2012: NASA's Scientific Reality Check
Written by Nancy Atkinson
NASA is now joining in to combat the 2012 nonsense. Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object office has produced a video and written an article, providing the scientific realities surrounding the celestial happenings of 2012. Yeomans has done a wonderful job explaining everything that is and isn't going to happen in 2012, and we're happy to add his work to our collection of 2012 debunking articles.
Written by Don Yeomans, NASA senior research scientist
The Galileo spacecraft's view of the Moon and Earth On December 16, 1992, 8 days after its encounter with Earth, the Galileo spacecraft looked back from a distance of about 6.2 million kilometers (3.9 million miles) to capture this remarkable view of the Moon in orbit about Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL There apparently is a great deal of interest in celestial bodies, and their locations and trajectories at the end of the calendar year 2012. Now, I for one love a good book or movie as much as the next guy. But the stuff flying around through cyberspace, TV and the movies is not based on science. There is even a fake NASA news release out there… So here is the scientific reality on the celestial happenings in the year 2012.
Nibiru, a purported large object headed toward Earth, simply put – does not exist. There is no credible evidence – telescopic or otherwise – for this object's existence. There is also no evidence of any kind for its gravitational affects upon bodies in our solar system.
I do however like the name Nibiru. If I ever get a pet goldflish (and I just may do that sometime in early 2013), Nibiru will be at the top of my list.
The Mayan calendar does not end in December 2012. Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period, but then – just as your calendar begins again on January 1 – another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.
There are no credible predictions for worrisome astronomical events in 2012. The activity of the sun is cyclical with a period of roughly 11 years and the time of the next solar maximum is predicted to occur in the period 2010 – 2012. However, the Earth routinely experiences these periods of increased solar activity – for eons – without worrisome effects. The Earth’s magnetic field, which deflects charged particles from the sun, does reverse polarity on time scales of about 400,000 years but there is no evidence that a reversal, which takes thousands of years to occur, will begin in 2012. Even if this several thousand year-long magnetic field reversal were to begin, that would not affect the Earth’s rotation nor would it affect the direction of the Earth’s rotation axis… only Superman can do that.
The only important gravitational tugs experienced by the Earth are due to the moon and sun. There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and Sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.
The predictions of doomsday or dramatic changes on December 21, 2012 are all false. Incorrect doomsday predictions have taken place several times in each of the past several centuries. Readers should bear in mind what Carl Sagan noted several years ago; "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, the burden of proof is on the people making these claims. Where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and all the passionate, persistent and profitable assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.
For more information on the silliness surrounding December 2012, see:
* Bad Astronomy, Planet X
* Wikipedia: look under “Nibiru collision.”
* NASA's 2012 FAQ's
Source: NASA
Filed under: 2012
Tags: 2012Related stories on Universe Today
Comment policy: Be nice and brief. Don't advertise your stuff, or promote your personal theories. We'll delete any comments that break these policies. Click here for more details.
82 Responses to “2012: NASA's Scientific Reality Check”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
This is great. I'm sharing this with all my easily-alarmed friends so I don't have to repeat myself. Repeat myself. Repeat myself.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:03 am
Nice demolition of all that silly 2012 woo.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:44 am
Dear Don,..please, let us know your scientific explanations for why are my astronomical proof for Nibiru's existence not correct:
Astronomical proofs
1.
End of ? of Precession cycle 25000-26000 years long. There was first catastrophic end of Atlantis, dramatic temperature change 13000years ago, half of precession cycle ago.
2.
2012-transit of Venus, Jupiter's aphelia, maximum of Solar cycle.
3.
All planetoids behind Pluto, Pluto, Neptune are close to perihelia or aphelia on their orbits. Why?
Opposite motion of Sun with inner planets toward arriving Nibiru causes projection, appearant changes, such shapes of that outdoor planets,' planetoids' orbits.
4.
North magnetic pole accelerated motion in last decades,..toward North, toward plane in direction of Orion, of coming Nibiru.. Magnetic field is weaker so that in this change velocity it would disappear after 1500years. Last such full change was 730000 years ago and this change had to be earlier than this time. There were 30 magnet. Poles switches per last 22 millions years.
5.
Magnetic pole change about 30 degrees on Saturn in last years. Nibiru is circa in Saturn's distance from us.
6.
Global warming, extreme temperature changes on Earth, but also ice cap melting on Mars in last years, signif. temperature changes on other planets, their moons-Neptune's Triton, doubled tickness of its atmosphere, rising temperature,…
7.
