1. RELATING TO A VULCAN LIKE PLANET
2. RELATING TO OTHER NEW SOLAR PLANETS
3. KUIPER BELT OBJECTS & COMETS

• Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
• Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many.
• Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
• Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
• Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
• But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

- Gautama Buddha

1. RELATING TO A VULCAN LIKE PLANET
   • THE PERIHELION PRECESSION OF SATURN, PLANET X/NEMESIS AND MOND
     We show that the retrograde perihelion precession of Saturn \Delta\dot\varpi, recently estimated by different teams of astronomers by processing ranging data from the Cassini spacecraft and amounting to some milliarcseconds per century, can be explained in terms of a localized, distant body X, not yet directly discovered. From the determination of its tidal parameter K = GM_X/r_X^3 as a function of its ecliptic longitude \lambda_X and latitude \beta_X, we calculate the distance at which X may exist for different values of its mass, ranging from the size of Mars to that of the Sun. The minimum distance would occur for X located perpendicularly to the ecliptic, while the maximum distance is for X lying in the ecliptic. We find for rock-ice planets of the size of Mars and the Earth that they would be at about 80-150 au, respectively, while a Jupiter-sized gaseous giant would be at approximately 1 kau. A typical brown dwarf would be located at about 4 kau, while an object with the mass of the Sun would be at approximately 10 kau, so that it could not be Nemesis for which a solar mass and a heliocentric distance of about 88 kau are predicted. If X was directed towards a specific direction, i.e. that of the Galactic Center, it would mimick the action of a recently proposed form of the External Field Effect (EFE) in the framework of the MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND).
     Vulcan is about half Jupiter mass (141 +/- 35 Earth masses), and a tiny bit closer than its aphelion of 448 AU aphelion.
   • COMMENT ONE - THE WHISTLEBLOWER
   • MORE ON PLANET-X
     Van Flandern wrote: "If Planet X crosses Jupiter's orbit, it is a goner, either by collision with Jupiter or ejection from the solar system, within 100,000 years... The encounters with Jupiter are not merely potential, but inevitable, because of forced precession of the orbit by Jupiter... Jupiter's gravity is so strong that it can eliminate another body in a single close approach."* Furthermore, since the Earth's orbit was almost perfectly circular, Van Flandern ruled out any possibility that Earth had suffered a major catastrophic collision. And thus he negated the idea that the Babylonian Epic of Creation, as decoded by Sitchin, was a historical record of events in our solar system. This would appear to doom Sitchin's "twelfth planet" that ancient astronomers had referred to using the names "Marduk" and "Nibiru". But notice that it does not doom the possibility that Tiamat, Marduk and Nibiru are comet swarms that could "appear as large as a planet. While these would eventually be ejected from or solar system or collide with the known planets, at other times new ones would be drawn in from the Kuiper belt.by Vulcan. Vulcan never gets closer to the Sun than 134 AU, about 2.7 times as far as Pluto's far point is from the Sun.
     'Statistically, a few passing stars would approach within 40 times (2000 AU) Pluto's distance of the Sun over the life of the solar system. They would tend to perturb the outermost planets (10 to 40 times more distant than Pluto) into planet-crossing orbits. Eventually the crossings would result in close encounters between planets. Vulcan never gets farther from the Sun than 450 AU, about 9 times as distant as Pluto's far point is from the Sun.
     Van Flandern noted, however, that once Planet X had been forced inwards, it would suffer repeated encounters with the other planets, eventually leading to its ejection from the solar system.[11] Van Flandern confirmed that such a planet-crossing orbit was highly unstable and unlikely to last for more than 100,000 years, mainly due to the powerful influence of Jupiter, by far the largest planet of the solar system:
   • THE MYSTERY OF PLANET X Van Flandern (whose astronomical specialty is celestial mechanics) wrote:
     
     "Statistically, a few passing stars would approach within 40 times Pluto's distance of the Sun (2000 AU) over the life of the solar system. They would tend to perturb the outermost planets... into planet-crossing orbits. Eventually the crossings would result in close encounters between planets."
     In a later communication (03/28/2003) Van Flandern further clarified this comment. " Orbits at large distances are unstable over the solar system’s lifetime. (This is not just my opinion, but standard dynamical astronomy based on the statistics of passing stars.) So rare cases where stars are now seen at such distances must be of relatively recent origin. These are usually either systems that have recently escaped from open clusters, or multiple-star systems that have experienced a close encounter, leading to near-ejection of a member star. Less likely are transfer captures from other passing stars. There are also many cases of recent star system formation. For example, the Orion Nebula seems to be an active stellar nursery. All we can be sure of is that it is very unlikely such systems have been around for 4.5 billion years."
     Upon asking if there were any independent evidence that the Alpha Centauri trinary was a relatively new stellar system, Van Flandern on 03/28/2003 wrote. "None that I know of. The only recognized indicator of age would be metallicity in the stars. (High metallicity would indicate relative youth.) But I have no knowledge of the metallicity index for the Alpha Centauri system. Otherwise, the presence of a distant companion is the only clue. (But you are obviously looking for some *independent* evidence of youth.)."
     Vulcan's orbit, as described in this web site, falls within about a fifth of this distance. Therefore its orbit would not likely be perturbed by the passage of such a star. However, if stars pass within 2000 AU, many well also pass within ten or twenty times this distance. This would appear to doom Matese' "THE MASSIVE SOLAR COMPANION" discussed below.
     
     Van Flandern wrote: "If Planet X crosses Jupiter's orbit, it is a goner, either by collision with Jupiter or ejection from the solar system, within 100,000 years... The encounters with Jupiter are not merely potential, but inevitable, because of forced precession of the orbit by Jupiter... Jupiter's gravity is so strong that it can eliminate another body in a single close approach."
     This would appear to doom Sitchin's "twelfth planet" that ancient astronomers had referred to using the names "Marduk" and "Nibiru".
   • PLANET X, 1841-1992
     Tom van Flandern examined the positions of Uranus and Neptune in the 1970s. The calculated orbit of Neptune fit observations only for a few years, and then started to drift away. Uranus orbit fit the observations during one revolution but not during the previous revolution. In 1976 Tom van Flandern became convinced that there was a tenth planet. After the discovery of Charon in 1978 showed the mass of Pluto to be much smaller than expected, van Flandern convinced his USNO colleague Robert S. Harrington of the existence of this tenth planet. They started to collaborate by investigate the Neptunian satellite system. Soon their views diverged. van Flandern thought the tenth planet had formed beyond Neptune's orbit, while Harrington believed it had formed between the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. van Flandern thought more data was needed, such as an improved mass for Neptune furnished by Voyager 2. Harrington started to search for the planet by brute force -- he started in 1979, and by 1987 he had still not found any planet. van Flandern and Harrington suggested that the tenth planet might be near aphelion in a highly elliptical orbit. If the planet is dark, it might be as faint as magnitude 16-17, suggests van Flandern. This site concludes that Vulcan is of magnitude 20.5 - 21.1, passed aphelion circa 1970 and its orbit has an eccentricity of about 0.54.
   • WHY THE SECRET ABOUT THE 'NEW PLANET'?
     It is already known that the body was discovered in October 21 2003 by the designation 2003 UB313.
     Why is it now stated it was spotted in "January", inferring that the discovery occurs in 2005?
     "Xena was first spotted in January. Since then scientists have been checking its position and size before making their announcement. They had hoped to hold back for longer, but a secure website containing details of the discovery was recently hacked and the hacker threatened to release the information."
   • ASTRONOMERS AT PALOMAR OBSERVATORY DISCOVER A 10TH PLANET BEYOND PLUTO
   • CONSTANT COMET THREAT
     Most scientists have presumed that these star crossings will lead to a shower of comets raining down on the Earth and the rest of the inner solar system. Some have even claimed to find evidence of periodic mass extinctions that might be explained by a single (as-yet-unidentified) star in an elliptical orbit around the sun.

     ORBITAL PARAMETERS OF
     VULCAN AND SOME(?) OF ITS RELATED OBJECTS

     * Astronomers are already postulating that these objects are captured extrasolar planetesimals from low-mass stars or brown dwarfs encountering the Sun.
     ** Kenyon and Bromley say that only the detection of objects with orbits inclined 40 degrees or more from the plane of the ecliptic will prove the existence of 'alien' planetoids. This may be why the existence of 2003 UB313 was kept secret. In other words, it associated these bodies with a brown dwarf star, i. e. Vulcan.

     Parameter	VULCAN	2000* CR105	Sedna 2003* VB12	2003** UB313	1996 TL66	2003 EL61	PLUTO
     Period (years)	4969.0 +30/- 24	3366	11249	557	755	?	248.09
     Eccentricity	0.537 +0.09/-0.04	0.804	0.849	0.442	0.589	0.1888	0.2485
     Inclination	48.44o +3o/- 9o	22.758o	11.932o	44.18o	23.9o	28.19o	17.14o
     Asc. Node	189.0o +/- 1.3o	128.28o	144.54o	35.88o	217.8o	121.90o	110.303 o
     Perihelion Arg.	257.8o +6o/- 13.5o	316.6o	311.47o	151.3o	184.7o	239.51o	113.8o
     Aphelion (AU)	448	405	928	97.6	135	51.524	49.305
     Perihelion (AU)	135	44	76	37.8	35	35.155	29.658

   • Details:
     • ORBIT FIT AND ASTROMETRIC RECORD FOR 03UB313
     • ORBIT FIT AND ASTROMETRIC RECORD FOR 00CR105
     • ORBIT FIT AND ASTROMETRIC RECORD FOR 03EL61
   • 'TENTH PLANET' HUNTED IN WRONG PART OF THE SKY
     It turns out that astronomers failed to aim NASA's infrared telescope at 2003 UB313 correctly, so the object could be even bigger than their estimates suggest.
     Sure it was an accident.
   • ROGUE BROWN DWARF LURKS IN OUR COSMIC NEIGHBORHOOD - Apr 7, 2010
     UGPSJ0722-05 is all by itself, floating through interstellar space, possibly having formed there on its lonesome, or kicked out of its host star system by an ancient gravitational game of stellar pinball.
     Oddly, when looking at the spectrum from UGPSJ0722-05, there is an anomalous absorption line (i.e. a particular wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum that is missing) that cannot be explained by our current understanding of brown dwarfs. Perhaps the UKIRT has discovered a new breed of brown dwarf; a very cool object with some chemical in its atmosphere that absorbs infrared radiation at a wavelength of 1.25 micrometers.
   • 2003 UB313 Orbit
     2003 UB313 has an orbital period of about 560 years, and currently lies at almost its maximum possible distance from the Sun (aphelion), about 97 astronomical units away from the Earth. Like Pluto, its orbit is highly eccentric, and brings it to within 35 AU of the Sun at its perihelion
     Unlike the terrestrial planets and gas giants, whose orbits all lie roughly in the same plane as the Earth's, 2003 UB313's orbit is inclined at an angle of about 44 degrees to the ecliptic. The reason it had not been noticed until now is because of its steep orbital inclination: most searches for large outer solar system objects concentrate on the ecliptic plane, in which most solar system material is found.
     2003 UB313 albedo must be relatively high (greater than 0.5), making it more Pluto-like than any other Kuiper belt object so far discovered.
   • OBJECT BIGGER THAN PLUTO DISCOVERED, CALLED 10TH PLANET
     Brown said 2003 UB 313 appears to be surfaced with methane ice, as is Pluto. That's not the case with other large Kuiper Belt objects,
     His best estimate is that it is 2,100 miles wide, about 1-1/2 times the diameter of Pluto.
     The object is inclined by a whopping 45 degrees to the main plane of the solar system, where most of the other planets orbit. That's why it eluded discovery: nobody was looking there until now, Brown said.
     The team had hoped to analyze the data further before announcing the planet but were forced to do so Friday evening because word had leaked out, Brown said. "Somebody hacked our website," he said, and "they were planning to make [the data] public."
   • DISTANT WORLD TOPS PLUTO FOR SIZE
     New observations of the object, which goes by the designation 2003 UB313, show it to have a diameter of some 3,000km - about 700km more than Pluto.
   • MICHAEL E. BROWN Small Planets
   • TENTH PLANET DISCOVERED IN OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM
     Calculations showed it was near the most distant point of its 560-year orbit - in 280 years it will be only 36 times as far from the sun as the Earth is. (A graphic of its orbit can be viewed here.)
     Its orbit is unusual in being tilted 44?from the orbital plane of the Earth and most other planets. Brown suspects the planet's orbit was warped by a series of encounters with Neptune. Neptune would tug it back into the ecliptic plane!
   • 1982 Science Digest Article
     
   • KEY EVIDENCE, FROM A CHILDREN'S ENCYCLOPEDIA!
     One of the more amusing pieces of evidence for the existence of Planet X is a picture from the 1987 New Science and Invention Encyclopedia. In a section on space probes, the encyclopedia shows the paths of the 2 Pioneer probes and illustrates how the probes were used in the search for more planets. It shows the Earth, the Sun, a dead star (at 50 billion miles or 538 AU) and a tenth planet (at 4.7 billion miles or 50 AU).
     With the discovery of Xena (2003 UB 313) whose orbit varies from 36 to about 97 AU, the image is a reasonable fit to Xena (2003 UB 313) position. This Vulcan web site carries Vulcan at 41, not 50 billion miles
     
     Nearly all binary stars orbit each other in fairly elliptical orbits. Some of these support a 3:2 comet resonance as does our dark star Vulcan. See comment two by our orbit analyst. Here three or four of our nearest ten star systems support such a resonance. Any astronomer skilled in celestial mechanics would be aware of this possibility. So the existence of a 'dead star' in our solar system implies a nominal 40% chance that the inner planets of our solar system would be subject to bombardment by comet swarms in resonate orbits. However, most of these star systems are close together, so the comets in resonate orbits would be rapidly swept out of these solar systems by a variety of means. However, in our solar system, the 'dead star' draws Kuiper belt bodies into the inner solar system. These bodies crumble rounding the Sun producing comet swarms. These comet swarms would stay around for several million years. Some of these comets would impact Earth causing massive natural catastrophes. The above illustration clearly associates the 'tenth planet' with the 'dead star' that in turn indicates Earth's vulnerability to natural comet impact catastrophes. This may be why the existence of 2003 UB 313 was kept secret.
   • 
     
