Pluto/Kuiper Express mission and the possibility of Planet X

NASA has finally approved, again, the Pluto/Kuiper express mission. Now the scientists promoting this mission are in a race to design, build and launch the craft.

I made excerpts of the most relevant parts of this story, but if you want to read it all, you will find the link below the excerpts.


" Alan Stern is 45 years old. He was 32 when serious planning began for a mission to Pluto, which he just learned has been quietly and formally approved. He'll be 57 when the spacecraft he and others have been promoting finally gets there.

Once the flyby is complete, a whole other phase of the mission begins. This phase is not yet fully planned. The target will be a KBO, one that astronomers still have to find. Mission planners expect to fly past a KBO that's roughly 30-60 miles wide (50-100 kilometers). New Horizons will perform similar examinations of the rock to those that had been done at Pluto.

Stern expects much to be learned about Pluto and the Kuiper Belt between now and 2015, and the new information will be used to maximize the science return of the mission.

The Kuiper Belt is full of leftovers from the formation of the Sun and solar system.

Stern has said the distant belt probably contained enough material when the solar system initially developed to have created another Neptune-sized planet. For some reason, most of that mass is gone. And the "10th planet" never formed, though it pops up routinely in computer simulations.

So what happened? Something must have disrupted the Kuiper Belt, way back more than 4 billion years ago, Stern figures. Perhaps the formation of Neptune caused a gravitational shift that tore the other fledgling planet apart. Or maybe several large planetary wannabes were ejected out of the solar system by Neptune and, along the way, swept parts of the Kuiper Belt clean. Possibly something else is to blame.

Studying the Pluto-Charon system, as well as one or more other KBOs, could answer this question of the "missing" planet.

Excerpts taken from.

www.space.com...

" Dr. Alan Stern is a planetary scientist and astrophysicist, an author, and the Director of the Southwest Research Institute's Department of Space Studies in Boulder, Colorado. Dr. Stern is an avid researcher whose work has taken him to numerous astronomical observatories, to the south pole, and to the upper atmosphere aboard high performance military aircraft.

From 1991 to 1994 he was the leader of SwRI's Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences group at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. From 1983 to 1991 he held positions at the University of Colorado in the Center for Space and Geoscience Policy, the office of the Vice President for Research, the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA) . Before receiving his doctorate in 1989, Dr. Stern completed a master's degree in aerospace engineering and then spent seven years as an aerospace systems engineer, concentrating on spacecraft and payload systems at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Martin Marietta Aerospace, and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado. "

Excerpts and full biography of Dr Stern were taken from.
www.boulder.swri.edu...

Now this story by itself is quite something, as it will give us the opportuny to find out why Pluto acts, and is so strange and also whether or not there are other large planetary bodies on the outskirt of the solar system.

Through the past century many astronomers have found irregularities which made them think that there is possibly at least one very large object beyond Pluto, but still in the solar system.

I have been interested in this subject for some time and I have found a lot of evidence for this planet x.

Below i will post links and excerpts to research papers and new confirmations to the possibility such a planet, failed star or both do exist.

Everyday astronomers are finding new discoveries in our own solar system. Knowledge that is not found in most, and in some cases in no astronomy books. Like for example the extension that some astronomers from "Australia" found, a week and a half ago or so, the milky way has, and most astronomers hadn't noticed before.

Here is the link to that article.
dsc.discovery.com...

We also had a few asteroids passing close to Earth that astronomers did not notice until they already passed us by. Astronomers are merely looking at a small portion of the sky and its true that there is a lot of "space" that we still haven't covered.


" Several astronomers not involved in the discovery support the idea that Sedna was lured outward by a star. But others don't buy that explanation.

"I don't really like that," said Marsden, who heads the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., where newfound solar system bodies are cataloged.

Marsden favors an object closer in, a "planetary object," he told Space.com, perhaps at between 400 and 1,000 AU.

"Perhaps there's more than one planet out there," Marsden said. "Who knows? But let's suppose it is something of an Earth mass, maybe even a few Earth masses. A close approach could throw this object [Sedna] from something more circular into something more eccentric." "

Excerpts taken from.
msnbc.msn.com...