Water level rise, but only on north hemisphere,…rising number of extreme floods, strong winds, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, temperature records,..due to rising level of tidal forces from coming Nibiru,…especially in time about 21 jun, 23december when earth axis is in plane pointing toward Orion, coming Nibiru, when Moon, Sun, some other planets like Venus, Mars, Jupiter are too circa in that direction.
8.
Results from Milagro Los Alamos observatory 10 years long cosmic rays survey. Results are two hot spots next to Orion what are projections of coming Nibiru during spring and autumn equinoxes, represent also distance of Nibiru from us circa 1,5 billions km,…like Saturn from us,..so it means arrival of Nibiru to perihelia in 3 years, in 2012!More is on hamops1.szm.sk
http://www.planetx.websnadno.cz/
senmut.webs.com
and over there mentioned webs.
Pavel Smutny
November 12th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Here's an opoportunity to improve the human race. Just ask everybody who believes in this 2012 80110cks to get into a star ark and send them all off to Andromeda.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:57 am
I thought I might get in before the 2012 lunatics and say that no matter how hard we try to present scientific proof refuting the apocalyptic claims they will always say that NASA/science is lying or covering up the 'truth'
and come up with their own false evidence. However, I see senmut was awake and threw us a load of garbage.
I'd be interested to know why the sea level only rose in the northern hemisphere[item 7]. will he also explain why there are no gravitational perturbations in the solar system if a body as large as Nibiru is almost upon us? Jeezizzz.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:12 am
Paul, look at Jupiter,..what are perturbations of planets due to Jupiter's presence? Jupiter is on circular orbit around Sun and is close to us billions years? Nibiru should be among planets less than 20+20 years, because rest from circa 1500 years orbit is far away. Nibiru is probably 2x more distant from us than Jupiter now, so its grav. force is 4x smaller than from Jupiter on Earth at the same mass, but if Nibiru is 5-25 mass of Jupiter, so gravity from Nibiru is 1-5x bigger than that from Jupiter, tidal is force even bigger. But how big is effect of Jupiter on tides on oceans, seas. It is some centimetres till now. Maybe end of this December tell us more,…Nibiru could be very densty body, something like mini black hole, neutron star or core of destroyed brown dwarf,..so heavy but small,…and so invisible for clasical telescopes,..
November 12th, 2009 at 2:22 am
There is stronger effect on northern hemisphere, because Earth's axis is inclin. 23,5 degress from rigth angle toward Ecliptic plane,…that axis and its plane is pointing circa toward Orion,..direction of arriving Nibiru,…
November 12th, 2009 at 2:43 am
Tidal forces from bodies what are circling one around another like Earth around Sun,…Moon around Earth are making bulges on Earth,.. on both sides of Earth.
But direct gravity from Nibiru, due to extrem. elliptical orbit is making bulge only on closer side of Earth and that side is North hemisphere,…
November 12th, 2009 at 4:47 am
21. december 2012? NASA is behind time
Proponents of 2102 have already a new, more flexible date. Qoute from an India Daily article:
"India Daily Technology Team
NASA says all clear! World is not ending on December 21, 2012. The Space Agency of America made one simple mistake. The world will not end on Dec 21, but any time between Dec 23, 2012 and Dec 23, 2029"
The show must go on
)
November 12th, 2009 at 4:53 am
To senmut. If Nibiru is twice as far from us as Jupiter that puts it in the general orbit of Saturn. As far as I'm aware [an I'm an amateur astronomer] nothing has turned up in that region. No matter what mass this hypothetical planet has [unless asteroid-sized] it will have perturbed no end of minor an dnot so mionor bodies on its way into the inner system. Tell me, where is it and why hasn't it shown up in any survey? Don't say the authorities are hiding the evidence becasue there are myriad amateurs out there who would alert the rest of the world had they seen it. This really is a case of 'absence of evidence is evidence of absence'.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:56 am
To senmut. Re: the sea level higher in the north. Presumably the levels rise in the south when earth is on the other side of the orbit six months later.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:57 am
Paul,..Earth's South pole is more distant from Orion,..Nibiru,..doesn't mind if Winter or Summer,…time due to orientation of Earth's axis,..
Maybe NASA,…are hiding nothing. They simply see nothing till now. Only Milagro see some spots, but Their staff are not able to explain those spots correctly.