     PHOTOCOPIES OF NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
     Reporting the discovery of a Jupiter sized planet (Our Vulcan) 50 billion miles away.
   • COMMENT ONE - THE WHISTLEBLOWER
     In a recent unrecorded conversation with us, not yet reported on our site, Henry confirmed the existence of the "Dark Star", and that its reality had been deduced by American military astrophysicists because of the need to account for certain gravitational anomalies that had been observed. (He mentioned the Pioneer spacecraft, for instance.) This is very important: the "Dark Star" is fully known and understood in the "black world". When he told us this, we immediately realised how extraordinarily important this was.
     Right See:
     IS IRAS OBJECT 1732+239 NEAR VULCAN? - CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
     "Henry went on to explain that this was linked to Dan Burisch's testimony and to the 2012 problem. Again, he was citing real-life feet-on-the-ground "black physics", and NOT esoteric knowledge. The Dark Star (he did not mention whether it had been named, and we neglected to ask) has an extremely elliptical orbit
     Right See:
     SUMMARY: VULCAN'S NEW ORBITAL PARAMETERS Its in the C"EV orbit.
     And
     THE 2006(7) AND 2012 STRIKE DATES
     "The problems started a few years ago when the current approach of the Dark Star began to create resonance effects on Sol, our own sun. Kerry and I presumed these resonance effects are electromagnetic in nature rather than purely gravitational, but again we didn't verify this. This, crucially, is what is causing the current increase in solar activity, and the rapid heating up not only of Earth (as in global warming), but of every planet in the system."
     Right See:
     ANALYSIS - PHYSICAL DATA IMPACTING CANDIDATE VULCAN ORBITS
     It rotates the core of the planets causing a heat pulse to arrive some years later. For Earth this happened in 1970 and the big heat pulse finally hit the oceans circa 2005 causing lots of hurricanes, rain, etc.
     It's now approaching, and NOAA knows that this is the indirect cause (triggering increased solar activity through complex forms of resonance) of the heating of all the planets, not just ours. They factor this data into all their supercomputer weather forecasting calculations. [Note: the big question is why all this has been hushed up. Henry can speculate as well as we can ?bad news on the way? ?but he did not know for certain.]
     Right See:
     See above hyper link. It past aphelion in 1970 and is now inbound. But it never gets near the known planets. The "bad news" is that it forms comet swarms in a 3:2 resonate orbit and we are due for a passage of several clusters of this swarm this century. Also See:
     NEAR MISSES AND POSSIBLE IMPACT EVENTS SUMMARY
     Also See:
     • RED PLANET WARMING High-resolution images snapped by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor show that levels of frozen water and carbon dioxide at the Red Planet's poles have dwindled dramatically over a single Martian year. Mars, like Earth, is warming from the inside due to a shift of its primordial black hole core as Vulcan passed aphelion circa 1970.
     • MARS EMERGING FROM ICE AGE, DATA SUGGEST
     • AND FINALLY: ASTRONOMERS DETECT SUDDEN CLIMATE CHANGE ON PLUTO
       In the last 14 years, one or more changes have occurred. "Pluto's atmosphere is undergoing global cooling, while other data indicates that the surface seems to be getting slightly warmer.
     • SUV'S ON JUPITER?
       Are humans responsible for climate change on the outer reaches of the solar system, or is it the sun?
       Or has Vulcan passing aphelion influenced the core related heating of all the solar planets?
     • THE WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEM IS UNDERGOING GLOBAL WARMING.
     This issue is connected with the Roswell catastrophe.
     Maybe Right See:
     CURRENT EVIDENCE OF SEPTIMUS' AND VULCAN'S MASS AND ORBIT See Figure 5A. Extra-terrestrial Alien Description Of Our Alphabet And Solar System.
     It is connected with a human/alien meeting case that happened 6 October 1974.
   • TIME LINE OF RESEARCH REGARDING THE "SEARCH FOR PLANET X"
     The Sumerian Descriptions of our solar system.
   • ABADDON AND RETROGRADE ORBIT
     In 1983 a large planet outside our known solar system was discovered. The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other major news services carried the story. Unlike our known planets that revolve around the sun in a counter clockwise and circular direction, Planet X (as it was labeled) is in a retrograde (clockwise) and longer elliptical orbit about our sun. It is estimated by some that its perigee (closest orbit to the sun) occurs every 5,000 years or so. The effects of its intrusion into our solar system could be cataclysmic to all the planets, including earth.
   • POSSIBLY AS LARGE AS JUPITER; MYSTERY HEAVENLY BODY DISCOVERED
     A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this solar system has been found in the direction of the constellation Orion by an orbiting telescope aboard the U.S. infrared astronomical satellite. The 1999 Paper estimates that this object is just a little larger than the size of Jupiter by two methods independent of the IRAS data considered in this Washington Post article. The directionof the object is considered disinformation to mislead other astronomers.
     When IRAS scientists first saw the mystery body and calculated that it could be as close as 50 trillion miles, there was some speculation that it might be moving toward Earth. The 1997 Paper estimates that Vulcan passed aphelion around 1970 by a method independent of this data and consistent with this conclusion by the IRAS team.
   • NEWS ARCHIVES (IRAS data)
     
     New York Times January 30, 1983
     
     The Washington Post, 31-Dec-1983, (a front page story) ARTICLE: MYSTERY HEAVENLY BODY DISCOVERED
     
     US News World Report PLANET X - IS IT REALLY OUT THERE? Sept 10, 1984
   • PLANET X
     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. This is a nice summary of material that found its way into the media circa the mid eighties concerning Planet X. The Vulcan web site suggests that one of the objects found by the IRAS system could be Vulcan (IRAS object 1732+239) and according to Vulcan's orbit analysis it is now near far point, about 41.66 billion miles away.
   • NIBIRU FIRST SPOTED 1981 BY IRAS
     IRAS was not launched until 1982.
   • IS ANYONE EVEN LOOKING? Like the government would want people to know they are in danger from impacts from a passing comet swarm!
     One might expect that the astronomical community would be excited at the prospect of discovering this planet/sub-brown dwarf in the Oort Cloud. On the contrary, this subject lies on the very fringe of astronomy, and my own speculations are still more 'out there' than Murray and Matese!
     
     Planet X is sweeping out the Kuiper Belt - Official!
     
     ""There's something funny going on out there." Marc Buie of the Lowell Observatory in Arizona is talking about a strange feature at the far edge of our solar system beyond Pluto, among the swarm of small worlds called the Kuiper Belt. It's a wild, uncharted place out there, teeming with icy celestial bodies that may give us essential clues to how the planets formed. It may even be a breeding ground for life. But what's intriguing Buie at the moment is the very edge, about 50 times further out from the Sun than the Earth's orbit. Here, at the "Kuiper Cliff", the number of astronomical objects drops off precipitously. Buie won't be drawn too far but, when pressed, he speaks of the possibility that some "massive object" has swept the zone clean of debris..." [Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest (6)]
     
     Brown Dwarf at the Right Distance
     
     Only 12 light years away, the star Epsilon Indi has been found to have a surprise brown dwarf companion, which was spotted by examining various photographic plates to the star's immediate vicinity. The star experienced no tell-tale wobble because the brown dwarf is orbiting at a whooping 1500 Astronomical Units. This is a promising development because I think it likely that the Sun's own smaller and darker companion achieves aphelion between 500 and 2000AU. Given the evidence of Epsilon Indi B, this does not appear to be all that unreasonable.
     Vulcan is half the size of Jupiter and 448 AU away (in 1970).
   • TIGHTENING OUR KUIPER BELT: from the edge of the solar system come hints of a disrupted youth - Out There
     Neptune's orbit, a nearly circular ellipse some three billion miles away from the Sun, traces the Kuiper Belt's inner edge.
   • PLANETS PLAN BOOSTS TALLY TO 12 Charon is currently described as a moon of Pluto, but because of its size some experts consider it a twin planet.
   • DINKY PLUTO LOSES ITS STATUS AS PLANET Pluto and objects like it will be known as "dwarf planets," which raised some thorny questions about semantics: If a raincoat is still a coat, and a cell phone is still a phone, why isn't a dwarf planet still a planet?
     Pluto and UB₃₁₃ are planets of Vulcan, a brown dwarf star
   • CHAOS AND STRIFE BEHIND PLUTO'S DEMISE
     Eris was officially named by the International Astronomical Union on Wednesday. It had previously been known as 2003 UB313. Astronomers last month voted to shrink the solar system to just eight planets and downgrade Pluto to a "dwarf planet". That category also now includes Eris and the asteroid Ceres.
     
     After Pluto lost its planetary status, hundreds of scientists circulated a petition protesting against the decision. In mythology, Eris caused a quarrel among goddesses that led to the Trojan War. Eris' moon has also received a formal name, Dysnomia, the daughter of Eris known as the spirit of lawlessness.
     
     Eris, which measures about 115km wider than Pluto, is the farthest known object in the solar system at 14.5 billion km from the Sun. It is also the third brightest object in the Kuiper belt, a disc of icy debris beyond the orbit of Neptune.
   • COPERNICUS SMILED
     A real revolution is afoot in planetary science. The first shot was fired in 1930, with the discovery of Pluto, but almost no one realized its import. The second and third shots came in the late 1970s, with the discovery of distant objects called Chiron and Charon, but again, few recognized what they would portend. Rapid-fire volleys began in the 1990s, as myriad discoveries of icy bodies 100s to well over 1000 kilometers across occurred in the Kuiper Belt, just beyond Neptune, became an observational reality. But it was only this year, with the recently announced discovery of 2003 UB313-a world larger than Pluto- that we have heard the equivalent of the American Revolution's "shot heard round the world."
     A new theory of planet formation is needed, and here is one.
     The Astro-Metric Concept
   • 17 PLANETS? ASTRONOMERS' HEADS SPINNING
     The discovery of new objects in the icy junkyard called the Kuiper Belt forces science to rethink the definition of a planet. BEYOND THE KUIPER BELT: ASTRONOMERS ANNOUNCE DISCOVERY OF FARTHEST OBJECT ORBITING THE SUN Even at its closest, Sedna comes no nearer to the Sun than 76 astronomical units (AU), each AU equaling the average distance of the Earth from the Sun. In contrast, says Brown, the Kuiper Belt has a well defined outer edge at about 55 AU. Furthermore Sedna's elongated orbit takes it far beyond any known KBO, to a distance of 900 AU from the Sun.
   • GEOCENTRIC EPHEMERIS OF NEW MINOR PLANET SEDNA, 10 DAY STEPS
     z Ephemeris of Sedna, asteroid number 90377.
   • STRANGE NEW OBJECT FOUND AT EDGE OF SOLAR SYSTEM
     A large object has been found beyond Pluto travelling in an orbit tilted by 47 degrees to most other bodies in the solar system. Astronomers are at a loss to explain why the object's orbit is so off-kilter while being almost circular.
     But at 47 degrees, 2004 XR190's orbit is one of the most tilted, or inclined, Kuiper Belt Objects known.
     2004 XR190, however, follows a nearly circular path. And it is too distant to have come into direct contact with Neptune, traveling between 52 and 62 AU from the Sun. Its orbit is also too circular - and too small - to have been tilted by a passing star, says Allen.
     He points out that this object was found when it happened to be passing through the plane of the solar system - where it spends just 2% of its orbit. That suggests many more such objects remain undiscovered, tilted at orbits where most surveys do not search for them.
     He ventures another possible explanation - that the Sun had a twin and that both stars followed circular orbits around each other. "That could excite inclinations without exciting the eccentricities," he says. "However, this idea creates more problems than it solves, by far."
   • SCENARIOS FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE ORBITS OF THE TRANS-NEPTUNIAN OBJECTS 2000 CR105 AND 2003 VB12 (SEDNA)
     - The Astronomical Journal, volume 128 (2004), pages 2564?576
     In this paper, we explore five seemingly promising mechanisms to explain the origin of the orbits of these peculiar objects: (1) the passage of Neptune through a high-eccentricity phase, (2) the past existence of massive planetary embryos in the Kuiper belt or the scattered disk, (3) the presence of a massive trans-Neptunian disk at early epochs that perturbed highly inclined scattered- disk objects, (4) encounters with other stars that perturbed the orbits of some of the solar system's trans-Neptunian planetesimals, and (5) the capture of extrasolar planetesimals from low-mass stars or brown dwarfs encountering the Sun. Of all these mechanisms, the ones giving the most satisfactory results are those related to the passage of stars (4 and 5).
     Vulcan is just such a low-mass or brown dwarf star, and it is still in orbit about the Sun.
   • DID OUR SUN CAPTURE ALIEN WORLDS?
     Kenyon and Bromley suggest that the near-collision occurred when our Sun was at least 30 million years old, and probably no more than 200 million years old. A fly-by distance of 150-200 A.U. would be close enough to disrupt the outer Kuiper Belt without affecting the inner planets. Vulcan ranges from 135 AU to 448 AU.
     According to the simulations, the passing star's gravity would sweep clear the outer solar system beyond about 50 A.U., even as our Sun's gravity pulled some of the alien planetoids into its grasp. The model explains both the orbit of Sedna and the observed
     sharp outer edge of our Kuiper Belt, where few objects reside beyond 50 A.U.
     Kenyon and Bromley's simulations indicate that thousands or possibly millions of alien Kuiper Belt Objects were stripped from the passing star. However, none have yet been positively identified. Sedna is probably homegrown, not captured. Among the known Kuiper Belt Objects, an icy rock dubbed 2000 CR¹⁰⁵ is the best candidate for capture given its unusually elliptical and highly inclined orbit. But only the detection of objects with orbits inclined more than 40 degrees from the plane of the solar system will clinch the case for the presence of extrasolar planets in our backyard. like 2003 UB313's 44^o orbital inclination.
   • 'MINI SOLAR SYSTEM' DISCOVERED
     Scientists found a tiny brown dwarf, or failed star, less than one hundredth the mass of the sun, surrounded by what appears to be a disk of dust and gas.
   • ALIEN TREASURES IN OUR BACKYARD
     Some objects in our solar system formed around another star
     How did these adopted worlds join our solar family? They arrived through an interstellar trade that took place more than 4 billion years ago when a wayward star brushed past our solar system. According to calculations made by Kenyon and astronomer Benjamin Bromley (University of Utah) and published in the Dec. 2, 2004, Nature, the Sun's gravity plucked asteroid-sized objects from the visiting star. At the same time, the star pulled material from the outer reaches of our solar system into its grasp.
   • STAND BACK CSI, THE ASTRONOMERS OF CFA MAY HAVE SOLVED A MYSTERY OF COSMIC PROPORTIONS.
     The computer models indicate thousands, possibly millions, of alien objects were stripped from the passing star. At this point, none has yet been identified. During the simulations, the Sun captures up to one-third of the star's objects, adding them to the Kuiper Belt. In fact, the models provide a 10 percent chance that Sedna was captured during the flyby. "It's possible that some of the objects in our solar system actually formed around another star," Kenyon says.
     The passing star could have pulled objects like Sedna out of their circular orbits and also spun away millions of KBOs. This would have trimmed the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt to 50 AU from the Sun while leaving some of the passing star's own objects behind. "There may not have been an equal exchange, but there was certainly an exchange," says Bromley.
     Kenyon, Bromley, and fellow astronomers will proceed to search for objects with highly inclined orbits. Because only captured objects have orbits inclined more than 40^o, detection of such objects would confirm the presence of foreign objects in our solar system - like 2003 UB313's 44^o orbital inclination.
   • EARTH'S SOLAR SYSTEM SHAPED BY BRUSH WITH STAR, ASTRONOMERS SAY
     The new computer model shows how young planet-sized objects with circular orbits around the Sun might have been gravitationally slung onto elongated paths, putting them too far away to spot with current technology. Such an interaction might also have caused a sharp cutoff detected at the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy objects beyond Neptune.
   • PLANET X
     Our most powerful detection techniques are capable of detecting Earth-sized planet 70 AU from the Sun, a Jupiter-sized planet up to 120 AU away (neglecting its gravitational effects on the Sun). Of course, the sky is very big and the most powerful telescopes can only look at a very tiny fraction of it at a time. Pluto, for comparison, is around 30 AU away at the moment.
     Vulcan is half the size of Jupiter and 448 AU away (in 1970).
   • ASTRONOMERS FIND MOON OF 10TH PLANET
     By determining the moon's distance and orbit around Xena, scientists can calculate how heavy Xena is. The faster a moon goes around a planet, the more massive a planet is.
     The International Astronomical Union, a group of scientists responsible for naming planets, is deciding on formal names for Xena and Gabrielle.
   • DISCOVERY OF GABRIELLE
     More observations are planned to calculate the orbit of Gabrielle around Xena, which appears to have an orbital period of about 14 days. From the orbital period and semi-major axis (approximately the average distance between Xena and Gabrielle), it is possible to determine the mass of Xena and confirm that it is more massive than Pluto,
   • 2003 UB313, THE 10TH PLANET, HAS A MOON!
     Right now we are not certain how big the moon is, but we can make some guesses based on how much light it reflects. We know that it is about 60 times fainter than the planet, suggesting that it is perhaps 8 times smaller in diameter than the planet. Interestingly, the planet-moon system appears similar to the Earth- Moon system, except reduced in scale by a factor of about 5-10. Xena is about 5 times smaller than the Earth. Gabrielle is about 8 times smaller than the Moon. And the two are separated by a distance that is about 10 times smaller than the Earth-Moon separation. Not a perfect match but awfully close.
     If Xena is 0.01 earth masses, it likely is not the tenth planet (sometimes called Septimus-B; see Table 8A in the ANALYSIS OF THE AKKADIAN SEAL) By comparison, Mercury is 0.045, Venus is 0.82 and Mars is 0.108 and Pluto 0.0025 earth mass.
   • NEW "PLANET" IS LARGER THAN PLUTO
     Claims that the Solar System has a tenth planet are bolstered by the finding by a group lead by Bonn astrophysicists that this alleged planet, announced last summer and tentatively named 2003 UB313, is bigger than Pluto. By measuring its thermal emission, the scientists were able to determine a diameter of about 3000 km, which makes it 700 km larger than Pluto and thereby marks it as the largest solar system object found since the discovery of Neptune in 1846 (Nature, 2 February 2006).
   • FAREWELL PLUTO?
     The discovery of a new planet in our Solar System could have an unintended consequence - the elimination of Pluto in the list of planets everyone has in their heads. Is it time to wave this distant, dark piece of rock farewell?
     Pluto is a planet spawned by Vulcan, so it is different than the first eight that were spawned by the Sun.
   • REVIEW OF SOLAR SYSTEM MAY LEAVE PLUTO OUT IN THE COLD
     Along with Xena, the nickname for an object known officially as 2003 UB313, bodies called Sedna and Quaoar (pronounced kwa-whar) have been identified at the edge of the solar system. Although both are smaller than the smallest official planet, many astronomers believe that these all belong to a similar category of overgrown, icy asteroids in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune.
     it would be better to call Pluto, Xena and Sedna "ice dwarfs" than "trans- Neptunian planets" because it is more descriptive.
   • COMMENT ONE BY OUR ORBIT ANALYST
     Hazardous comets must have a perihelion inside the Earth's orbit. The comets and Vulcan, in our studies, have roughly the same aphelion distance from the Sun. The comets have a 3 (comet's orbit period):2 (Vulcan's orbit period) ratio with Vulcan. As pointed out elsewhere Pluto and Neptune have approximately a 2 (Pluto's period):3(Neptune's period) ratio but the geometry is very different in that case.
     