"Mysterious force holds back Nasa probe in deep space
By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 10/02/2002)


A SPACE probe launched 30 years ago has come under the influence of a force that has baffled scientists and could rewrite the laws of physics.

Researchers say Pioneer 10, which took the first close-up pictures of Jupiter before leaving our solar system in 1983, is being pulled back to the sun by an unknown force. The effect shows no sign of getting weaker as the spacecraft travels deeper into space, and scientists are considering the possibility that the probe has revealed a new force of nature."

Excerpt taken from.
www.telegraph.co.uk.../news/2002/02/10/wnasa10.xml&sShe%20et=/news/2002/02/10/ixworld.html


The link below is from the Cambridge Conference Network and i cannot reproduce in here for copyright reasons, but I can post a link to it. It stated in March 2001 that there is a giant comet with an elongated orbit which the pull of the known giant planets in their current position can not explain. that perhaps a planet as big as Mars is lurking in the ourter reaches of the solar system.

Here is the link.
abob.libs.uga.edu...

" One idea that emerged in the last decade is that there may be a 26 million year perturbation of the Oort Cloud, which is a vast halo of comets that lies at large distances from the sun. Based on the number of comets that penetrate into the inner solar system, Oort proposed in 1950 that there are around 10exp18 comets about 1 light year away from the sun, the relic of the original solar nebula which formed the solar system. These are in a spherical shell of orbits, and some process is needed to periodically perturb them.

Two ideas for how to perturb the Oort Cloud have been proposed:

A dark sister sun called Nemesis: Our sun formed as a binary, with a secondary star that never began to shine (too small for fusion). Interaction of the orbit of the two stars could regularly cause gravitational perturbation of the Oort Cloud. Systematic search for Nemesis has not yet revealed such a dark star.
Galactic Plane Oscillation: Our solar system is not static within the galaxy, but oscillates up and down through the main symmetry plane of the Galaxy with about a 60 million year periodicity. Each passage through the plane could lead to the surrounding Oort cloud being perturbed by increased interstellar mass in the galactic plane. This would release a hail of comets, some of which would strike the Earth. The timing is not quite perfect, but it is on the right scale. We are now pretty much in the middle of a cycle, so would not expect another mass extinction for millions of years. "

Excerpts taken from.
ic.ucsc.edu...

" A mystery revolves around the sun
Researchers suggest that huge unseen object orbits on fringe of solar system.

Oct. 7, 1999 � Two teams of researchers have proposed the existence of an unseen planet or a failed star circling the sun at a distance of more than 2 trillion miles, far beyond the orbits of the nine known planets. The theory, which seeks to explain patterns in comets� paths, has been put forward in research accepted for publication in two separate journals.

.....................

MORE QUESTIONS
How could such a massive object exist so far from the sun? The researchers say a planet or dark star could have coalesced during the formation of the solar system billions of years ago, but more probably would be a passing celestial body that was captured by the sun�s subtle gravitational pull.

Another question: Why hasn�t such an object been seen? Murray says that even a Jupiter-scale planet could not be observed at the immense distances involved. Matese and his colleagues say that their hypothetical brown dwarf wouldn�t have been detected even by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, which surveyed the heavens in 1983 � but that the yet-to-be-launched Space Infrared Telescope Facility just might be able to pick it up."

Excerpt taken from.
www.msnbc.com...

Another name for planet X has been Septimus, could it be Nibiru or another planet?

"CURRENT EVIDENCE OF SEPTIMUS' AND VULCAN'S MASS AND ORBIT
George Forbes was the first to estimate planetary orbits from trans-neptunian comet aphelia (in 1880) and found one (near Edward Harrison's quadrant - see the Vulcan paper) with orbit elements similar to Vulcan's.29 See Figure 3A and Table 4A. William Pickering (in 1909) anticipated too many planets.30 The large planets spread and scatter the comets and their aphelia should be combined into one planet in a highly elliptical orbit. The aphelion of Pickering's planet P, not Pluto, (169 AU) and perihelion of Q (404 AU) somewhat match Vulcan's perihelion/aphelion. Pickering predicted the most planets until Yari Danjo's ASTRO-METRICS. Forbes estimated that his distant planet was at 22:00 RA 39 deg. Dec. (versus Vulcan in 1983 at 17:32:51.4 RA; 23 deg.:56:36 Dec.). Both Danjo31and Forbes predict a second planet, the former (Septimus) at 154 AU (or mid-orbit cast at 120 AU) and the latter at 87 - 122 AU. It could be Forbe's 1,076 year period planet. Danjo considered Septimus to be spawned by the Sun and Vulcan to be a dark star. This analysis indicates that Septimus is Earth sized and spawned by Vulcan."