There are quite many changes on Saturn,..on it's satellites during last years. Magnet. pole of Saturn changed it's position circa 30 degrees, there are very significant changes in atmosphere of Titan,..much more clouds in northern and southern latitudes, super gesir on Enceladus sprinking water to enormous heights, newly discovered super wide ring around Saturn,…
November 12th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Hey I've just been reading some ancient Mayan scripts not previously translated and it seems Nibiru can be stopped, apparently all you have to do is BOIL YOUR HEAD and if enough believers do this then it will perturb the orbit to avoid earth. This is why Mayan paintings depict extreme tortures it was their way of deflecting Nibiru. Soon I will post a 127 point justification for this.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:08 am
senmut – Presumably you are not joking, so here – every single thing you've listed is simply a phenomenon that requires nothing like Nibiru for their explanation. There is nothing odd or weird or out of place about anything you've listed. Since you've listed about a zillion things, I'll cherry pick a few examples:
First of all, there is no evidence that Atlantis ever existed. And yes, there have been dramatic temperature changes through history, but if a body in orbit around the sun were responsible, then these would occur at absolutely regular intervals. There is no evidence for this. Then, what has the 2012-transit of Venus, Jupiter's aphelia and the maximum of Solar cycle got to do with Nibiru? These are just normal astronomical events.
Geysers on Enceladus – there is no evidence to suggest that these are a new phenomenon, or have increased in intensity recently. There are perfectly good explanations for this activity without having to invoke some cataclysm. Seasonal Change on Titan has been expected and anticipated by astronomers since the day Cassini arrived there. Saturn experiencing 'changes' – well all of the bodies in the solar system experience changes. You have to be more specific than that if you are going to posit this as evidence for Nibiru. Why would these particular changes lead you to believe that a massive object's gravitational attraction is responsible for these changes?
And then you say "But direct gravity from Nibiru, due to extrem. elliptical orbit is making bulge only on closer side of Earth and that side is North hemisphere,…"
Sorry, but that's not how gravity works. Gravity cannot just form a bulge on one side only of a planet. Tidal interactions will always cause a double bulge. The particulars of the orbit of the other gravitating object makes not a jot of difference to this.
Also, if an object that were 5-25 times the mass of Jupiter were sitting anywhere near us, the perturbations in planetary orbits that it would cause would be noticeable. If it were only twice the distance of Jupiter away, the only possible explanation is a black hole, or we would have spied it. But there are no black holes this small, other than the possibility of primordial black holes, but they can be no where near this massive.
I could just go on and on, but I'm going to bed. Not only is Nibiru unnecessary to explain anything you've posited as 'evidence' supporting it's existence, I fail to see even one physical mechanism by which a rogue massive body orbiting the Sun could plausibly lead to almost any of the effects you have raised. Sorry brosef!
November 12th, 2009 at 7:36 am
re :
"Here's an opoportunity to improve the human race. Just ask everybody who believes in this 2012 80110cks to get into a star ark and send them all off to Andromeda"
This would be wasted on those people. send the lawyers and politicians instead.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:38 am
BTW, I believe the "documentary" 2012 opens tonight/tomorrow at a theater near you.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Concerning this lunacy thinking, don't the Niburu adherents also claim that Earth civilizations are the result of Niburu beings visiting Earth, and that Earth and Niburu collided in the distant past? If so, why aren't Earth and Niburu molten, and how can a Niburu civilization then exist? How does the Niburu civ, if it survived the collision, continue to survive in the deep cold of the far-outer solar system? How did such a civ arise in the first place?
Thinking minds want to know!
November 12th, 2009 at 7:53 am
To senmut. To all intents the distance from the poles to Orion is the same. And by the way, Orion as an actual entity doesn't exist, it's merely a chance alignment of stars. In a few thousand years the constellation will have assumed a different shape as the constituent stars move in their orbits around the galaxy.
November 12th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Senmut:
15 years ago the same or very similar arguments was placed by people who wanted Nibiru to be real and to be an immediate threat to our civilization. It didnt show up then, and havent showed up any of the other times it have been 'predicted', ans it will not show this time either…
And the reason is – it is not there
The people that wants you to believe Nibiru is real are making money of your ignorance on the subject, they are making lots of money… and they will laugh all the way to the bank in the begginning of 2013 because of all the money they made in the time just before it. And do you know what ? They are scamming you legally. in total it is possibly a multi billion dollar industry that is nothing but a legal scam.
Do you want to be part of that scam, when you dont get part of the profit ?
Do you believe i will feel pity for you after you realise you have been scammed or used for this scam ? No! You pay for your own stupidity, if you dont want stupidity then get back to reality. And in reality, Niburu is just a cash cow for those in charge of promoting this idea. They have no responsibility for what they claim, they can run away when their claims come false, and they can keep all the money they made before that – simply because _this is legal_.
Its not true, its not good, its just not illegal.