     Orbit period is determined by semi-major axis. We could have different orbit eccentricities. Our current best Vulcan orbit has a period of about 5000 years (note: the impact data is pushing our 4969 +30/-23 years Vulcan period upward toward the 5000 years value). The orbit's eccentricity gives us aphelion of about 450 AU. Different Vulcan orbit eccentricities can produce hazardous comets in a 2:3 orbit period ratio as will be shown latter. Our current best orbit has an eccentricity of about 0.537. The 2:3 resonance is obtained for comet orbits where the encounters occur at points before and after Vulcan aphelion.
     
     Our orbit analysis is sound. We solved the problem as a deterministic case. We did not have redundant data. Granted, Vulcan's orbit is based on a simple two body model. We have Quinn's long term Solar system data that allowed us to do reasonable DOM (Dawn Of Mankind) calculations, and we have taken into account parallax. The nature of the geometry was such that an initial orbit could be obtained without considering parallax. Then the results were refined. The data provided clearly shows that the orbital solutions agree with the assumed input data:
     1. Time, RA and DC of the Buddha point as observed from Earth.
     2. Time, RA and DC of the Christ point
     3. Time, RA and DC of the IRAS point
     4. Time of Vulcan aphelion passage
     Our earlier work was based on a fixed obliquity of the ecliptic and assumed a constant precession of the equinoxes. The eccentricity and semi-major axis of the Earth's orbit were assumed to remain constant.
     
     The use of Quinn's data for later work and the incorporation of parallax corrections resulted in minor changes to the Vulcan orbit parameters for the given set of input data. Quinn's data allowed us to make projections going back more than 50000 years which should be accurate to within a day! All of the Earth's orbit parameters are assumed to change with the exception of semi-major axis. Quinn's data shows that semi-major axis, and hence anomalistic period, vary insignificantly over our time frame of interest. Quinn's data remains constant to about 8 or 9 significant figures.
     
     Of course, we cannot really use Julian Day Number 50000 years back in time. The Earth's spin rate does wander somewhat and this leads to small errors in dating which we ignore. Referencing to the Equinox for any year is as good as Quinn's data. Quinn's data has allowed us to perform all of the necessary coordinate transformations needed to reference our results properly.
     
     A cursory comparison with Naval Observatory data for the B1950 and J2000 systems shows good agreement at this time. The reason we looked for other data was that the Naval Observatory data, while very good near term does not provide adequate formulas for propagating backwards in time. I am not aware that anyone else in the World, not even Quinn, has used his data in a way to produce the kind of accurate reference system we have produced. I am really proud of that achievement. It is the one piece of our work that has general applicability.
     
     The comet orbits were derived from a planar three body simulation which was intended to show the essence of the problem without getting into prohibitively long calculations. The results show that approximately constant geometry can be maintained for over 20,000 years. That is over six comet orbit periods. The close encounter with Vulcan occurs every third comet period. A number of patterns are possible. one group has two short periods followed by a long one and the other group has two long periods followed by a short one. The sum of the three periods is exactly equal to two Vulcan orbit periods.
     
     The comet swarms are the concern for Earth (not Vulcan itself). Major past strike events have been demonstrated to correlate well with certain comet perihelion passages.
   • COMMENT TWO BY OUR ORBIT ANALYST
     The data we present here is from a simple analytical model for which comet eccentricity is assumed to be 0.9985 and Vulcan eccentricity values are obtained from the solutions of a quadratic equation. This model yields an offset angle of 6.68^o for our current best Vulcan orbit. Our comet studies were done without the benefit of this analysis and employed an initial offset of 8^o.
     
     Only certain eccentricities will support a 3 (comet period):2 (Vulcan period) resonance orbit. The following eccentricities are calculated from a simple model for various values of the offset angle. The mass of Vulcan is not used in this model. The functional values simplify into a standard quadratic equation:
     
     e² + 1.525141 times e times cos(theta) + .525141 = 0.
     
     The offset angle we quote is the angle in a plane subtended by the lines from the Sun to Vulcan aphelion and the line from the Sun to the comet aphelion. The maximum offset angle is found to be 18.140858^o. For greater values, the eccentricity values are found to be either complex or negative. Th following table lists the non complex positive values

     THETA (Angle Offset From Vulcan's Aphelion) Vs. ECCENTRICITY SWARMS

     Comet eccentricity employed in this simple mode; e = .9985.
     Baseline: Vulcan orbit data; a = 291.192165 AU; P = 4969.006049 years
     Baseline: Vulcan eccentricity; e_Vulcan = .537147.

     Offset Angle	Low Eccentricity	High Eccentricity
     0.00	.525141	1.000000
     +/- 5.00	.531732	.987605
     +/- 6.00	.534744	.982042
     +/- 6.68	.537158	.977630
     +/- 7.00	.538401	.975370
     +/- 8.00	.542760	.967538
     +/-10.00	.553912	.948060
     +/-15.00	.604607	.868567
     +/-18.00	.696214	.754281
     +/-18.14	.724666	.724666

     Applying these simple constraints to ten near-by double (or multiple) star systems yields the following observations for the smaller (or B) star generating a similar comet orbit resonance.

     STAR SYSTEMS THAT CAN SUPPORT A 3:2 COMET RESONANTE ORBIT

     *The Nommos from Sirius are believed to have helped mankind survive Noah's Flood.

     Star System	Eccentricity	Resonance Supported	Possible Sentient Life
     Alpha Centuri	0.52	Maybe	Likely
     Sirius	0.58	Yes	Likely*
     UV Ceti	0.06	No	Not Likely
     Procyon	0.65	Yes	Not Likely
     61 Cygni	0.4	No	Likely
     Sigma 2398	0.55	Yes	Not Likely
     Grb 34	0.25	No	Not Likely
     Kruger 60	0.42	No	Not Likely
     Wolf 424	0.28	No	Not Likely
     26 Draconis	0.19	No	Maybe Once

   • SPACE PROBE - A link between the IRAS data, the Pioneer probes and Vulcan (Nemesis 50 billion miles distant)
     The diagram on the right 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 & 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.)
     Now, will someone please explain why 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 & 11 were chosen as to get a triangulated fix on Planet X, a suggestion this chart would support.
     The "dead star" 50 billion miles distant is clearly this site's Vulcan and "Tenth Planet" at 4.7 billion miles is consistent with the new 'tenth planet Xena; AKA 2003 UB 313.
   • GRAVITY MAY LOSE ITS PULL
     It was in 1980 that John Anderson first wondered if something funny was going on with gravity. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory physicist was looking over data from two Pioneer spacecraft that had been speeding through the solar system for nearly a decade.
   • 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.
   • SEARCH FOR A STANDARD EXPLANATION OF THE PIONEER ANOMALY
     John D. Anderson, Eunice L. Lau And Slava G. Turyshev
     Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
     The data from Pioneer 10 and 11 shows an anomalous, constant, Doppler frequency drift that can be interpreted as an acceleration directed towards the Sun of aP = (8.74 ?1.33) ?10-8 cm/s2. Although one can consider a new physical origin for the anomaly, one must first investigate the contributions of the prime candidates, which are systematics generated on board. Here we expand upon previous analyses of thermal systematics. We demonstrate that thermal models put forth so far are not supported by the analyzed data. Possible ways to further investigate the nature of the anomaly are proposed.
   • 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. These anomalies might all be explained by the existence of a large, dark planet with several moons
   • VOYAGER ENTERS SOLAR SYSTEM'S FINAL FRONTIER - 93.5 AU away.
   • ASYMMETRICAL SHAPE OF HELIOSPHERE RAISES QUESTIONS - July 7, 2008
     Ever since the Voyager 2 data confirmed the nonsymmetrical shape of the solar system scientists have pondered its cause (i). In summary, the edge of the heliosphere (the place where the solar wind slows to sub sonic speeds) appears to be 1.2 billion kilometers shorter on the south side of the solar system (and in the general direction of the winter solstice, the direction of Voyager 2), than it is on the edge of the planetary plane (where Voyager 1 exited approximately a year earlier). This indicates the heliosphere is not a sphere at all but a bullet shape.
     See: IS IRAS OBJECT 1732+239 NEAR VULCAN? - CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
     TABLE 3 - SPACE PROBES AND THE 'DEAD STAR'
   • WHAT CAUSES THE SUNSPOT CYCLE? 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 of about 11 years ( or half the period of solar magnetic field reversals of about 22 years). He suggests two possibilities:
     (1) Mutual resonance effects between the planets
     (2) The effects of a massive solar companion.
     PLANET ORBITAL SPACING estimates that two planets may yet be orbiting Vulcan, one at 0.7 AU and the other at 0.34 AU. The former is analogous to the Sun's Venus, and the latter (if it still exists) is Vulcan's equivalent to the Sun's Mercury. If an Earth equivalent formed, it would be at 0.3 X 2^1.5 = 0.85 AU. The periods would be given by (r³/M_Vulcan)^1/2 and be 18.5 years, 6.2 years and 24.7 years respectively. The first and last theoretical value are close to the Sun's magnet field reversal period.
   • UNIDENTIFIED IRAS SOURCES: ULTRAHIGH-LUMINOSITY GALAXIES
     or UNIDENTIFIED IRAS SOURCES: ULTRAHIGH-LUMINOSITY GALAXIES - March 1, 1985
     Six IRAS sources previously exhibiting possible parallax, are believed to be associated with galaxies highly radiant in the infrared. These include object 1732+239 that may be a possible image of Vulcan. This object was not used to calculate the probability of Vulcan's existence in a nominal 5000-year orbit, but was used to refine its estimated orbital parameters.
   • THE IRAS INCIDENT
     So IRAS did not see Nibiru, Planet X, or anything of the sort, despite the claims of the doomcriers. Of course, they now claim that NASA is clamping down on the press for Planet X.
     Well, Los Alamos is sure suppressing the Noah's Ark find.
   • NO TENTH PLANET YET FROM IRAS
   • A REAL DEATH STAR Ignatius Donnelly was pretty convincing on the comet impact scenario a century ago.
   • ASTRO- METRICS OF UNDISCOVERED PLANETS AND INTELLIGENT LIFE FORMS This work contains some of the planet formation theory useful for understand the INTRODUCT ION - A NEW PLANET FORMATION THEORY section of the 1997 Paper
   • PLANET X/12TH PLANET COVER-UP Is it because of an impending catastrophe?
   • CLYPEOLOGY A report is being circulated that the undiscovered planet Nibiru (Vulcan?) and has been photographed by an infrared sat-system called "Siloe" in 1999 (see photograph). It (or its related comet swarm) is approaching (the inner solar system?) again. See The Akkadian Seal
   • WHAT IS PLANET X Planet X is a hypothetical 10th planet of our solar system. There is conjecture that another Solar body exists, and furthermore that this solar body is affecting our biosphere and all planetary bodies This is sometimes referred to as Vulcan or the death star.
   • 10th PLANET: Real or Not
   • SEARCH GOOGLE CACHED FOR THE PHRASE:
     Why a ~10 Mj Nibiru CANNOT exist out at 234-241 AU COMMENTS: (by rajasun) (This work is critical of a Vulcan or Nibiru like brown dwarf) ?The calculations were left out of this snippet but may be in Google Cached memory.
     In the light of the above FINDINGS, it appears highly UNLIKELY that a Brown Dwarf can exist be it at the Predicted Distance of Andy's OR that of Sitchin's (i.e.Andy's Nibiru, P = 3756 Yrs, Semi Major Axis (a) = 241.62974 AU Sitchin's Nibiru, Period (P) = 3600 Yrs, Semi Major Axis (a) = 234.8920572 AU).
     The BEST MATCH between MASS of Object and a Period of 3756 Yrs is that of a BODY with a size in between that of Pluto and the Moon and NOT that of a Brown Dwarf. As for Sitchin's Object, it has a MASS befitting the classification of a "sub- Brown Dwarf" i.e. a MASS of 10.48292334 Mj. The Deuterium Fusion threshold i.e. the demarcation cut-off LIMIT separating Brown Dwarfs from Super MASSIVE Jupiters is at around 13 Mj. An Object with a MASS above 10 Mj can be considered a Transition Object somewhat akin to an Object of MASS >0.07 Msun <0.075 Msun i.e. a "Transition Object". Vulcan's mass is about 0.5Mj, but we still consider it 'stellar' in nature.
     
     The PROBLEM for Sitchin however, is one of Apparent Visual Magnitude of such an object i.e. a 10.48292334 Mj Nibiru at 234.8920572 AU will be 17.57573 and EVEN at its VERY FURTHEST i.e. at Aphelion it would be a RELATIVELY "BRIGHT" 24.25454. For Your Information, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has seen objects down to around magnitude 29 - 30. So 24.25454 is well WITHIN the observational limits of HST by SEVERAL orders.
     
     This problem i.e. Apparent Visual Magnitude of Nibiru can LIKEWISE be applicable in Andy's instance. For at 241.62974 AU out, the Apparent Visual Magnitude of a Jupiter-like Brown Dwarf will ONLY be at 17.7700885 and Andy's Nibiru at Aphelion (i.e. 480.2584386 AU) is BUT a MERE 24.6536088! We estimate Vulcan magnitude to be about 21, similar to many of the IRAS objects investigated.
     
     Apparent Visual Magnitude aside, there is also this OTHER challenge posed by an object with a MASS ~10 - 10.48 Mj (i.e. APPLICABLE to BOTH Andy's and Sitchin's Nibiru), go through EACH step of the following Calculation on this Object's Gravity:
     
     GIVEN a Surface Gravity ALMOST that of the Sun's a 10 - 10.48292334 Mj Object at a MAXIMUM distance of a MERE 470 - 480 AU removed, SHOUlDN'T this planet's gravity be TOO SIGNIFICANT to have avoided detection till now? Vulcan is half the mass of Jupiter. It does have a small affect on some of the distant Kuiper belt objects.
     