Excerpt taken from.
www.barry.warmkessel.com...


"THE THEORIZED COMPANION STAR, THROUGH ITS GRAVITATIONAL PULL, UNLEASHES A FURIOUS STORM OF COMETS IN THE INNER SOLAR SYSTEM LASTING FROM 100,000 TO TWO MILLION YEARS. SEVERAL OF THESE COMETS STRIKE THE EARTH.


"Heavy snows are driven and fall from the world�s four corners; the murder frost prevails. The Sun is darkened at noon; it sheds no gladness; devouring tempests bellow and never end. In vain do men await the coming of summer. Thrice winter follows winter over a world which is snow-smitten, frost-fettered, and chained in ice."

�"Fimbul Winter" from Norse saga, Twilight of the Gods "

Excerpt taken from.
www.lbl.gov...


Other older links to this mysterious planet or planets.

"PROBLEMS AT THE RIM OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Neptune is an undisciplined member of the solar system. No one has been able to predict its future course accurately. Already this maverick planet is drifting off the orbit predicted just 10 years ago using the best data and solar-system models. All of the outer planets, in fact, confound predictions to some degree. In addition, some long-period comets have anomalous orbits. Astronomers have been aware that something was wrong for decades and anticipated finding a trans-Neptunian planet large enough to perturb the outer solar system."

Excerpt taken from.
www.science-frontiers.com...

" MORE ON "THE MASSIVE SOLAR COMPANION"
Something big out there beyond Neptune perturbs the orbits of the sun's outer fringe of planets. In addition, there are unexplained perturbations in the orbits of earth satellites, peculiar periodicities in the sunspot cycle, and equally puzzling regularities in earthquake frequency. Infrared detectors have also picked up unidentified objects in the sky. These anomalies might all be explained by the existence of a large, dark planet with several moons -- or, if the mystery object turns out to be very far away, by a very large, dark stellar companion of our sun with its own system of planets. "

Excerpt taken from.
www.science-frontiers.com...

" WHAT CAUSES THE SUNSPOT CYCLE?
Even since the sunspot cycle was discovered, a few people have been trying to prove that it is caused by the influence of the planets, particularly Jupiter with its 11.86-year period. A century of various correlations has convinced almost no one. John P. Bagby has now introduced a new piece to the puzzle of solar-system cyclic behavior. While searching for possible perturbations of the planets due to a tenth major planet or a dark massive solar companion (MSC), he discovered that the perihelia of the outer planets (orbital points closest to the sun) were being disturbed with an average period of 11.2 years. This is almost exactly the sunspot period. "

Excerpt taken from.
www.science-frontiers.com...

One of the evidence that seems to point that we might have discovered a dead star and a tenth planet comes from the illustration of the 1987 New Science and Invention Encyclopedia.



This picture can be found at.
www.planet-x.150m.com...

Althou the link above don't give much credence to it because its a science encyclopedia for kids, you have to wonder.

In the link about the Pluto/Kuiper Express mission you will find that NASA wants to build an antenna that can transmit at 4.7 billion miles, which is the same distance the enciclopedia mentions the tenth planet to be at.

It could be nothing, but there are too many references, the encyclopedia included, that seem to point to the possible existance of both, the dead star and the tenth planet.



[Edited on 29-5-2004 by Muaddib]

[edit on 7-6-2004 by Muaddib]

Not sure how reliable that site is but there are many pictures of the supposed Planet X, makes you wonder what�s going on:

www.zetatalk.com...