November 12th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Forgot to mention – 12 years ago huge sums of money was made by Zetatalk lead by Nancy Lieder, who promoted the idea Niburian's was communicating telepathically with her and telling her universal truths.
I think Zetatalk still exists, its still a non-profit orgainsation that accepts donation and sells pamphlets and books, and they do not have to show their finances to anyone because – they are a non-profit organisation. The money they make are never registered anywhere so noone knows exactly how much they make – and trust me, it was alot.
I bet Nancy was laughing all the way to the bank back then, even though Niburu never showed up on any of the times she predicted it would come…
November 12th, 2009 at 9:16 am
The gravitational perturbation of even a modest mass would be apparent. After all the planet (oops not a planet any more
)Pluto was know to exist and in part found by perturbations in the orbit of Neptune. There simply is no planet planet Nibiru, outside of maybe some mass on the scale of a small asteroid.
SteveZodiac: good one!
I think we have an astrological version of Anaconda here. Senmut is another true-believer in crap. Oh well, all it takes is for the year 2013 to roll around to silence him and other 2012 wogs.
LC
November 12th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Wait, didn't the world already end in the year 2000? And in the year 1000? We must be living in the matrix. Oh, and isn't the future stopping us from operating the LHC? And wasn't there a second gunman that ACTAULLY shot Kennedy? And wasn't the Moon landings all staged in a studio in Hollywood? Didn't aliens land i n Roswell New Mexico back in 1947?
If none of those things are real, then I don't know WHAT to believe
November 12th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
"3. All planetoids behind Pluto, Pluto, Neptune are close to perihelia or aphelia on their orbits. Why?"
The reason so many planetoids are found near aphelion is because that is where they spend most of their time. The further it is from the sun the slower it moves, and this effect is very pronounced for highly elliptical orbits.
On the other end of the scale, the reason we spot quite a few objects near their perihelion is because they appear brightest then. Take Sedna for instance. It is near its perihelion, but if it were much further out it would be too dim to see. Astronomers actually think there's many other objects like Sedna out there on huge elliptical orbits, but Sedna happens to be the only one close enough to be detectable. And when our telescopes improve to the point that we can spot them all, we'll find most of the others near aphelion.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
J. Major Says:
' so I don't have to repeat myself '
No matter what you say, there are those so-called believers of ' end of day' who will say
Don Yeomans' article is a conspiracy to prevent panic. I will repeat myself like I did in previous posts about this 2012 hub-bub, I wll buy jewelry, antiques and other valuable items from believers of 'end of days' for 1 or 2% of their true value prior to Dec21,2012-by the Spring of 2013, I will be have alot of money from selling those items for true value
after Dec21,2012. lol
November 12th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Emission nebula: The problem is that many people are motivated by fear, which they either internalize or they externalize onto other people. Those who internalize such fear are you basic twit, while those who externalize it, project it onto people in order to manipulate them. This manipulation can serve a range of purposes, from getting people to buy a nonsense book and gain royalties, or to increase their political influence.
This is why we continue to get conspiracy scenarios thrown at us which make little sense. There are of course reasons to be concerned about dire events or "doomsday." A nuclear war or a slower dieoff by global warming or some similar thing merits real concern. A claimed danger by a rogue planet Nibiru that will crash into Earth, or Satan will come as a beast or the Masons lead by Ozzy Ozborne will conquer the world for evil or …, those ideas are preposterous. Yet amazingly people will jump on these things. Even more strange, once these claimed prophecies fail many jump on the next such band wagon.
This happens with politics as well. The Republicans, particular with Reagan, sounded many alarms about the Soviet Union. In 1991 there was suddenly no USSR, and nothing to point to as a threat. Yet interestingly the right and GOP found other "enemies," with radio spokesmen to whip people into agitated masses of worry. And it worked! It worked very well.
Doubtless there will be other conspiracy theories coming at us. Maybe claims of poodles from space coming to eat all our hamburgers, the ghosts of cattle will come to haunt our resturants or … . Who knows, but these silly things will come, and people will produce stuff and make money off of it. it works very well.
LC
November 12th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
I found interesting senmut's assertion that this object may be a small black hole or neutron star-like object that would 'hide' from traditional telescopes. Not to mention the gravitational perturbations, this object should be radiating brightly in X-rays, gamma-rays and(according to senmut) cosmic rays( the unspecified Milagro 'detections'). Would not orbiting all-sky hi-energy satellites like Fermi, BeppoSax, and Swift easily detect this energetic emission, not to mention other ground-based VHE observatories like H.E.S.S., VERITAS and MAGIC (and Milagro) ? What about neutrino observatories?