     For the reasons ABOVE, I thus have SERIOUS DOUBTS as to how such an Object could have eluded the astronomical/astrophysical community till now. Before one goes illogical and start some talk of conspiracy theory of a "cover-up" by government/s, OPEN your minds and think REAL OBJECTIVELY, EVEN IF government/s had tried to "cover-up" such a "discovery", wouldn't one of the tens/hundreds of PRIVATELY funded observatories NOT have picked the Object up by now? An all night exposure by a telescope the size of the 120 inch Lick Observatory's is required so most telescopes cannot see Vulcan. However, it were discovered, any astronomer skilled in Celestial Mechanics would quickly realize the possibilities of Earth threatening comets swarms in 3:2 resonate orbits with Vulcan.
     
     Do NOT get me wrong, I'm NOT saying there is NO Nibiru, what I'm saying though is this: the region of space in between 200 - 500 AU is JUST Way TOO "NEAR". An Object that CLOSE in and that LARGE i.e. ~1 - 10 Mj in size would have measurable IR fluxes so PRONOUNCED, it SHOULD have been identified perhaps even as early on as the EARLY 1980s. We Agree!
     
     Personally, I think at Andy's distance i.e. 241.62974 - 480.2584386 AU, we MAY in the next five years or so find a Planet X of sort albeit an intermediate sized Object in between Pluto and the Moon. Such a NEAR-Moon sized Object MAY be what Gladman and co. are searching for i.e. the Perturber of SuperComet CR105. This Moon sized Nibiru is REMARKABLY positioned to exercise JUST that kind of INFLUENCE to throw CR 105 into the INCLINED and ECCENTRIC orbit it has.## ## Ref: www.academicpress.com/ins...graphb.htm ## Ref: www.obs-nice.fr/gladman/cr105.html
     
     There MAY yet be other Plutos, Moon EVEN Mars sized objects still awaiting us in what is an area of space, the community calls the Scattered Disk. BUT for LARGER i.e. >=Uranus objects, one MAY have to look FURTHER out i.e. > 560 AU i.e. somewhere in the vicinity of IRAS object 1732+239 and beyond. We think it is or is near IRAS object 1732+239!
     
     Something in addition, the various accounts of the "MISSING MASS" in the Kuiper Belt and the Scattered Disk kept staring at me in the face i.e. some MAJOR event/s caused a SUDDEN and DRAMATIC truncation in NOT ONLY the Classical Kuiper Belt BUT swept out quite a LOT of MASS here. These MAJOR events MAY still occur i.e. hinting at a REMOTE Brown Dwarf Solar Companion with a HIGHLY elliptical and eccentric orbit (inferring from the wayward orbital inclinations and eccentricities of the Plutinos##). I suspect that in the coming years, we will find MORE "belts", "disks" and "gaps", the Latter MAY very well point to the "undue" influence and PRESENCE of LARGE as YET "UNDISCOVERED" bodies FAR out as we venture DEEPER BEYOND the orbit of Pluto. Vulcan did it!
     
     CONCLUSION:
     A 1 Mj let alone a ~10 Mj "sub-Brown Dwarf" with a Semi Major Axis at between 234 - 241 AU and a MAXIMUM distance of 480 AU is UNLIKELY because of:
     1.) INCONGRUENT fit between Period (P) and suggested MASSES of Object (m) i.e. P = Orbital period = 365.256898326 * a**1.5/sqrt(1+m) days where m = the mass of the companion in solar masses
     
     2.) The Apparent Visual Magnitude of an Object EVEN at a MAXIMUM distance of 480 AU out is a "BRIGHT" 24.25454 i.e. some 6 Magnitudes BRIGHTER than the DIMMEST Objects Hubble Space Telescope has observed. Why do you think the Hubble was launched? Just for the sake of good astronomy?,
     
     3.) The Absence of necessarily PRONOUNCED and CONTINUING GRAVITATIONAL perturbation effect almost 3/4 that of the Sun's (i.e. Surface Gravity of Nibiru with MASSES in between 10 Mj - 10.48292334 Mj 218.772783287613297535850910865252 N - 229.243589170234991621082822269554 N) on Objects in the INNER Scattered Disk.
     
     Thanks to the above critic, it appears that IRAS object 1732+239 is likely Vulcan.
   • TIME LINE OF RESEARCH REGARDING THE "SEARCH FOR PLANET X"
   • GROTE PLANETOIDE
   • MARDUK/NIBIRU?
     One year later in 1983 the newly launched IRAS (Infrared Astronomical Satellite) quickly found Planet X (the 10th). There have been attempts to cover-up this event and rewrite history.
     
     Discovering Archaeology, July/August 1999,Page 70 shows a medieval picture with a large comet looking object as big as the sun streaking across the sky horizontally with a giant tail. Below is a town that is shaking apart with hysterical people in the streets. Its elliptical orbit takes it around two suns. The other sun it orbits is our suns dark twin. Nibiru's inbound approach is being closely monitored by our best telescopic equipment on and off earth. This is one of many reasons the orbiting Hubble telescope live feed is hidden from our view. The most accurate calculation for Planet X's next passage is now late May or June 2003. The Vulcan web site contends that the next approach of the comet (swarm) could be between 2006 and 2016. However, computations support a window of return to be within the next 110 - 150 years. Comet orbits are somewhat unpredictable as they outgas.
   • AN INTERESTING HYPOTHESIS The "Annunaki" (GODS as described by the Sumerians) had "Android Beings" helping them.
     The Sumerians describe Planet X as being very far from Earth at times, (roughly 30,000,000,000 = 323 AU) miles away at it's farthest point from us in orbit. Vulcan's aphelion (farthest point) is estimated to be at 454 AU by this web site.
   • A COMET'S ODD ORBIT HINTS AT HIDDEN PLANET 10 April 2001
     Far beyond the solar system's nine known planets, a body as massive as Mars may once have been part of our planetary system—and it might still be there. Although the proposed planet would lie too far away to be seen from Earth, its gravitational tug could account for the oddball orbit of a large comet spotted in the outer solar system a year ago.
     If the proposed planet is as massive as Mars, it would have to lie some 200 AU from the sun—about 7 times Neptune's distance—Holman calculates. Were it closer, observers would have spotted it.
     "Undoubtedly, something [massive] knocked the hell out of the belt," says Harold F. Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "The question is whether it's there now."
     Vulcan is far larger than Mars, but it is also farther away. Its average distance is about 290 AU away although now its elliptical orbit has carried it about 448 AU away.
   • AUTHOR BRINGS THEORY ABOUT A 'LOST' STAR
     Cruttenden argues that the precession is not caused by a wobble in the Earth's rotation, as is commonly taught, but may actually be caused by a companion star to our sun, one which currently is far away from the Earth but which would eventually rotate closer to the sun.
     This binary companion would cause the sun's orbit to curve, and would explain the Precession of the Equinox by the way in which the Earth's rotation was affected by not one, but two stars.
     In addition to this hypothesis, Cruttenden also compares the 24,000-year cycle of precession with ancient beliefs from many cultures regarding the cyclical pattern of existence, which begins and ends with a Golden Age.
   • PLAN VIEW OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
   • SCATTERED DISK OBJECTS
     2003 UB313
     2002 TC302
     1996 TL66
     2000 CR105? (transitional object between the real Kuiper belt and the hypothetical Oort Cloud)
   • TRANS-NEPTUNIAN OBJECTS INFORMATION
   • SPACE PROBES FEEL COSMIC TUG OF BIZARRE FORCES - September 12, 2004
     Something strange is tugging at America's oldest spacecraft. As the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes head towards distant stars, scientists have discovered that the craft - launched more than 30 years ago - appear to be in the grip of a mysterious force that is holding them back as they sweep out of the solar system.
   • OLD SPACECRAFT MAKES SURPRISE DISCOVERY 29 September 1999
     Scientists have discovered a new object orbiting the Sun after a spaceprobe was mysteriously knocked off course. Earlier this year, scientists were puzzled by what was described as a mysterious force acting on the probe. It led to speculation that there was something wrong in our understanding of the force of gravity. Eventually the effect was tracked down to the probe itself, which was unexpectedly pushing itself in one particular direction May be just data processing errors, but not sure?
   • MYSTERY FORCE TUGS DISTANT PROBES
     The puzzle is that Pioneer 10 is slowing more quickly than it should.
     It was initially suggested that this might be due to the force from a tiny gas leak or that it was being pulled off course by the gravity of an unseen Solar System object.
     The mystery deepened further when an analysis of the trajectory being followed by its sister spacecraft, Pioneer 11, launched in 1973, showed that it too was being subjected to the same mysterious effect.
     But Pioneer 11 is on the opposite side of the Solar System from Pioneer 10, about 22 billion km (about 14 billion miles) away. This means the effect cannot be the gravitational effect of some unseen body.
     But others have dismissed this as being too fanciful, arguing that if the Pioneer anomaly was really indicative of a change in our understanding of gravity, then it would be apparent in the orbits of the planets around the Sun - which it is not.
   • MYSTERIOUS FORCE PULLS BACK NASA PROBE IN DEEP SPACE Dr Duncan Steel, a space scientist at Salford University, says even such a weak force could have huge effects on a cosmic scale. "It might alter the number of comets that come towards us over millions of years, which would have consequences for life on Earth. It also raises the question of whether we know enough about the law of gravity."
   • THE PROBLEM WITH GRAVITY: NEW MISSION WOULD PROBE STRANGE PUZZLE
     Which leaves open staggering possibilities that would force wholesale reprinting of all physics books:
     • Invisible dark matter is tugging at the probes
     • Other dimensions create small forces we don't understand
     • Gravity works differently than we think
     Data from the Galileo and Ulysses spacecraft suggest the anomaly may have affected them, too. But neither has been far enough from the Sun -- the dominant source of gravity in the solar system -- to firmly distinguish any possible discrepancy from noise in the data, Turyshev says. Galileo was crashed into Jupiter last year, and Ulysses will never go farther than it has. LI> THREE SPACECRAFT REVEAL UNEXPLAINED MOTION
     LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Sept. 24, 1998 -- A team of planetary scientists and physicists has identified a tiny, unexplained sunward acceleration in the motions of the Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11 and Ulysses spacecraft.
     Pioneer 10 was officially tracked until March 1997, when it was some six billion miles away from the sun. (Pioneer 10 is still transmitting, and occasional additional radio Doppler data is provided to the research team.)
     Pioneer 11, due to a radio failure, last sent useful radio Doppler transmissions in October 1990, when it was less than three billion miles from the sun. Ulysses has been tracked on its looping flight out of the ecliptic and around the sun's poles. Trusty and reliable
   • THREE SPACECRAFT REVEAL UNEXPLAINED MOTION
     LOS ALAMOS, N.M., September 24, 1998 -- A team of planetary scientists and physicists has identified a tiny, unexplained sunward acceleration in the motions of the Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11 and Ulysses spacecraft.
   • THE UNFINISHED QUEST TO SOLVE THE PIONEER ANOMALY
     It began with the search for Planet X. By 1979, Pioneer 10 had accomplished its original mission to become the first Earth-born spacecraft to explore Jupiter and was on its way out of our solar system, flying toward the star Aldebaran - a destination it should reach some two million years from now.
     On its way out, Pioneer 10 became a useful partner in an experiment of celestial mechanics. By closely monitoring its trajectory, scientists might detect an unexpected gravitational tug that could betray the existence of the long- hypothesized Planet X. Based largely on unexplained motions in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, several 20th-century astronomers had suggested the existence of an undiscovered world at the edge of our solar system.
     John D. Anderson, a veteran JPL scientist, took on the task of studying the Pioneer 10 and 11 radio signal data for any sign of Planet X. His search had come up empty. For this reason, among others, John and his team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory became convinced that the chance of discovering a 10th planet was slim, as they reported in the May/June 1999 issue of The Planetary Report. But in early 1980, John and his team began to see signs of something else-something quite unexpected. While searching for Planet X, we noticed that the tracking data did not quite fit with the existing solar system model. They showed an anomalous acceleration-in this case, an acceleration backward. It did not match any expected Planet X force, and we couldn't immediately explain it. When theoretical models do not fit experimental data, standard scientific practice is to find a reason for the mismatch. Therefore, we embarked on a program to study the anomalous acceleration
   • PLANET X AND THE POLE SHIFT A look at the Science behind mostly the proposed 2003 passage of) Planet X
   • PLANET X AND THE POLE SHIFT ?LINKS
   • PLANET X
     A 'dark companion' could produce the unseen force that seems to tug at Uranus and Neptune, speeding them up at one point in their orbits and holding them back as they pass. …the best bet is a dark star orbiting at least 50 billion miles beyond Pluto? It is most likely either a brown dwarf, or a neutron star. Others suggest it is a tenth planet?since a companion star would tug at the other planets, not just Uranus and Neptune."
   • AREN'T THE OUTER PLANETS BEING "PERTURBED"?
     In 1992, Dr. Myles Standish used the updated mass in his calculations and determined the perturbations actually didn't exist. The recorded observations matched the predicted orbits when the correct values of mass were put into the equations.
   • PLANET X
     Dr. Standish's calculations were the first to use an extremely accurate measurement of Neptune's mass made by Voyager 2 in 1989. His results were published in The Astronomical Journal in May of 1993.
   • VOYAGER PROBES IN FUNDING CRISIS
     Nasa's twin Voyager probes may have to close down in October to save money, the US space agency has said. Turn it off quick before any more of those gravitational anomalies are found.
   • SUN HAS BINARY PARTNER, MAY AFFECT THE EARTH
     The ground-breaking and richly illustrated new book, Lost Star of Myth and Time, marries modern astronomical theory with ancient star lore to make a compelling case for the profound influence on our planet of a companion star to the sun. Author and theorist, Walter Cruttenden, presents the evidence that this binary orbit relationship may be the cause of a vast cycle causing the Dark and Golden Ages common in the lore of ancient cultures.
     This movement of the solar system occurs because the Sun has a companion star; both stars orbit a common center of gravity, as is typical of most double star systems. The grand cycle–the time it takes to complete one orbit?is called a "Great Year," a term coined by Plato.
     Cruttenden explains the affect on earth with an analogy: "Just as the spinning motion of the earth causes the cycle of day and night, and just as the orbital motion of the earth around the sun causes the cycle of the seasons, so too does the binary motion cause a cycle of rising and falling ages over long periods of time, due to increasing and decreasing electromagnet effects generated by our sun and other nearby stars."
   • SUN'S RUMORED HIDDEN COMPANION MAY NOT EXIST AFTER ALL - 20 July 2010
     No Nemesis?
     However, far from helping to confirm the Nemesis hypothesis, Melott and Bambach argue their findings suggest Nemesis couldn't possibly exist.
     "If Nemesis existed and had this kind of an orbit, its orbit would not be regular," Melott told SPACE.com. "Calculations indicate its orbit would change by 20 to 50 percent due to the gravitational attraction of stars as they pass by us, and the movement of the sun in the galaxy."
     Thus, a celestial body like Nemesis couldn't explain such a long-standing, steady cycle, because its orbit itself would not be steady over such a long period of time.
     Melott said his data basically puts the final nail in the coffin of the Nemesis idea. But others aren't so sure. Some in the field question whether the fossil record is really accurate enough to establish a cycle going back that far.
     "To that I would say, yes we can, now that the accuracy has improved so much," Melott said. "And even if there were errors in the timing, that wouldn't cause something to appear so clockwork and regular, it would smear the signal out."
     Melott and Bambach said it leaves the question of what's causing the extinction cycle totally open.
     "For me, it's a complete head-scratcher," Melott said.
     Vulcan exists, Nemesis does not.
   • STAR SYSTEMS HINT AT POSSIBILITY OF SUN'S NEMESIS
     The stars are about 60 light-years away, and the shape of their disks have astronomers pondering the long-debated possibility that our own Sun might have an as-yet unfound companion dubbed Nemesis.
     "Kalas and Graham speculate that stars also having sharp outer edges to their debris disks have a companion—a star or brown dwarf—that keeps the disk from spreading outward, similar to how Saturn's moons shape the edges of some of the planet's rings. "The story of how you make a ring around a planet could be the same as the story of making rings around a star," Kalas said. Perhaps a passing star ripped off the edges of the original planetary disk, but a star-sized companion, remaining in place, would be necessary to keep the remaining disk material from spreading outward, he figures. The scenario has Kalas and his colleagues thinking that the Sun might also have a companion that keeps the Kuiper Belt confined within a sharp boundary. U.C. Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller has proposed such a star, which he calls Nemesis, but no evidence has been found for one".
   • NEMESIS: THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION
     Like a thorn in the side of mainstream researchers, Muller's Nemesis theory -- that our Sun has a companion star responsible for recurring episodes of wholesale death and destruction here on Earth - seems to reemerge periodically like microbes after a mass extinction.
   • TWO NEW DUSTY PLANETARY DISKS MAY BE ASTROPHYSICAL MIRRORS OF OUR KUIPER BELT
     Kalas and Graham speculate that stars also having sharp outer edges to their debris disks have a companion - a star or brown dwarf, perhaps - that keeps the disk from spreading outward, similar to the way that Saturn's moons shape the edges of many of the planet's rings.
     If true, that would mean that the sun also has a companion keeping the Kuiper Belt confined within a sharp boundary. Though a companion star has been proposed before - most recently by UC Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller, who dubbed the companion Nemesis - no evidence has been found for such a companion.
   • CALCULATIONS
     Probably the companion star lies within the invariable plane (the angular momentum plane of the solar system) inclined to the ecliptic by 1.5 degrees. We believe our binary counterpart may lay between 848.5 AU and 1515 AU depending on its mass (0.06 and 6 solar mass).
   • LOCATION
     We are predicting that our binary companion will be found in an elliptical patch centered around 17hr 45 minutes and declination ?2 degrees.
     The possible Vulcan related IRAS point is at 17 hr. 32 minutes 51.4 seconds, Declination 23 degrees 56 minutes 3 seconds.
   • LOST STAR OF MYTH AND TIME A Book
     Lost Star of Myth and Time examines this new theory of precession and the possibility our Earth may be subjected to a greater variety of stellar influences than heretofore imagined
   • VULCAN AKA THE GREAT RED DRAGON AKA PLANET X
     