[Edited on 29-5-2004 by Satariel]

Zetatalk is not a reliable site, just like whatever site Mark Hazelwood has now. These two never showed real evidence, most of the photos that Nacy has in her site (zetatalk) were either natural phenomenon, or hoaxes.

"That we know of", neither planet x or the dead star, are anywhere close to the "inner solar system". We just do not have any "conclusive" evidence for this, but we do have evidence that seems to point that in the outskirts of the solar system there seems to be at least one other major planet and possibly a companion star. We do know that most of the solar systems that exist are binary or multiple star systems, having at least two suns.

"Our Solar System may not be the norm for stars in the Universe. The observational evidence is that most stars are parts of multiple star systems, not single stars like our Sun."

Excerpted from.
csep10.phys.utk.edu...

Our solar system is not the norm, but the exception, unless there really is a dead companion which would explain the unusual orbit of the solar system.

"The solar system appears to have a very unusual orbit. It is both extremely close to being circular, and at nearly the exact distance at which the orbital speed matches the speed of the compression waves that form the spiral arms. "

Excerpted from.
en.wikipedia.org...


Sometimes in the formation of solar systems it is possible for a star not to reach critical mass and ignite.

"It has been suggested that the Sun may be part of a binary star system, with a distant companion named Nemesis. Nemesis was proposed to explain some regularities of the great extinctions of life on Earth. The theory says that Nemesis creates periodical perturbations in the asteroids and comets of the solar system causing a shower of large bodies and some of them hit Earth causing destruction of life. After this theory was stated, a search was undertaken for such a dim, distant companion; it found no visible star within one light-year of the Sun."

Excerpted from.
en.wikipedia.org...

There are rumors of more credible sources, than Nacy Liderman and Mark Hazelwood, that seem to suggest there is something which has been slowly approaching the inner solar system and could be the cause of all the irregularities we see happening in the planets and the sun. But it could very well be that we are entering a new part of the universe that we have never gone through in the short time we have come to observe the universe. It could also be, as it has been theorized in some of the research I posted, that the companion star could once in a while send comets and asteroids our way.

One of these people is father Malachi Martin, he never said exactly what it was that he was trying to mention, it could be an asteroid or something else, but as having evidence of planet x being in the inner solar system and getting closer, irrefutable evidence is just not there.

Here is the audio of an interview that was done to father Malachi Martin in which he says that the reason for the vatican to be so interested in observing the universe is that they know something is approaching.

What is coming

"Father Malachi Brendan Martin, Roman Catholic priest, widely renowned theologian and best-selling author of 16 books, died in New York City on Tuesday, July 27, 1999, following a stroke.

Father Martin was born in Kerry, Ireland on July 23. 1921. He was educated at Belvedere College, and entered the Society of Jesus in 1939. He studied at the National University where he took a bachelor's degree in Semitic languages and Oriental history with parallel studies in Assyriology at Trinity College. He held degrees in Philosophy, Theology, Semitic Languages, Archeology and Oriental History from the University of Louvain, Belgium. He was ordained to the priesthood on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1954.

Father Martin did parallel studies at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and at Oxford University, specializing in intertestamentary studies and knowledge of Jesus as transmitted in Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts. Additional subjects of intense study for him during his formal education included rational psychology, experimental psychology, physics and anthropology.

He did early and seminal work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and published some two dozen articles on Semitic paleography in learned journals. The first of his 16 books was the two-volume work, The Scribal Character of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

From 1958 until 1964 Malachi Martin served in Rome, where he was a close associate of, and carried out many sensitive missions for the renowned Jesuit Cardinal Augustin Bea, and for Pope John XXIII.

While in Rome he was also Professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute of the Vatican, where he taught Hebrew, Aramaic, Paleography and Scripture."

Excerpted from.
www.christianstudycenter.com...

The above link only has the biography of father Malachi.



[Edited on 30-5-2004 by Muaddib]

Zetatalk is anoying imho.

It has like 1000's of pictures with all different kinds of lensflares and nice sun trough clouds pictures and thats about it.

And best of it is, they all get descriptions for every lensflare halo to be something like a metior or a UFO.