November 12th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
How stupid are people to think that some loonies who lived thousands of years ago can look up and see a giant planet coming towards us with their naked eyes, and yet we haven't found anything like it using telescopes, satellites, and space probes? Really? The fact that we haven't even found an object 5-25 times bigger than Earth coming towards us from the vicinity of SATURN'S ORBIT should be proof enough that there's no Nibiru. What, is it invisible? I don't know, but what IS invisible is all of these claims about "OMG DOOMSDAY 2012 NIBIRU POLESHIFT SOLARFLARE COMET!!"
Once 12/21/12 comes and goes, the fact that all of you were humiliated in public for arguing in favor of invisible planets, killer solar flares, angry comets, and magnetic reversal that may OR MAY NOT happen within the next MILLION years will bring me so much satisfaction that my face might rip in half for smiling so hard. Good luck, you loonies.
And as a final note, we, the scientific, non-crazy people, have got your back, NASA!
Btw, the Mayans' other calenders ended, so why didn't the world end with those? Huh? I thought so.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:52 am
Why we don't see Nibiru even now? For example comet 17P/Holmes was brighter within 2 days 100000-1000000x in end of October 2007. From object invisible even for quite big telescope was after two days visible by nacked eyes even in cities. The most amount of main stream astronomers were very against existence of object comparable or bigger than Pluto 10 years ago. They spoke also such way, that such object should make disturbances in orbits of Pluto, Neptune,..We have circa 6 such objects in distance not much longer than Pluto officially now.
Nibiru is depicted on ancient paintings in ancient texts how very dark object visible only when it is closer than Band of asteroids to us.
November 13th, 2009 at 1:31 am
You are mistaken. Astronomers were not strongly opposed to other Pluto-like objects out there- in fact, many predicted it. And they knew the objects would NOT have the mass to produce significant alterations in the orbit of Neptune.
November 13th, 2009 at 1:32 am
I'm gonna party like hell when 2013 comes around!!
Let's make sure to point out how stupid those who believe this nonsense. I suggest we humiliate every single one of them.
The UN should make 2012 : The YEAR of the SUCKER, and 2013 : The YEAR of the FOOLISH !!!!!
November 13th, 2009 at 1:50 am
As satisfying as it might be, I don't think we should do that. People tend to become resentful when mocked, and so they might dig their heels in and immerse themselves ever deeper in the crazy.
November 13th, 2009 at 2:10 am
To senmut. If your hypothesised Nibiru was as close as you say then it would be visible to any telescope even if were as black as coal [which incidentally many minor bodies are and they can be easily detected]. Perhaps yopu could be good enough to give us the exact celestial coordinates or even a general area in the sky where Nib is.
November 13th, 2009 at 3:36 am
to Paul,..
Nibiru, should be somewhere 1,5billion km from us because it's proximity to perihelia, circa as far as Saturn. Nibiru so should have it's apparent motion on sky toward us, due to "year motion" of Earth on it's orbit such, that Nibiru moves circa from Castor and Pollux to Aldebaran and vice versa within 1 year on sky during last years. Nibiru is where head of Orion is,..on the end of December,..
November 13th, 2009 at 3:36 am
Paul Eaton-Jones Says
After reading serimut postings, my warped way of interpretation is- On Dec21,2012 a hugh comet, real mean, jumped right out, stopped 10K miles (16K KM) from Earth, then blew a nasty wind with real bad breath, and threatened to blow the Earth down (wait, I didn't know the atmosphere goes that far, and Earth, is it up or down?!?) . This story is a much bigger event taken from a more down to Earth driving event—-A tree and a car embraced driven by a drunk driver. COP to driver,'why did you hit the tree???' DRIVER to cop, 'what do you mean, that tree jumped right out and I couldn't stop in time-officer, you should arrest the tree for attempted manslaughter, indeed, putting drivers in danger!!!!' To all—–you can think about how the cop handled the driver!!!!!!
November 13th, 2009 at 5:52 am
It is clear that senmut has little understanding of Newtonian gravity and the basic laws of mechanics. A large body with that sort of mass would have gravitational perturbative effects on planetary orbits or motion. We are not talking about a moon-mass object out at the fringes or Kuiper belt, but a super-terrestrial planetary mass to Neptune mass entering the region of the two main gas giants. Even if we could not see it, its influence would be apparent.
I have been around enough to see these types of ideas come and go. It is astounding how much heat and noise is generated by these things. They range from UFO ideas, Messianic prophecies, and the LHC will terminate existence. This extends to more Earthly ideas of secret government conspiracies, such as current ideas that H1N1 vaccines are a way to reduce the US population, Obama is not a US citizen (something promoted on a major network — and Lou Dobbs stepped down over this), secret FEMA concentration camps to eliminate "patriots," and so forth. Doubtless a decade from now there will be new conspiracy nonsense ideas.