   • ENVIRONMENTAL RECORD
     Is There a New Mega-Massive Planet in the Outer Reaches of the Solar System?
     When I used Bode's 240-year-old formula to calculate the Bode hypothetical distance from the sun to a possible planet located beyond Pluto, the Bode distance turned out to be 77.2AU, which is 7.2 billion miles and roughly near the center of the large void. A huge ultra-massive planet that has been orbiting there for millions or billions of years certainly could have gravitationally attracted all the KBOs that are missing from the enormous void.
   • THE BINARY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
   • EVIDENCE MOUNTS FOR SUN'S COMPANION STAR
     The Binary Research Institute (BRI) has found that orbital characteristics of the recently discovered planetoid, "Sedna", demonstrate the possibility that our sun might be part of a binary star system. A binary star system consists of two stars gravitationally bound orbiting a common center of mass. Once thought to be highly unusual, such systems are now considered to be common in the Milky Way galaxy.
   • FIRST PHOTO TAKEN OF OBJECT AROUND SUN-LIKE STAR, SCIENTISTS SAY - Dec 3, 2009
     similar breakthrough was announced last year, when astronomers unveiled direct images of a single-planet and multiple-planet system. However, the host stars of such systems are stellar giants that are much more massive than the sun.
     The images of this newly identified object were taken in May and August during early test runs of a new planet-hunting instrument on the Hawaii-based Subaru Telescope.
     The object called GJ 758 B orbits a parent star that is comparable in mass and temperature to our own sun, said study team member Michael McElwain of Princeton University. The star lies 300 trillion miles (480 trillion km), or about 50 light-years, from Earth.
     Scientists aren't sure if the object is a large planet or a brown dwarf, a cosmic misfit also known as a failed star. They estimate its mass to be 10 to 40 times that of Jupiter. Objects above 13 Jupiters (and below the mass needed to ignite nuclear reactions in stars) are considered to be brown dwarfs.
     "Brown dwarf companions to solar-type stars are extremely rare," he told SPACE.com. "It's exciting to find something that is so cool and so low mass with a separation similar to our solar system around a nearby star."
     The planet-like object is currently at least 29 times as far from its star as the Earth is from the sun, or about the distance between the sun and Neptune.
     The scientists say telescope images have revealed a possible second companion to the star, which they are calling GJ 758 C, though more observations are needed to confirm whether it is actually nearby or just looks that way.
   • A REALITY CHECK FOR 2012 AND PLANET X ?FOLLOW THE MONEY
     I put forth the proposition that we live in a binary system and that Sol's unborn twin is a brown dwarf. This proposition is based on current astronomical data, plus the ancient historical accounts and warnings contained in The Kolbrin Bible.
   • I NEED A SCIENTIST TO EVALUATE THIS WEBSITE
     "[1] It is a dark star and hasn't been recognized (I believe he claims on his website that it was seen in the IRAS in 1983)."
     It is either that IRAS object or within the specified number of degrees in RA and Dec. of it.
     "[2] He has worked out orbital elements (available on the website, complete with RA and Dec.)"
     The most recent estimations for Vulcan's mass, orbit elements and location are found in the Synopsis section, Earth's Bleak Future. The orbit elements have changed slightly since the first (1997) paper was put on the web.
     "[3] It is 141-165 Earth masses and a magnitude 22 object." At different points in the "papers" that appear on his website, Warmkessel cites different figures for Vulcan's mass.
     Just like Pluto's mass, Vulcan's mass has decreased precipitously based on new data. The most reliable Estimates for Vulcan's mass come from Crop Circle T367 and the Akkadian seal and have remained within a factor of two or less since the 1999 Paper. The mass based on Akkadian Seal's value is favored because slight variances in the comet swarm pass times (based on geo-climatological data) seems to more accurately reflect Vulcan's mass's influence on the comet swarms return periods when they are far from the Sun.
     "[4] Geoclimatological data (ie, dendrochronology and Greenland ice cores) show prior comet strikes, (which is probably true anyway, but is it relevant to his particular claims?)."
     Geo-climatological data offers a way to validate Vulcan's theoretical orbit (which has been deduced in a non standard way). Vulcan causes predicted comet swarms to occur in 3:2 resonate orbits. So once Vulcan's orbital period is specified, the period of the comet swarms can be deduced. When the comet swarms pass, one or more often impact Earth (or explode in its atmosphere). These usually cause weather changes. By examining the historical geo-climatological data, Vulcan's mass, orbital period and eccentricity can be verified.
     "[5] It has a period of 4969 years which he states are corroborated by calculations done by astronomer George Forbes in 1880."
     Forbe's predicted two planets (not comets) in solar orbit by using comet aphelion data computed from observed comets. One set of orbital parameters he found is very similar to Vulcan's.
     I can only surmise that Vulcan is his idea of some sort of periodic cometary perturber, hasn't this idea been pretty much laid to rest?
     This is a pretty fair assessment of Vulcan. Matese et. al. employed a similar technique to postulate the existence of Nemesis (Icarus; 19 May 1999).
     (6) A 'scientist known' as 'leaping lizard' searched hard to find any reference to our Orbit Analyst However but failed. However they ignored the 30-60 Google references to the astronomical research works published by our Astronomical Support individual.
   • PERSISTENT EVIDENCE OF A JOVIAN MASS SOLAR COMPANION IN THE OORT CLOUD - 26 Apr 2010
     We present an updated dynamical and statistical analysis of outer Oort cloud cometary evidence suggesting the sun has a wide-binary Jovian mass companion. The results support a conjecture that there exists a companion of mass ~ 1-4 M_Jup orbiting in the innermost region of the outer Oort cloud. Our most restrictive prediction is that the orientation angles of the orbit normal in galactic coordinates are centered on the galactic longitude of the ascending node Omega = 319 degree and the galactic inclination i = 103 degree (or the opposite direction) with an uncertainty in the normal direction subtending ~ 2% of the sky.
   • PERSISTENT EVIDENCE OF A JOVIAN MASS SOLAR COMPANION IN THE OORT CLOUD
   • EARTH UNDER ATTACK FROM DEATH STAR - 12 Mar 2010
     AN invisible star may be circling the Sun and causing deadly comets to bombard the Earth, scientists said yesterday.
     The brown dwarf - up to five times the size of Jupiter - could be to blame for mass extinctions that occur here every 26 million years.
     The star - nicknamed Nemesis by NASA scientists - would be invisible as it only emits infrared light and is incredibly distant.
     Nemesis is believed to orbit our solar system at 25,000 times the distance of the Earth to the Sun.
     Scientists' first clue to the existence of Nemesis was the bizarre orbit of a dwarf planet called Sedna. Boffins believe its unusual, 12,000-year-long oval orbit could be explained by a massive celestial body
     Mike Brown, who discovered Sedna in 2003, said: "Sedna is a very odd object - it shouldn't be there.
     "The only way to get on an eccentric orbit is to have some giant body kick you - so what is out there?"
     The 12,000 year orbital period of Sedena is no where near the anticipated 26,000,000 year revisit time of a threatening comet cluster.
   • SUN'S NEMESIS PELTED EARTH WITH COMETS, STUDY SUGGESTS - 11 March 2010
     A dark object may be lurking near our solar system, occasionally kicking comets in our direction.
     Nicknamed "Nemesis" or "The Death Star," this undetected object could be a red or brown dwarf star, or an even darker presence several times the mass of Jupiter.
     Why do scientists think something could be hidden beyond the edge of our solar system? Originally, Nemesis was suggested as a way to explain a cycle of mass extinctions on Earth.
     The paleontologists David Raup and Jack Sepkoski claim that, over the last 250 million years, life on Earth has faced extinction in a 26-million-year cycle. Astronomers proposed comet impacts as a possible cause for these catastrophes.
     The Oort Cloud is thought to extend about 1 light year from the Sun. Matese estimates Nemesis is 25,000 AU away (or about one-third of a light year). The next-closest known star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri, located 4.2 light years away.
   • INVISIBLE STAR 'SHOOTING COMETS AT EARTH' - March 12, 2010
     
     • Brown dwarf could have caused mass extinctions
     • Star is invisible and a long way away
     • But heat-seeking telescope may find it Maybe the IRAS satellite already found it.
     AN invisible star responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs may be circling the Sun and causing comets to bombard the Earth, scientists said.
     The brown dwarf - up to five times the size of Jupiter - could be to blame for mass extinctions that occur here every 26 million years,
     The star - nicknamed Nemesis by NASA scientists - would be invisible as it only emits infrared light and is incredibly distant. Nemesis is believed to orbit our solar system at 25,000 times the distance of the Earth to the Sun.
     As it spins through the galaxy, its gravitational pull drags icy bodies out of the Oort Cloud - a vast sphere of rock and dust twice as far away as Nemesis.
     The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer - expected to find a thousand brown dwarf stars within 25 light years of the Sun - has already sent back a photo of a comet possibly dislodged from the Oort Cloud.
     Scientists' first clue to the existence of Nemesis was the bizarre orbit of a dwarf planet called Sedna. Scientists believe its unusual, 12,000-year-long oval orbit could be explained by a massive celestial body.
     Mike Brown, who discovered Sedna in 2003, said: "Sedna is a very odd object - it shouldn't be there.
     "The only way to get on an eccentric orbit is to have some giant body kick you - so what is out there?"
     Finding Earth threatening comets is the real mission of WISE.
2. RELATING TO OTHER NEW SOLAR PLANETS
   • FOMALHAUT B : Fomalhaut (sounds like "foam-a-lot") is a bright, young, star, a short 25 light-years from planet Earth in the direction of the constellation Piscis Austrinus. In this sharp composite from the Hubble Space Telescope, Fomalhaut's surrounding ring of dusty debris is imaged in detail, with overwhelming glare from the star masked by an occulting disk in the camera's coronagraph. Astronomers now identify, the tiny point of light in the small box at the right as a planet about 3 times the mass of Jupiter orbiting 10.7 billion miles from the star (almost 23 times the Sun-Jupiter distance). Designated Fomalhaut b, the massive planet probably shapes and maintains the ring's relatively sharp inner edge, while the ring itself is likely a larger, younger analog of our own Kuiper Belt - the solar system's outer reservoir of icy bodies. The Hubble data represent the first visible-light image of a planet circling another star.
   • HR 8799: DISCOVERY OF A MULTI-PLANET STAR SYSTEM
     How common are planetary systems like our own Solar System? In the twelve years previous to 2008, over 300 candidate planetary systems have been found orbiting nearby stars. None, however, were directly imaged, few showed evidence for multiple planets, and many had a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting inside the orbit of Mercury. Last week, however, together with recent images of Fomalhaut b, the above picture was released showing one of first confirmed images of planets orbiting a distant Sun-like star. HR 8799 has a mass about 1.5 times that of our own Sun, and lies about 130 light years from the Sun -- a distance similar to many stars easily visible in the night sky. Pictured above, a 10-meter Keck telescope in Hawaii captured in infrared light three planets orbiting an artificially obscured central star. The 8-meter Gemini North telescope captured a similar image. Each planet likely contains several times the mass of Jupiter, but even the innermost planet, labelled d, has an orbital radius near the equivalent of the Sun- Neptune distance. Although the HR 8799 planetary system has significant differences with our Solar System, it is a clear demonstration that complex planetary systems exist, systems that could conceivable contain an Earth-like planet.
   • Gravity Probe B 'Results to Date' Does It Show Solar System Motion?
     It was recently reported by NewScientist that Gravity Probe B received an “F?from the U.S. Government and the project would receive no more funding.
     But after netting out the spacecraft and earth orbit motions the remaining signal was far larger than anyone expected. In fact, it is so large it either means there is some unforeseen problem with the gyros or that our sun is part of a binary star system.
     Yes, that’s right, if the data is correct our solar system is curving through space (carrying the earth and spacecraft with it of course) so rapidly that the only way to explain it is if our sun is gravitationally bound to another nearby star. When I met with the GP-B team at Stanford last fall they were still in the early process of analyzing the data but openly discussed the idea of an unknown companion to our sun, including the possibility of a not too distant blackhole.
   • Solar system a bit squashed, not nicely round
     The solar system may not be a nice round shape, but rather a bit squashed and oblong, according to data from the Voyager 2 spacecraft exploring the solar system's outer limits, scientists said on Wednesday.
   • Asymmetrical Shape of Heliosphere Raises Questions - July 7, 2008
     Ever since the Voyager 2 data confirmed the nonsymmetrical shape of the solar system scientists have pondered its cause (i). In summary, the edge of the heliosphere (the place where the solar wind slows to sub sonic speeds) appears to be 1.2 billion kilometers shorter on the south side of the solar system (and in the general direction of the winter solstice, the direction of Voyager 2), than it is on the edge of the planetary plane (where Voyager 1 exited approximately a year earlier). This indicates the heliosphere is not a sphere at all but a bullet shape.
     See: IS IRAS OBJECT 1732+239 NEAR VULCAN? - CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
     TABLE 3 - SPACE PROBES AND THE 'DEAD STAR'
   • Bridging Heaven & Earth Show # 215 w/ Walter Cruttenden & "The Great Year
     The Great Year = Vulcan's period, about 4969 years, not 24,000 years.
   • NEMESIS: DOES THE SUN HAVE A 'COMPANION'?
   • NEMESIS: DOES THE SUN HAVE A 'COMPANION'?
     Note references to two Vulcan web pages.
   • PLANET X AND THE POLE SHIFT
     A look at the Science behind Planet X
   • IS THERE A PLANET X? - 31 January 2009
     That is by no means a general consensus. An early, slow outward migration of the giant planets (see "How was the solar system built?") could also explain some of these strange KBO orbits - although it has difficulty explaining all of the belt's observed properties.
     The discovery of a further planet would be thrilling, he says. The only explanation for its presence there would be that large bodies coalesced very early in the solar system's history, only to be ejected by the gravity of the giant planets later on. That would firm up our ideas about how the solar system must have developed, and perhaps be a stepping stone towards its even more distant recesses.
     It takes two stellar bodies to form a solar system (or two Kerr holes to form the seeds for a star’s planets.
   • THE LOCATION OF PLANET X - by Harrington, R. S.
     Astronomical Journal (ISSN 0004-6256), vol. 96, Oct. 1988, p. 1476-1478
     Sounds like one of Forbes planets (see Table 4A). This also implies Forbes' Vulcan like planet was taken seriously. Note that a following search for Planet X was conducted, but results were negative or not reported. Note also the depiction of Planet X at about 50 AU in a picture from the 1987 New Science and Invention Encyclopedia illustrated above. NOTE ALSO THAT PLANET X IS NOT A COMPANION TO THE SUN AS IS THE DEAD STAR DEPICTED IN THE ABOVE ILLUSTRATION.