Originally posted by thematrix
And best of it is, they all get descriptions for every lensflare halo to be something like a metior or a UFO.

That is not what they say about the pics in the link I sent, all pictures is supposed to show Planet X nothing else. I can agree however that the site is a little too much, that whole "white lie" incident pretty much sealed their fate regarding the credability department. In conclusion I guess we will know pretty soon anyway since it�s supposedly behind the sun now and should if they are right be coming out pretty soon.

[Edited on 30-5-2004 by Satariel]

[Edited on 30-5-2004 by Satariel]

Nancy keeps saying the same thing...it can't be seen because it is behind the sun.

Well, you don't have to be an astronomer to know, that in the 2-3 years she has been saying that the planet is behind the sun and this is why we can't see it, is just bunk, there is no truth in that.

It is impossible for any object in space to be behind the sun for such a long time, since Earth, and the rest of the planets, move around the sun.(unless the object/planet shares an orbit with Earth and keeps pace with it on the other side of the sun, but then it wouldn't be incoming. This in itself would be nearly impossible)

It could be possible for comets to come from the south pole, relative to the sun and the Earth, but if this was true and it can only be seen in the south pole, then none of the photographs she has on her website would even be remotely possible, ( if they were not fakes or lensflares) since they were taken mostly in North America, not in Antarctica.

I think the whole Planet X debate falls short on one simple thing: If Planet X has an orbit of 3600 years then we should have nothing at all to worry about since Earth is older than that and has obviously survived several passings. All we need to do is go back 3600 years from now and see if there is any records of major cataclysms at that point. As far as I know there are only one: The eruption of the Greek volcano of Thera in 1628 BC.

The Egyptian Empire spanned from 3100 BC to 395 AD and nowhere during this time there seems to have been any major cataclysms. This gives us a timespan of about 5000 years up until now and still no Planet X.

Also the sheer scale of the supposed Planet X is much to large to not affect the rest of the planets severly if it should come as near as they say it is.

Kind of funny and refreshing page on the subject:

www.xs4all.nl...



[Edited on 30-5-2004 by Satariel]

[Edited on 30-5-2004 by Satariel]

[Edited on 30-5-2004 by Satariel]

Satariel, the point of this post is that there seems to be a planet and possibly a failed star "in the outskirts of the solar system." Not of any proof that they are incoming.

The only thing that I even remotely implied is that it is very possible one of these giant bodies in outer space could also be the cause of the many asteroids coming our way now and then hitting Earth.

Debunking the idea, that all the data seems to show there is at least one other planet beyond Pluto, because of crazy Liederman and Hazelwood decided to make money and a prank saying that planet x was inbound in 2003, is just naive, and reaks of ignorance since there is data that shows it is not only probable, but seems to be the case for the planetary bodies to be at the edge of the solar system.

What father Malachi said, could very well be that the vatican knows about some asteroid or meteor which is coming, or it could be something else.

Once again, ignoring the data and the reliable sources because of people like Liederman, and Mark Hazelwood is just making sure people like them won, because we would be disregarding the real evidence.

The link that you posted Satariel, does debunk the idea of Liederman and Hazelwood, but it does not debunk the idea of astronomers that there seem to be large planets at the edge of the system of Sol.


BTW, i am not saying a comet is coming to hit us this year either. At least there is no evidence for this.



[Edited on 30-5-2004 by Muaddib]

Muaddib: Sorry for leading the thread astray, I do agree on the "many asteroids coming our way now" part. I did not mean to debunk the initial post at all, my concern was for Planet X only. It was late and I was reading about Planet X and found this thread and one thing led to the other lol.

Anyway I found this interesting piece of info regarding a possible force in the outskirts of our solar system:

www.telegraph.co.uk.../news/2002/02/10/wnasa10.xml&sShe%20et=/news/2002/02/10/ixworld.html

A little old but still interesting...


[Edited on 30-5-2004 by Satariel]

[Edited on 30-5-2004 by Satariel]

[Edited on 30-5-2004 by Satariel]

I found a couple of good links

Planet x (1)

Planet x (2)