What is of any interest with these things is maybe the social implications of this. Anyone trained in physics or astronomy finds black holes at galactic centers, or dark matter/energy problems interesting, while murky ideas about some invisible planet about to destroy Earth range from mundane to preposterous. Yet a significant number of people are drawn to these things, and these stories shift over time. It is interesting that Orion often crops up in these things, and there is a trend where Orion is thought to be the inner sanctum of Jesus as he prepares to return to Earth to bring judgment. 10 years ago the left behind series was hugely popular and people all tied up over the “second coming.” If we get a new comet display in the coming decade we will doubtless get panic over alien mother ship visitations or that God is returning or … .
LC
November 13th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Wow, you're full of science fail senmut. Nice job.
November 13th, 2009 at 7:08 am
To star-grazer west coast . Why did you paste my name in there?
To senmut. For Nib to show such an apparent movement [parallax] between Castor/Pollux and Aldebaran over the course of a year would mean that it's practically on top of us right now. Having trained my binoculars on Orion fairly recently I have to say I've not seen anything there that's out of the ordinary and neither is there a large dark object masking the view of the 'Head of Orion' or area surrounding it. Try some other explanation.
November 13th, 2009 at 7:47 am
I don't say that astronomers what are looking for asteroids, planetoids, for X in area around Orion,…are doing their job wrong way. There is not suitable body even in lists of Zentaurs, Damocloids, Planetoids, what can X be till now.
But I recomended to Mike Brown,… look for X in area circa around Orion, exactly how it is depicted on one oriental carpet,…it is such way depicted also on Senmut map circa 1350 B.C.,…6 years ago and suddenly firs big planetoid Sedna was discovered over there,….I tried to contact persons from Milagro staff for more detailed infos about those spots what they discovered within 10 years of detecting, but no interest from their side was there.
Don't forget that X is going quite quickly trought orbits of planets, so gravit. effects are quickly compensated,…
When astronomers were looking for big planet and they found Neptune and later Pluto,..so disturbances went from direction where X had to come. X should be among planets now, so gravit. pull quite changes direction within year,…
Water level in Venice, in Jackarta, on Thames river on the end of December tell us maybe more,..
November 13th, 2009 at 9:50 am
I don't buy this end of days line being sold.
I am confused as NASA has stated before that earth would pass through the galactic equator, now it won't? Maybe the data has been updated – there was an article earlier this year on …SD I thnk where the size of the milky way was thought to be twice what we had thought it was.
Planet X is a fabrication – maybe from some old tale…hey if it does come then I'll be happy to eat crow pie – surely not holding my breath though!
Although there should be some attention to the end of the cycle, if I'm not mistaken it is not the end of the world, but a new era of being. With as unstable as things have become on this great blue orb flying about the cosmos – maybe there is something to that. Maybe the change is something else, brought upon by experience.
But hollywood 2012??? Nadda chance.
November 13th, 2009 at 10:14 am
@senmut: have you developed any kind of *quantitative* model of (the orbit of) this hypothetical object? Even a back-of-the-envelope one?
If so, how about sharing it with us?
If not, what is the *scientific* basis for your claims?
I've read every comment you've written here, and it seems to me to be nothing more than a horrible word salad, full of mis-stated facts and (grossly, even grotesquely) mis-understood physics and astronomy.
But, I could be wrong …
November 13th, 2009 at 10:40 am
for Nereid,..yes, I had done lot of simulations in Winorsa orbit simulation. program,…with Nibiru and more distant Nemesis,….it quite works only but when all bodies are synchronised in time, orbital positions,…it works for Kepler lows, + Titus-bode law,…
Winorsa parametres for Nibiru: 0025, 135, 0,9934, 30, 90, 270, 180 for Nemesis: 0,05, 880, 0 30, 90, 270, 180 circa these values but mass of Nibiru put less then 20Jupiters,….
November 13th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Senmut will doubtless in 10 years be a panegyric for some other wacko idea that comes down the pike.
LC
November 13th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
@senmut: thanks.
I'm not familiar with winorsa, and I suspect at least some other readers won't be either.
What do each of the input parameters represent?
When you input those parameters – plus at least a minimal solar system (Sun, 8 planets, the Pluto/Charon system, an asteroid) – how far from the standard ephemeris position is Jupiter (pick a date and time, say 1 October 2009 at 00:00 UTC)?