     ORBITAL PARAMETERS OF
     HARRINGTON'S NEW AND FORBES OLD PLANET X

     Parameter	HARRINGTON'S PLANET	FORBES' PLANET
     Period (years)	1019	1076
     Eccentricity	0.411	0.167
     Inclination	32.4o	52o
     Asc. Node	275.4o	247o
     Perihelion Arg.	208.5o	115o
     Perihelion Epoch	6 Aug. 1789	1702
     Aphelion (AU)	142.8	122
     Perihelion (AU)	59.6	87

   • SEARCH FOR PLANET X - Harrington, Robert S.
     The observation of the region of the sky in which it is believed Planet X should now be, based on perturbations observed in the motions of Uranus and Neptune, was determined, and there was no reason to update that determination. A limited area of that region was photographed, and that will be continued. . . . Blinking will be done as soon as the plates are received in Washington.
     Was blinking done for the IRAS objects in question? I have no evidence that it was.
   • Planet Projected at Solar System's Edge
     "But it would be the first time to discover a celestial body of this size, which is much larger than Pluto," Mukai said.
   • Japanese scientists eye new planet
     This illustration released by Kobe University shows a planet -- half the size of Earth -- which is believed to be in the outer reaches of the solar system. The researchers at Kobe University have said that their theoretical calculations using computer simulations lead them to conclude it was only a matter of time before the long-awaited "Planet X" was found.
     Planet X -- so called by scientists as it is yet unfound -- would have an oblong elliptical solar orbit and circle the sun every thousand years, the team said, estimating its radius was 15 to 26 billion kilometres.
   • (13) MOON OR CAPTURED ASTEROID?
     The orbit of the escaped Neptunian moon often resembled that of Pluto's present-day orbit, even with its roughly 3:2 resonance of orbital periods, which turns out to be moderately insensitive to initial conditions. Interestingly, in these trials it was easily possible to get two Neptunian moons to escape. When that happened, the escapes were in the same general direction and with similar velocities. But once Pluto recedes far from Neptune, its own gravitational sphere of influence (within which it can hold moons of its own) expands to about 10 million kilometers. This means that any body closer than that to Pluto and roughly co-moving with it will become permanently trapped as a moon of Pluto. Tidal forces would then circularize the orbit of such a moon, bringing it closer to Pluto, and melting and increasing the density of Pluto and its moon in the process.
     The final state would be just like what we observe: Charon is just such an unusually large moon of Pluto with quite high angular energy, as if its orbit around Pluto were once quite a bit larger than it is today. Our scenario predicts that both bodies were former, independent moons of Neptune, stripped away by Planet X; and that Charon passed from Neptune's sphere of influence directly into Pluto's, without ever being in a solar orbit of its own.
     This 5 Earth mass planet is what this site considers to be Septimus.
   • A POSSIBLE ORBIT OF A 10TH PLANET
     The solar system may have a tenth planet lurking beyond the orbit of Pluto, calculations by astronomers in Britain and Argentina indicate. "Planet X" could lie 60 times further from the Sun than the Earth, The new planet, thought to be the same size as Earth, would lie on the inside edge of the Kuiper Belt, a distant region of the solar system principally composed of small pieces of rock and interstellar leftovers from the creation of the solar system. Dr Melita, and Dr Adrian Brunini, of the University of La Plata in Argentina, suggested the sharp edge of the Kuiper Belt was caused by a similar sweeping, and that had, over time, created a planet-sized object, whose orbit of the sun would be almost circular, but angled by 20 degrees to that of the inner planets. A 60 AU orbit suggests a 464-year period assuming that it is not very eccentric. This is similar to Forbe's anticipated planet with a 1,076 year period that could be the infamous Septimus.
   • SIGNS OF A HIDDEN PLANET? 30 March 2001
     The most exciting possibility is that a mid-sized planet at some 10 billion kilometers (58 AU) from the sun caused 2000 CR105's orbit. And because such a planet would not be very vulnerable to orbit disruptions, it could still be there, the team says. Possibly Septimus?
   • A HISTORY OF GREAT DEATHS
     Two ideas for how to perturb the Oort Cloud have been proposed:
     1. 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.
     2. 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.
   • A MYSTERY REVOLVES AROUND THE SUN Astronomers postulate a distant massive planet may draw comets from the Oort cloud.
   • A MYSTERY REVOLVES AROUND THE SUN - link down?
     Another paper Matese et. al. postulate a 1.5 to 6 Jupiter mass object, possibly dark star or our Sun's binary companion exists in the Oort cloud at about 25,000 +/- 5,000 AU. A normal to its orbital plane is within 90 +/- 5 degrees of the North Galactic Pole.
   • COMETARY EVIDENCE OF A MASSIVE BODY IN THE OUTER OORT CLOUD - J. J. Matese, P. G. Whitman, and D. P. Whitman. Accepted for publication in Icarus as of 19 May 1999.
   • DOES THE SUN HAVE A DOOMSDAY TWIN?
   • (2) THE EFFECTS ON THE EKB OF A LARGE DISTANT TENTH PLANET
     We investigate the orbital evolution of both real and hypothetical Edgeworth-Kuiper Objects in order to determine whether any conclusions can be drawn regarding the existence, or otherwise, of the tenth planet postulated by Murray (1999). We find no qualitative difference in the orbital evolution, and so conclude that the hypothetical planet has been placed on an orbit at such a large heliocentric distance that no evidence for the existence, or non-existence, can be found from a study of the known Edgeworth-Kuiper Objects.
   • 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
   • BRITON FINDS CLUES TO ROGUE PLANET
     Tim Radford, Science Editor Guardian Unlimited Friday October 8, 1999
   • ASTRONOMERS CAPTURE PHOTO OF EXTRASOLAR PLANET
     The system is young, so the planet is rather warm, like a bun fresh out of the oven. That warmth made it comparatively easier to see in the glare of its host star compared with more mature planets. Also, the planet is very far from the star -- about 100 times the distance between Earth and the Sun, another factor in helping to separate the light between the two objects.
     The planet is about 3,140 degrees Fahrenheit (2000 Kelvin) -- not the sort of place that would be expected to support life. Neuhaeuser's team has also detected water in the planet's atmosphere. The world is expected to be gaseous, like Jupiter. It is about twice the diameter of Jupiter. The mass estimate one to two times that of Jupiter - is "somewhat uncertain," Neuhaeuser said.
     The planet is three times farther from GQ Lupi than Neptune is from our Sun. "We should expect that the planet orbits around the star, but at its large separation one orbital period [a year] is roughly 1,200 years, so that orbital motion is not yet detected."
     It seems rather Vulcan like, but its orbit elements are not known.
   • CHANGING ORBIT IS SIMPLE, REALLY
     But somewhere out there, at around 30,000 AUs, along the outer band of a massive cosmic debris field called the Oort Cloud, something very big and very weird is going on.
   • THE SHIVA HYPOTHESIS - PERIODIC MASS EXTINCTIONS
     One hypothesis is that this corresponds the the solar system oscillating through the galactic plane as it orbits the Milky Way. Rampino notes that the last crossing of the galactic plane occurred a few million years ago and it has been suggested that this led to a disturbance of comets in the Oort Cloud, some of which could now be approaching the inner solar system. This implies that solar system oscillations are respibsible for the comets sugesting Matase's planet.
   • TERRESTRIAL RECORD OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM'S OSCILLATION ABOUT THE GALACTIC PLANE
   • (2) SUN'S HIDDEN TWIN STALKS PLANET EARTH
   • (3) GALACTIC OSCILLATIONS AS A SOURCE OF PERIODIC IMPACTS
     The Rampino theory is not viable, since the oscillations of the sun in the Galaxy are quite small, and the variations in density experienced by the solar system are too small to affect impacts..."
   • (10) COMETS, ASTEROIDS & THE GALACTIC PLANE 15 March 2001
     What if these extinction collisions are caused by asteroids on the one hand, and by comets on the other? Is it possible that the gravitational consequnces of the passage through the galactic plane have altered the orbits of both classes of objects on a roughly 26 million year basis?"
     Chances of major orbital disturbances will vary according to the velocity with which our Solar System crosses the plane... First the Oort Cloud Comets in the forefront, then Kuiper Belt Objects, followed by planets, moons, and in time asteroids, will switch from accelerating with the Sun to decelerating relative to it - while all those coming along behind, including the Sun, are still accelerating. Once the Sun itself crosses, then it is decelerating upwards with the forward objects, but the rearward objects are still accelerating downwards towards it from behind.
     The velocity change from acceleration to deceleration may not amount to much, but it is the fact that there is a change that will cause a resulting mishmash of movement that in turn will almost certainly cause gravitational events that again in turn may well result in some of those bodies ... of all types diving into the inner Solar System. Collisions would not be inevitable, but certainly much more likely.
   • A GENOCIDAL ORBIT? -THE SOLAR SYSTEM'S JOURNEY THROUGH THE MILKY WAY - May 07, 2009
     Many of the ricocheted rocks collide with planets on their way through our system, including Earth. Impact craters recorded worldwide show correlations with the ~37 million year-cycle of these journeys through the galactic plane - including the vast impact craters thought to have put an end to the dinosaurs two cycles ago.
   • VARIABLE OORT CLOUD FLUX DUE TO THE GALACTIC TIDE Matese et al. The last crossing at around 1.5 Myr ago and the next 1 Myr in the future based on crater flux peaks. The perigalactic period is estimated to be 180 Myr
   • DYNAMICS IN DISK GALAXIES Our period about the galactic center is 2.2 x 10⁸ Yr or 220 Myr.
   • COMETS/ASTEROIDS/BROWN DWARFS
3. KUIPER BELT OBJECTS & COMETS
   • ORBIT FIT AND ASTROMETRIC RECORD FOR 00CR105 - Aug 11 02:19:17 2005
     Epoch: 2451580.5000 = 2000/02/06
     Mean Anomaly: 3.72869 +/- 0.022
     Argument of Peri: 316.58338 +/- 0.047
     Long of Asc Node: 128.27893 +/- 0.000
     Inclination: 22.75794 +/- 0.001
     Eccentricity: 0.80380591 +/- 0.0008
     Semi-Major Axis: 224.62610637 +/- 0.8689
     Time of Perihelion: 2438844.2316 +/- 4.0
     Perihelion: 44.07031413 +/- 0.2557
     Aphelion: 405.18189861 +/- 1.5788
     Period (y) 3366.6545 +/- 19.53
   • KUIPER BELT:
   • NEW HORIZONS GETS FIRST GLIMPSE OF PLUTO
   • (82158) 2001 FP185 - ORBITAL ELEMENTS
   • METEOR SHOWER REVEALS NEW COMET NEO, OCTOBER CAMELOPARDALIDS and BREAKING COMET NEWS
   • COMET'S COURSE HINTS AT MYSTERY PLANET
     The giant comet, known as 2000 CR105, measures some 400 kilometers across.
     Current wisdom holds that they have been scattered into their eccentric trajectories by the gravitational pull of a giant planet, probably Neptune. If so, basic orbital mechanics dictates that these "scattered disk objects" should swing nearest the sun at perihelion points close to Neptune's orbit, some 4.5 billion kilometers from the sun. But comet 2000 CR105, first discovered in February 2000, doesn't follow this script.
     The most exciting possibility is that a planet-sized body still hides in the outer solar system. "A Mars-sized body [at an average distance of some 15 billion kilometers] could scatter a body like 2000 CR105 to its present orbit," Gladman and his colleagues write in their Icarus paper. Unlike Mars, the planet would consist mainly of ice. Because its high mass would protect it from orbital disruptions, the astronomers say, it could still be around.
     Vulcan is about 150 earth masses, but currently about 41 billion miles away, and comet swarms passing through the inner solar system with some hitting the earth indicate that it is still around.
     "Large or small, astronomers agree that whatever nudged 2000 CR105 into its large, distant orbit is bound to have done the same to other TNOs. "Finding more would give us a better idea of how they got there," Levison says.
   • A COMET'S ODD ORBIT HINTS AT HIDDEN PLANET
     Such an oblong orbit is usually a sign that an object has come under the gravitational influence of a massive body.
   • IS THERE A LARGE PLANET ORBITING BEYOND NEPTUNE?
     The team also suggests that the perturbation of 2000 CR105 could be caused by a "resident planet" of a size somewhere between our Moon and Mars that formed in these outer regions well beyond the orbit of Pluto a distance of 10 billion kilometers from the sun.
   • WHEN COMETS BREAK APART
     The unexpected breakup of comets, some at considerable distances from the Sun, has long baffled comet researchers. Marsden wrote: "Although most of the comets observed to split have done so for no obvious reason, one really does require an explanation when the velocity of separation is some 20% of the velocity of the comet itself! A collision with some asteroidal object at 200 A.U. from the sun, and 100 A.U. above the ecliptic plane, even though it would only have to happen once, is scarcely worthy of serious consideration".
     Vulcan's semi-major axis is about 200 A.U. and is inclined about 48 degrees to the ecliptic.
   • SCENARIOS FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE ORBITS OF THE TRANS-NEPTUNIAN OBJECTS 2000 CR105 AND 2003 VB12 - 15 Mar 2004
     In this paper we explore four seemingly promising mechanisms for explaining the origin of the orbit of this peculiar object: (i) the passage of Neptune through a high-eccentricity phase, (ii) the past existence of massive planetary embryos in the Kuiper belt or the scattered disk, (iii) the presence of a massive trans- Neptunian disk at early epochs which exerted tides on scattered disk objects, and (iv) encounters with other stars. Of all these mechanisms, the only one giving satisfactory results is the passage of a star. Indeed, our simulations show that the passage of a solar mass star at about 800 AU only perturbs objects with semi-major axes larger than roughly 200 AU to large perihelion distances.
   • 2000 CR105 Comet Like Orbit
     The comet known as 2000 CR105 is the second most distant known object in the solar system and circles the sun in a highly eccentric orbit every 3175 years at an average distance of 224 AU. One theory states that they were pulled from their original positions by a passing star or a very distant and undiscovered giant planet.
     This comet tends to verify Vulcan's existence. Vulcan's aphelion is close to 448 AU, and the comet swarms are believed to form at a nominal aphelion of 444 AU with a therotical 3314.7 +/- 18.3 -year period (from impact data 3332.6 +/- 119 -year period).
   • PERIHELION 76 AU, APHELION 990 AU, PERIOD 12300 YEARS: THE FIRST BODY RESIDING IN THE OORT CLOUD?
     2003 VB12 stays way outside the Kuiper Belt at all times / Red color, high albedo, diameter 1300 to 1800 km / Could be the first of many such objects at the inner edge of the Oort cloud
   • OORT CLOUD & SOL b?
     Although inclined by only around 11.9 degrees from the ecliptic where the eight major planets orbit, Sedna's distant orbit is extremely elliptical indicating that its formation and orbit may have been influenced by by a passing nearby star during the early years of the Solar System, when Sol formed out of a molecular cloud with many other close by stars around 4.6 billion years ago. Like 2000 CR105, Sedna may have been perturbed by a Solar-mass star at around 800 AUs from Sol more than 100 million years after its birth, given today's observed numbers of Oort Cloud comets. Hence, 2000 CR105 and Sedna are less likely to be members of the scattered disk that had their perihelion distances "increased by chaotic diffusion" or the result of other hypotheses
   • THE DARK STAR: Could the reason why we are finding more and more evidence for its existence be that it really does exist
