose of the Pioneer 10, which is headed out that way as we
speak. http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tworx372.htm
This diagram appeared in the 1987 edition of the New Science
and Invention Encyclopedia published by H.S. Stuttman,
Westport, Connecticut, USA. The article was discussing the
purpose of the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes. Clearly
shown is "Nemesis" a popular name for our sun's binary
companion, a dead star. (Binary solar systems are apparently
the rule in our galaxy, not the exception.). Why does this
diagram clearly shows the approximate location of Planet X
(a.k.a. the 10th or 12th Planet)? Planet X is presented as a
matter of fact in this respected encyclopedia. Some have
suggested the paths of Pioneers 10 and 11 were chosen
as to get a triangulated fix on Planet X, a suggestion this
chart would support.