November 13th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
When I wanted to have successful simulation, which took half an hour on 1-2GB RAM, 2-3GHz processor, so I had to use planets: Venus, Earth/Moon, Mars?, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Nibiru, Nemesis/26000 year long period with nearly circular orbit in circa 2004,2005 years. It worked for maximum 30000years.
When I wanted to use more planets, shorter steps,… so there was crash of program after 5000years or sooner.
November 13th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
@senmut: Venus, Earth/Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are good enough for a first approximation; Nibiru and/or Nemesis will likely so dramatically change the orbits that a second approximation would be superfluous …
What do each of the input parameters represent?
November 13th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
@senmut, I'm sitting in the same arena, but your arguments are losing ground with me. I've never seen any convincing evidence myself of Nibiru, I have other explanations for the many planetary changes and events you've mentioned. However, I'm willing to look at your data. I use Celesita, please fill in the blanks for my data file so I can take a look at what at it.
This is the data file for "Chariklo," please replace these params with your data where you see a '?' and re-post.
"Nibiru" "Sol"
{
Class "asteroid"
Texture "asteroid.jpg"
Radius 112.5 ?
EllipticalOrbit
{
Period 62.97507 ?
SemiMajorAxis 15.8285197 ?
Eccentricity 0.1738749 ?
Inclination 23.36552 ?
AscendingNode 300.39518 ?
ArgOfPericenter 241.33396 ?
MeanAnomaly 351.03363 ?
Epoch 2452400.5 ?
}
RotationPeriod 30.0 ?
Albedo 0.4 ?
}
November 13th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
those parametres are: mass/from Sun,a, e, i, OMEGA, pi (nebo omega), M to partic. moment T;
November 13th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
@senmut: from your comments the parameters seem to be:
1) mass, relative to the Sun
2) semi-major axis, (in a.u.?)
3) eccentricity
4) inclination (degrees)
5) longitude of the ascending node (degrees)
6) argument of periapsis (degrees)
7) ??
To get us into the right state – so we can eventually get into the right ballpark – can you please confirm that you used a Nibiru of ~0.02 sols (that's approx 20 Jupiters), and that the units of a are astronomical units?
Also, what is the last parameter? Both its name, and the units it is measured in, please.
November 13th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
mass, a,e,i,Omega, omega,M,….
M in degrees,…
November 13th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Simple English for simplification.
On this topic though, the 2012 event scheduled for Dec 21st is a monumental date in our orbit of the in galaxy. From what little we know about the Black hole in the center of our galaxy we can surmise we are not sure what to expect. We are caught in the gravity of it, obviously. As are billions of other stars and their exoplanets. Humans know a great deal about gravity, but not everything. That being said, I and most of the scientific community agree that gravity should not be effected by our traverse across the disk. However crossing this plane as we are scheduled to do on Dec 21st 2012 may have huge implications on the earth as we travel from one polar magnetic field of our black hole to the other. What we do know about magnetic fields is that they far exceed the range of gravitational fields and as you know, the Milky Black hole is enormous.
It is the electromagnetic field that hold matter and bodies in disc orbits, otherwise planets would stay in constant random degrees of rotation. If you can imagine a magnet flying around another magnet in a gravitational orbit all bodies would rest at a point of equilibrium between pulling forces of the larger field and the lesser field given enough time. As we see with our own solar system and the galaxy itself.
You can postulate nearly anything from what little we know about the electromagnetic field of the MiklyWay black hole. One thing for certain is that unlike gravity, magnetic fields have varying tidal pulls depending on the orientation of the poles of each field in relation to each other.
As earth and our entire solar system pass through the plane, there very well could be changing field force in our own solar system. I wouldn't expect earth's poles to reverse, earth has cooled far to much for it's core to rotate so easily. I wouldn't be surprised however if earths axis was adjusted to accommodate the now more powerful field of the opposite side of the galactic plane. You see our solar system doesn't rotate along the plane at perfectly balanced orbit. Our system actually bobs up and down along the galactic plane through time like a horse on a carousel. This will be the first time in 33 million years we have crossed the plane again, the last time we made the same crossing into the was roughly 65 million years ago. Therefor it's hard to know what effects this will have on earth. Throughout our entire existence as a species we have lived in this polar field of the Milky Way, after Dec21 we will be living in the opposite magnetic field of the galaxy. Since 65 million years ago everything seemed to change for the dinosaurs, it's not that crazy to postulate atoms could behave differently if under an opposite field polarity of such a magnitude a Black Hole produces. After all, it will be the first time in all of history we experience it. The very bonds of atomic particles could be effected by such an enormous reversal in magnetic fields.