     "The researchers thought up another improbable scenario that managed to explain Sedna´s orbit remarkably well. Sedna could have been born around a brown dwarf about 20 times less massive than the Sun and captured by our Solar System when the brown dwarf approached. "What´s striking about this idea is how efficient it is," says Levison, whose calculations suggest about half of the material orbiting the dwarf would have gone into orbit around the Sun.
   • THE DEEP ECLIPTIC SURVEY
     Exploring the outer solar system in search of trans-Neptunian objects
   • NATURAL CATASTROPHES DURING BRONZE AGE CIVILISATIONS
     The final paper in the section on archaeology, geology and climatology is by Euan MacKie, who begins by warning that astronomers will have to produce clear evidence of comet swarms or the likelihood of large impacts at specific dates before most archaeologists will be willing to re-examine their data with this in mind.
   • NEW 'MOON' FOUND AROUND EARTH
     It was soon realized, however, that far from passing us, it was in fact in a 50- day orbit around the Earth. The American Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, says it must have just arrived or it would have been easily detected long ago.
   • MAJOR NEWS ABOUT MINOR OBJECTS
   • LIST OF TRANSNEPTUNIAN OBJECTS
   • KUIPER BELT
   • HUGE ROCK-ICE BODY CIRCLES SUN
     It is in a so-called resonance orbit with Neptune. This means that it completes two orbits of the Sun for every three completed by the eighth planet. Such orbits are stable as they allow the object to approach Neptune's orbit without any possibility of collision. Pluto, currently the most distant true planet, is in such an orbit. Since the first Kuiper Belt Object was discovered in 1992, several hundred have been found, and many of them are in the Neptune resonance condition, too.
   • PLUTINOS
     A surprising fraction - 40 % - of Kuiper Belt objects have orbital periods close to Pluto's. 246 years is 3/2 of Neptune's period of 164 years and is a stable resonance that allows the object to avoid being perturbed by Neptune. In the asteroid belt, similarly, there are gaps where Jupiter would have 2, 5/2, or 3 times the asteroid's period but a cluster of asteroids where Jupiter has 3/2 the asteroid's period.
   • CASSINI PICTURES SPONGY HYPERION
     Much of the interior of Hyperion is empty space, suggesting it is little more than a pile of space rubble. Like a Kuiper Belt object.
   • THE KUIPER BELT AND THE OORT CLOUD
     Several Kuiper Belt objects have been discovered recently including 1992 QB1 and 1993 SC (above). They appear to be small icy bodies similar to Pluto and Triton (but smaller). There are more than 300 known trans-Neptunian objects (as of mid 2000); see the MPC's list. Many orbit in 3:2 resonance with Neptune (as does Pluto). Color measurements of some of the brightest have shown that they are unusually red.
   • LIST OF CENTAURS AND SCATTERED-DISK OBJECTS
   • RECENT RESEARCH - Kuiper Belt Objects
   • SCIENTISTS FIND NEW PLANET BEYOND ORBIT OF NEPTUNE - 5 June 1997
     Astronomers have discovered a mini-planet at the edge of the solar system which may change our thinking on how the planets evolved. More than 300 miles in diameter, the planetesimal is the brightest object to be found beyond the orbit of Neptune since the discovery of Pluto in 1930. Given the designation 1996TL66, the new object is probably one of many, according to its discoverers.
   • ASTRONOMERS FIND DISTANT 'DOUBLE PLANET' - 19 April 2001
     In January, astronomers attempted to find a specific object among this ring of comet-like objects. This body, designated 1998 WW 31, was first seen a few years ago.
   • (5) PLUTO HAS BIG SHINY COLLEAGUE - 29 May 2001
     Varuna has a diameter of 900 km, Jewitt's team also calculates. This makes it the third largest known KBO, after Pluto (2,200 km) and Charon (1,200 km).
   • TWO NEW MOONS FOUND AROUND PLUTO If confirmed, it would bring Pluto's tally of satellites to three; Charon, the only known moon of Pluto, was discovered by astronomers in 1978.
     Confirmation of two new moons would shed light on the evolution of the Kuiper Belt, the vast region containing icy objects beyond Neptune's orbit.
     All the candidate moons seem to orbit Pluto in an anti-clockwise direction.
   • PLUTO GETS MORE COMPETITION- 28 August 2001
     In this schematic diagram the relative sizes of the largest Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO) are illustrated. The newly discovered object, 2001 KX76 (diameter about 1200 km), is the largest known KBO and is even larger than Pluto's moon, Charon. For comparison Pluto's diameter is about 2300 km. (INCLUDES 1996TO66 which could be) 1996 TL66
   • LARGE WORLD FOUND NEAR PLUTO - 30 July 2001
     Only planets are larger than this new object, dubbed 2001 KX76. The icy, reddish world is over a thousand kilometres across and astronomers say there may be even larger objects, bigger than planet Pluto itself, awaiting discovery. 2001 KX76 could be as large as 1,270 km (788 miles) across, bigger than Ceres, the largest known asteroid (an object that orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter). It is even larger than Pluto's moon Charon, which has an estimated diameter of 1,200 km (744 miles).
   • (1) DID PLUTO TAKE A PUNCH? LARGE IMPACT ONLY 100 YEARS AGO?
   • (8) RE: DID PLUTO TAKE A PUNCH?
   • STRANGE EVENTS ON DISTANT PLUTO
     Although it is receding from the Sun, its atmosphere is getting thicker, puzzling astronomers who expect it to "freeze-out" and contract in about 10 years. Earth and the other planets are warming from the inside after Vulcan passed aphelion.
   • ANOTHER CANDIDATE FOR "PLANET X" SPOTTED - 4 December 2000
     As of 2000 December 1, the MPC's orbit suggests that this object is 43 times farther from the Sun than the Earth is, and is presently 42 times farther from Earth than the Earth is from the Sun. With an apparent magnitude of 20 at those distances, the object would be the brightest of all 346 known Trans-Neptunian Objects other than Pluto.
     If it has a reflectivity comparable to other minor planets, its diameter would be between 330 and 750 miles. This can be compared to the diameters of the largest known asteroid (1) Ceres of 570 miles or (4) Vesta of 320 miles. Pluto is at a distance comparable to that of 2000 WR106, and is 1,470 miles in diameter.
   • ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER 'NEW PLANET'
     Observations show it is about 2,000 km across and it may even be larger than Pluto, which is 2,250 km across.
   • UNIVERSITY TEAM'S THEORY CAUSES STIR
     "The answer I think is that it's blacker than black and the only object it could be is a comet, which makes up some of the darkest objects in the solar system."
     "And if Sedna has captured such an object, there must be hundreds of other large comet objects in the vicinity."
   • DISTANT SEDNA RAISES POSSIBILITY OF ANOTHER EARTH-SIZED PLANET IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
     Marsden favors an object closer in, a "planetary object," he told SPACE.com , perhaps at between 400 and 1,000 AU. Vulcan's aphelion is at about 448 AU.
   • 90377 SEDNA
     Eccentricity 0.849
     Semi-major axis 502.040 AU
     Perihelion 76.032 AU
     Aphelion 928.048 AU
     Orbital period 11249.05 years
     Inclination 11.932^o
     Longitude of the ascending node 144.544^o
     Argument of Perihelion 311.468^o
     Mean anomaly 357.713^o
   • SEDNA (2003 VB12)
     The coldest most distant place known in the solar system; possibly the first object in the long-hypothesized Oort cloud
   • WEIRD OBJECT BEYOND PLUTO GETS STRANGER
   • DISTANT PLANETOID SEDNA GIVES UP MORE SECRETS or
     DISTANT PLANETOID SEDNA GIVES UP MORE SECRETS The distant planetoid Sedna appears to be covered in a tar-like sludge that gives it a distinctly red hue, a new study reveals. The findings suggests the dark crust was baked-on by the Sun and has been untouched by other objects for millions of years. A similar "space weathering" process occurs on a 200- kilometre-wide object called Pholus, which lies near Saturn and is also very red.
     Astronomers have struggled to explain such an extreme orbit, but many believe a star passing by the Sun about 4 billion years ago yanked the planetoid off its original, circular course.
     This is typical of Kuiper Belt objects and Vulcan may also be covered with the same material making it hard to see.
   • MPEC 2004-E45 : 2003 VB12
   • IT'S ANOTHER WORLD . . . BUT IS IT OUR 10TH PLANET?
     The discovery of Sedna ?10 billion kilometres from Earth ?is a testament to the new generation of high-powered telescopes.
   • 'NEW PLANET' MAY HAVE A MOON
     At its most distant, Sedna is 130 billion km (84 billion miles) from the Sun, which is 900 times Earth's solar distance (149 million km or 93 million miles).
   • NEW SOLAR SYSTEM WORLD HAS A MOON
     More importantly, observations of the satellite's 49-day orbit allowed Brown to precisely calculate the masses of both 2003 EL61 and its moon.
     Pluto and 2003 EL61 both have satellites
   • MYSTERIOUS SEDNA
     The elliptical orbit of Sedna is unlike anything previously seen by astronomers. It resembles the orbits of objects predicted to lie in the hypothetical Oort cloud - a distant reservoir of comets. But Sedna is 10 times closer than the predicted distance of the Oort cloud. Brown speculated that this "inner Oort cloud" might have been formed billions of years ago when a rogue star passed by the sun, nudging some of the comet-like bodies inward. Other notable features of Sedna include its size and reddish color. After Mars, it is the second reddest object in the solar system.
   • SEDNA: A CLUE TO NIBIRU
   • LARGE WORLD (QUAOAR) FOUND BEYOND PLUTO
     The object is about one-tenth the diameter of Earth and circles the Sun every 288 years.
   • COMETS AND ASTEROIDS
   • APL: FRAGMENTING COMET REVEALS INNER SELF
     Scientists were able to observe the telltale chemical signatures of water. They also find a large amount of hydrogen cyanide, a simple compound containing a single molecule each of hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen.
   • COMET PARTICLES CONFOUND SCIENTISTS
     Particles from any icy comet that were collected and returned to Earth aboard a Nasa science satellite show dozens of minerals that form only in extreme heat - a finding that complicates theories about how the solar system formed, scientists say.
     Prevailing theories about the solar system's formation cannot explain how this high-temperature material ended up in the frigid regions beyond Neptune's orbit, the so-called Kuiper Belt where comets formed.
   • COMETS: THE LOOSE THREAD
     The facts are apt to be more stubborn than the theoreticians: Deep Impact kicked up ten times more dust than expected and stimulated the comet's activity a magnitude less than expected. The dust was not a conglomeration of sizes as expected but was consistently powder-fine. The nucleus of the comet was covered with sharply delineated features, two of which were circular enough to be called impact craters. This was not expected for a dirty snowball or a snowy dirtball or even a powdery fluffball.
     The craters, of course, weren't actually called impact craters. They must have been caused by subsurface explosions, because they had flat floors and terraced walls, despite the myriad of other craters on rocky planets and moons with flat floors and terraced walls that are called impact craters. All the other circular depressions with flat floors and terraced walls weren't craters because they had "unusual shapes."
     The hard times began with Comet Halley. Theory expected more or less uniform sublimation of the surface as the nucleus rotated in the sun, much as you would expect of a scoop of ice cream on a rotisserie. But Halley had jets. Less than 15% of the surface was sublimating, and the ejecta was shooting away in thin beams.
     The theory was adjusted to introduce hot spots, chambers below the surface in which pressure could build up and erupt through small holes to produce the jets. It went unmentioned that the holes must have been finely machined, like the nozzle of a rocket engine, in order to produce the collimation of the jets: Just any rough hole would result in a wide spray of gases. Borrelly made the hard times harder. It was dry. And black. Theoreticians tinkered with the dirty snowball theory until they got the dirt to cover the outside and to hide the snow inside. Somehow they got the dirt, which ordinarily is an insulator, to conduct heat preferentially into the rocket chambers to keep the jets going. Wild 2 defied them. Its jets were not just around the sub-solar point, where the Sun's heat would be greatest. This comet sported jets on the night side. The rocket chambers now had to store heat for half a "comet day". And something was needed to keep the jets coherent over great distances and to gather their emissions into a stream of clumps: Clusters of particles repeatedly struck the spacecraft.
     If you pull one electrified comet out of the well-knit structure of accepted theories, the entire garment will become unacceptable. Either the universe is an agglomeration of isolated, gravitating, non-electrical bodies, or else it is a network of bodies connected by and interacting through electrical circuits. Either the universe is a gravity universe or it is an Electric Universe. And comets are the loose thread.
   • WHERE DO COMETS COME FROM? - 28 January 2009
     Few cosmic apparitions have inspired such awe and fear as comets.
     Vulcan draws them in from the Kuiper Belt.
   • 'Dark' Comets Could Hit Earth Without Warning - February 13, 2009
     "There is a case to be made that dark, dormant comets are a significant but largely unseen hazard," said Bill Napier at Cardiff University.
   • 'Dark' comets may pose threat to Earth - 11 February 2009
     In previous work, Napier and Janaki Wickramasinghe, also at Cardiff, have suggested that when the solar system periodically passes through the galactic plane, it nudges comets in our direction (New Scientist, 19 April 2008, p 10).
     These periodic comet showers appear to correlate with the dates of ancient impact craters found on Earth, which would suggest that most impactors in the past were comets, not asteroids.
     Now Napier and Asher warn that some of these comets may still be zipping around the solar system. Other observations support their case. The rate that bright comets enter the solar system implies there should be around 3000 of them buzzing around, and yet only 25 are known.
   • COMETS 'ARE BORN OF FIRE AND ICE'
     Comets are born of fire as well as ice, the first results from the US space agency's (Nasa) Stardust mission show.
     The high-temperature minerals found in the Stardust samples may have formed in the inner part, where temperatures exceeded 1,000C.
     "When these grains formed, they were incandescent - they were red or white hot."
     One of these minerals known as forsterite, which melts at 2,000C and condenses at 1,127C, has been detected in a comet before.
   • NASA SCIENTISTS HAVE NEW MYSTERY TO SOLVE
     Some of the material brought back by Stardust probe 'kind of a shock'
     The samples include minerals such as anorthite, which is made up of calcium, sodium, aluminum and silicate; and diopside, made of calcium magnesium and silicate. Such minerals only form in very high temperatures.
     "That's a big surprise. People thought comets would just be cold stuff that formed out ... where things are very cold," said NASA curator Michael Zolensky. "It was kind of a shock to not just find one but several of these, which implies they are pretty common in the comet."
     The discovery raises questions about where the materials in comets form, he added.
     Comets may be debris left over from Vulcan's tiny exploded planets, according to the ASTRO-METRIC concept of how our OUR SOLAR SYSTEM was formed. Posted 03/16/2006.

     Distant planets, seeded by PBHs ejected from Vulcan's PBH, may have experienced detonations of these tiny PBHs because they were so very small. These detonations may have produced many fragments of primordial heavy element matter which became hydrogenated as the Sun grew to its present size. These primordial fragments are the likely source of cometary bodies found in both the inner and outer Oort cloud. Thus, cometary material constitute the remains of the crust or mantels of these primordial planets. Such material may often show evidence of prior melting such as that found in the Murchison meteorite Therefore, comets are representative of the early universe, especially as far as the originally formed prototype solar system is concerned. This concept is consistent with many of the current theories concerning comets, which describes their genesis as primordial.

   • WHAT IS A COMET MADE OF?
   • ASTEROID OR COMET - SAME BLOKE, DIFFERENT HAIRCUT!
     Brownlee wrote, "Bodies in the Kuiper belt are not comets, because they do not exhibit cometary activity, but they would become comets if perturbed closer to the Sun." Additionally, in the plasma concept, Kuiper belt objects do not become comets necessarily just from heating by the sun, but from a change in electrical properties of their environment.
     The results from recent missions suggest that comets are constructed of low- temperature and high-temperature materials that formed in totally disparate environments. The frozen volatiles were formed at the edge of the solar system or in presolar environments, but most of the rocky materials were white hot at the time of their formation and appear to have formed by violent processes in the hot regions of the solar system.
     Kuiper belt objects may be from detonated planetoids according to the ASTRO-METRIC theory.
   • FLOATING PILE OF RUBBLE A PRISTINE RECORD OF SOLAR SYSTEM'S HISTORY
     A small, near-Earth asteroid named Itokawa is just a pile of floating rubble, probably created from the breakup of an ancient planet, according to a University of Michigan researcher was part of the Japanese space mission Hayabusa.
     The existence of very large boulders and pillars suggests that an earlier "parent" asteroid was shattered by a collision and then re-formed into a rubble pile, the researchers conclude in the paper.
     It's likely that most asteroids have a similar past, Scheeres said. "Analysis of the asteroid samples will give us a snapshot of the early solar system, and provide valuable clues on how the planets were formed."
     Also, knowing if an asteroid is a single, big rock or a pile of rubble will have a major influence on how to nudge it off course, Scheeres said, should its orbit be aimed at Earth. An asteroid collision with Earth, while unlikely, could have disastrous consequences. It's widely thought that an asteroid collision caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, so some have discussed ways to demolish or steer an approaching asteroid, should we see one coming.
     Another striking finding, Scheeres said, is that regions of Itokawa's surface are smooth, "almost like a sea of desert sand" and others are very rugged. This indicates that the surfaces of asteroids are, in some sense, active, with material being moved from one region to another. Gravity holds the mass of rubble together.
   • LARGEST ASTEROID MIGHT CONTAIN MORE FRESH WATER THAN EARTH
     Ceres has long been considered one of the tens of thousands of asteroids that make up the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. At 580 miles (930 km) in diameter ?about the size of Texas ?it's the largest asteroid in the belt, accounting for about 25 percent of the belt's total mass.
     "The most likely scenario from the knowledge we have on how other objects form, it probably has a rocky core and a mantle. That mantle is probably some watery, icy mix, with other dirt and constituents. That mantle could be as much as ?of the whole object," study coauthor Joel Parker of the Southwest Research Institute told SPACE.com. "Even though it's a small object compared to Earth, there could be a lot of water."
   • ASTEROID PROBE ON CLOSE APPROACH
   • THREE TROJAN ASTEROIDS SHARE NEPTUNE ORBIT
   • COMET COLLISION 'ARMAGEDDON' UNLIKELY
   • THEY SING THE COMET ELECTRIC
   • 'ELECTRIC COMET' COULD BURN THE HOUSE OF SCIENCE
   • COMETS, GRAVITY, AND ELECTRICITY
   • DEEP IMPACT SPACE COLLISION REVEALS COMETS TO BE FLUFFY BALLS OF POWDER Most striking is that the comet is not made up of very much at all. "It's mostly empty," said Prof A'Hearn. The fine particles of dust and ice are held together extremely loosely, with pores thought to run throughout. "We have deduced that around 75% to 80% of the nucleus is empty and that tells me there is probably no solid nucleus. That is a significant advance in our understanding," said Prof A'Hearn.
     Comment from Signs Of The Times 09/08/2005: There are two problems with this report. The first is that one cannot immediately assume that all comets have the same composition. Certainly the new data is interesting, but shouldn't the new theory be verified? The second problem is that scientists involved in Deep Impact previously claimed that there was little chance the comet would disrupt the orbit of Tempel 1. Now they say there were quite interested in learning if the impact would disrupt the orbit so that a similar experiment could intentionally alter the orbit of a comet headed for Earth in the future.
   • COMET SHAKES CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
     Researchers analyzing the data were intrigued to find the comet is mostly made up of loose powder-like particles, laced with carbon. Spectrometers, cameras and other instruments revealed that the comet in fact has the consistency of a snowdrift. "The comet is mostly empty, mostly porous," said Dr A'Hearne. "Probably all the way in, there is no bulk of ice. The ice is all in the form of tiny grains. "The material is unbelievably fragile."
     Some experts say such molecules could have kick-started life on Earth. Under the "pan-spermia" idea, comets pounded the early Earth billions of years ago, bringing organic molecules that reacted with the Sun's light and heat, creating a rich chemical soup within which life began. The theory, which was initially slammed as "outlandish" by some scientists, is slowly gaining ground.
     Comets were once believed to be of either the stony or metal core variety. Perhaps there is a third kind, the 'snow drift' variety. These may explode should they impact Earth's atmosphere, causing it to rain 'for forty days'.
   • ICE LAYERS RECORD COMET CREATION
     As the cometesimals hit the surface of a growing comet nucleus, they "flowed" on to the surface, researchers believe.
     But temperature data from Tempel 1's nucleus suggests the material must be lost from only a few centimetres below the surface.
   • MINI-COMETS APPROACHING EARTH - 03.24.2006
     A cometary "string-of-pearls" will fly past Earth in May closer than any comet has come in almost 80 years.
   • 'STARDUST' SHATTERS COMET THEORY - Part 1
   • ALIEN PARTICLES FOUND IN 'COMET RAIN' PUT UNDER MICROSCOPE AT WELSH UNIVERSITY
     WELSH scientists have been spearheading the hunt for alien life that may have fallen to Earth in a shower of "red rain".
     Astrobiologists will today continue to examine traces of matter that poured its blood-red deluge over the Indian state of Kerala for two whole months in 2001.
     Chandra Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff University, is investigating claims made by one Indian researcher that the phenomenon may have been caused by a passing comet depositing extraterrestrial organisms over our planet.
   • CELESTIAL FIREWORKS IN THE ANCIENT SKY
     Plasma scientists are now comparing electrical discharge formations in the laboratory to rock art images around the world. Results in 2005 should confirm that immense and terrifying plasma configurations were seen in the sky of our ancestors. Add to this the results posted in "THE ULTIMATE TIME MACHINE"; Joseph McMoneagle; pg. 216.

     Sometime in the year 2016, an asteroid will bypass Earth, missing our globe by less than 1.3 million miles. It will be large enough to cause a measurable electromagnetic effect on the Earth's surface. This will be the first of four that will visit our neighborhood over the next hundred years, The second will pass around 2030, the third in 2044, and the fourth in 2071. none of these rocks will strike our planet."

     These dates also appear in the analysis of the Bible Code data.
   • CELESTIAL FIREWORKS IN THE ANCIENT SKY - Part 1
   • CELESTIAL FIREWORKS IN THE ANCIENT SKY - Part 2
   • MYSTERY OF THE COSMIC THUNDERBOLT(1)
     How did the story of a heaven-altering contest find its way into so many cultures? In the ritual of the Babylonian Akitu Festival, the enemy is the dragon Tiamat, subdued by the god Marduk. For the Egyptians it was the dragon Apep, defeated by Ra or his agent Horus. For the Greeks it was the fiery serpents Typhon or Python, vanquished respectively by Zeus and Apollo. Hindu accounts similarly recalled the attack of the sky-darkening serpent Vritra, felled by Indra. But these are only a few of hundreds of such accounts preserved around the world.
   • ARMAGEDDON - Antimatter Comets Thesis - Will be a living rain of fire and terror from the sky
   • ARMAGEDDON - Antimatter Comets Thesis - Billions of people will parish.
   • SUN APPROACHING COMETS
   • POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS ASTEROIDS
   • ASTEROID 3200 PHAETHON (1983 TB)
   • VULCAN FIRES UP Vulcanoids would need to be in near-circular orbits, each avoiding the others, if they were to have survived the billions of years since the solar system formed. If they exist, how could they be found, perennially in the solar glare?
   • ASTEROID 4179 TOUTATIS (1989 AC) 73P/SCHWASSMANN-WACHMANN 3
     The next predicted perihelion date is 2006 June 7 and the comet will pass 0.0735 AU from Earth on May 13
   • ASTRONOMERS TAKE SEARCH FOR EARTH-THREATENING SPACE ROCKS TO SOUTHERN SKIES
   • SEARCH TO FIND DANGEROUS ASTEROIDS NEARLY COMPLETE
   • WHAT IS A COMET?
   • COMETS
   • COMETS
   • NEAR EARTH OBJECTS - A pretty quiet topic on Asteroids, Comets, Meteorites and Near-Earth Objects (NEOs)
   • COMETS AND ASTEROIDS
   • HUBBLE SPIES COMET TEMPEL 1 BELCHING DUST
   • COMETS IN ANCIENT CULTURES
   • COMET BORRELLY PUZZLE: DARKEST OBJECT IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
     Comet Borrelly reflects less than 3 percent of all the sunlight that hits it. It was assumed that Vulcan reflected about 10%. But if it is as dark as comets, Vulcan's estimated to be a 21 magnitude object could be three times dimmer.
   • 73P/SCHWASSMANN-WACHMANN 3
     The next predicted perihelion date is 2006 June 7 and the comet will pass 0.0735 AU from Earth on May 13, being only slightly farther away than during the original discovery apparition of 1930.
   • STRANGE COMET UNLIKE ANYTHING KNOWN
     Brownlee is also intrigued by the utter lack of similarities between Wild 2 and Phoebe, a fairly small moon of Saturn recently imaged up close by the Cassini spacecraft. Phoebe is thought to be a captured object, having originated -- like Wild 2 -- beyond Neptune. But Phoebe's gently sloping craters, which are riddled with boulders, resemble those seen on asteroids. And Phoebe has many small craters embedded in larger, older craters.
     "It's fascinating that they're so different," Brownlee said in a telephone interview.
   • COMET 'DIRTY SNOWBALL' THEORY IS DEAD Comet 'Wild 2' Looks Like An Asteroid
   • NASA SPACECRAFT REVEALS SURPRISING ANATOMY OF A COMET
     Stardust gathered the images on Jan. 2, 2004, when it flew 236 kilometers (about 147 miles) from Wild 2. The flyby yielded the most detailed, high-resolution comet images ever.
     Another big surprise was the abundance and behavior of jets of particles shooting up from the comet's surface. We expected a couple of jets, but saw more than two dozen in the brief flyby,
     The violent jets may form when the Sun shines on icy areas near or just below the comet's surface. The solid ice becomes a gas without going through a liquid phase. Escaping into the vacuum of space, the jets blast out at hundreds of kilometers per hour.
   • COMET WILD 2 SURFACE NOT SATELLITE OR ASTEROID SURFACE
   • STARDUST MISSION PHOTOS
   • STARDUST TARGETS LIGHTNING RETURN
   • STRANGE COMET UNLIKE ANYTHING KNOWN
     Among the bizarre features are two depressions with flat floors and nearly vertical walls that resemble giant footprints. They aren't structured like typical impact craters. The features have been named Left Foot and Right Foot in a new map of the comet, which is roughly 3 miles (5 kilometers) wide.
     Comet Wild 2 probably gathered itself together 4.5 billion years ago, just after the Sun was born, in a region beyond Neptune known as the Kuiper Belt.
   • CICLOPS Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory Operatios Phoebe Pictures And Analysis
   • PHOEBE'S SURFACE REVEALS CLUES TO ITS ORIGIN
     "Based on our images, some of us are leaning towards the view that has been promoted recently, that Phoebe is probably ice-rich and may be an object originating in the outer solar system, more related to comets and Kuiper Belt objects than to asteroids."
   • PHOEBE'S SURPRISE (see crater images)
   • SATURN'S MYSTERY MOON (PHOEBE) SHOWS EXPOSED WATER ICE, SAYS CORNELL RESEARCHER
     Phoebe is likely a primordial mixture of ice, rock and carbon-containing compounds similar in to material seen on Pluto and Neptune's moon Triton.
     Buratti told today's press conference that both carbon dioxide and a simple hydrocarbon have been detectred on Phoebe. The water ice, she said, seems to be associated with a very bright material and there are bright craters and areas that seem to be rich with ice. "There seem to be minerals found with the water, and also an unidentified mystery material tied up with dark material,"
     Phoebe's mass was determined from precise tracking of the spacecraft and optical navigation, combined with an accurate volume estimate from images. The measurements yield a density of about 1.6 grams per cubic centimeter (100 pounds per cubic foot), much lighter than most rocks, but heavier than pure ice at approximately 0.93 grams per cubic centimeter (58 pounds per cubic foot).
     Torrence Johnson, a Cassini imaging team member from JPL, said that this density "tells us automatically this is not a pure iceball with a thin dark layer. You would never get a density of 1.6 from something like that. Inside, Phoebe has to be fairly complex and has to include some processes to produce these clean layers underneath the surface, which is a deep carbonaceous and rock-rich surface."
   • SATURN'S ODD MOON OUT
     Many have long suspected that Phoebe originated in the outer solar system and was somehow captured by Saturn's gravitational pull. But until recently, the only evidence they had was the fact that the moon reflected less light than the planet's other moons, and that it orbited Saturn in the opposite direction. The new studies, which appear in the May 5 issue of Nature, show the link even more clearly.
     In the density study, Lunine and Jet Propulsion Laboratory imaging specialist Torrence Johnson reveal that Phoebe has more rocks and less ice than the rest of Saturn's moons. In fact, its density matches that of Neptune's moon Triton and the planet Pluto. The former is thought to have been captured from a region of the outer solar system known as the Kuiper Belt, a disk of icy debris left over from the formation of the planets. Pluto still orbits there.
     In the second study, U.S. Geological Survey astrophysicist Roger Clark and a dozen colleagues show how some of the materials detected on Phoebe's surface, like various cyanide compounds, resemble those found on a comet -- again pointing to an origin in the outer solar system. Perhaps more importantly, the researchers found that Phoebe's surface is more diverse in composition than any solar system body ever studied, with the exception of Earth. If Phoebe was indeed formed in the Kuiper Belt, then this material could be some of the most primitive in the solar system, according to Clark.
   • PHOEBE MOON MAY BE CAPTURED COMET
     "Phoebe has a long journey behind it. It comes from the outer Solar System and probably rounded the Sun a few times before it was captured by Saturn's orbit. But we really don't know." Notice Phoebe's unusual craters. Wonder if they were made by the impact of a small antimatter beam causing water explosions to move Phoebe into its current orbit?
     
   • ASTEROIDS NEAR JUPITER ARE REALLY COMETS
     Observations indicate two orbiting bodies are mostly water ice UFO-CONTACT FROM PLANET IARGA
     • Q: "Why do they have to be so streamlined, since space is surely empty?"
     • A: "We wish that were true! For spaceships that travel at relative speeds, space is not empty enough and not only streamlining but armor plating is also necessary. You have seen our ship and can see that armor is not a useless luxury. They have no windows; they are heavy, armored projectiles, whose strength comes from the discus form. (
     • A: "When our radar warns us of dust or material, we make the banking maneuver that you have just seen. This then presents the smallest possible surface area to the danger. Nevertheless, each particle of dust makes burn marks on the plating. For this reason we always fly in line formation. The command consists of five ships and the lead ship is always unmanned, because this one runs the greatest risk.
     • Q: "Yes, fine, thank you - ,but didn't you say something about a protective weapon which you could use if material threatened to cross the path of the spacecraft?"
     • A: "The antimatter ray, Stef, is a defense against larger blocks of material which only rarely occur in space. The use of this ray demands not only enormous quantities of energy, but it is controlled by strong restrictions to prevent disturbing the natural balance. We are only justified in its use when no other methods are possible. This weapon cannot replace the armor plating of our ships."
   • ORBIT ANALYST COMMENT ONE
   • ORBIT ANALYST COMMENT TWO