It is also worth noting that we have no idea how matter behaves outside of this field of influence. It is a great assumption to presume that matter behaves the same in all regions of space since we know absolutely that magnetic fields influence all matter so greatly.
November 13th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
sugarkane,
"Since 65 million years ago everything seemed to change for the dinosaurs, it's not that crazy to postulate atoms could behave differently if under an opposite field polarity of such a magnitude a Black Hole produces. After all, it will be the first time in all of history we experience it. The very bonds of atomic particles could be effected by such an enormous reversal in magnetic fields."
Wow! That post got wierder and wierder. Thanks for the entertainment.
I wish 2012 was happening this December and not 2 years from now.
November 13th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
It's happening in a Theater near you!
I think I did take that a bit far, but it was to make a point. If you place what we know and what we don't know on a scale, what we don't know would crash down so hard what we know would be thrown away. These field changes are real, and their effects should be studied with greater ambition in the scientific community. Just presuming nothing will change is the greatest mistake that can be made. Everything changes.
November 13th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I wonder if the 2012 believers will log on here in January 2013 and admit they were wrong.
November 13th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Yeah, things are getting weirder and weirder. As for the winorsa program, you can put about anything in there you want. Always remember the warning when it comes to computers: garbage in, garbage out.
There is nothing about crossing the galactic plane which makes any astronomic sense either. The thickness of the galaxy is several thousand light years, so it is not as if we are traversing great distances at relativistic velocities to cross some exact plane of the galaxy.
Don't wish for Dec 2012 too quickly. We may end up with Sarah Palin as President elect. I think I'd rather get smacked by this Nibiru planet.
LC
November 14th, 2009 at 7:07 am
@senmut: I have been unable to find the ORSA windows installer, so I can't run WinORSA (I was hoping to show you, using a tool that we both have, that Nibiru would have been noticed by now, because the planets would have been in the wrong places in the sky).
No worries; in the meantime, why not do this:
* create a simple simulated solar system, with just the Sun and Jupiter (use the correct values for Jupiter's mass, a, e, and i; the values for the other parameters don't matter)
* run it for a while, to see what the orbit looks like
* add a Nibiru, with the values you mentioned earlier
* run it for a while, to see how the orbit of Jupiter changes.
I think you'll find that no matter how you set up Nibiru (other than making it a very long way away), it will change Jupiter's orbit noticeably …
(to be continued)
November 14th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Indeed, and as Saturn and Jupiter are nearly at opposite sides of solar system, the gravitational influence would be all the more remarkable. There would be a "cosine law" effect which could be tracked with both planets. If as claimed Nibiru is coming from Orion it would be bearing down close to Saturn, with clear perturbative influences, and those would be correlated with perturbations on Jupiter.
LC
November 14th, 2009 at 9:37 am
There was very important time of start of synchronisation. Motions of planets are synchronised on their orbits also according Titus-Bode law. When Nibiru was sent among planets in right time so results were quite good, when not so there was mess. Nibiru is part of our solar system millions years?, so it must be synchronised.
November 14th, 2009 at 9:40 am
@senmut: how did you do the synchronisation (in your simulations, using WinORSA)?
November 14th, 2009 at 9:43 am
senmut Just checked, based on where Nibiru would be when it hits the earth then it would be now at Ara, Ophiuchus Scorpius, you get the idea it is a possible circle. And would be 11 AU now.
Nowhere near orion!
It is a BIG MONEY MAKING SCAM!
November 14th, 2009 at 10:13 am
About one year ago I was wondering if a planet like Nibiru could exist and where it would be new.
First step was to get the orbital elements since clearly those 2012 experts would know it all, but nope! tons on conflicting information so zero scientific data.
So I started to find a possible orbit that could exist and has minimal effects on out planets so it could sneak up on us. But soon I discovered that Nibiru theorists could exist in reality.
These are the orbital elements of Starty Night, but I took 36.000 years orbit since many sites reported that but now I see reports of 3.600 years. But that would not be any big difference when it enters the solar system.
So in order to have a disaster effect on earth it should very come close to Earth, and since the Sun is the rotation point we know the direction to backtrack.
Mean distance: 234.9523913
Accentricity: 0.9958197
Inclination: 90.3145103
Ascending node: 88.9957069
Arg of pericenter: 357.0039408
Mean anomaly: 359.5708522
Epoch: 2454705.0000
Note: Starry Night does not show gravitational influences on the planets, in reality the outer planets should have changed orbit a lot since Nibru had time to have an influence for about 10-20 years by now when is slowly enters the solar system. You will notice tilting of the orbit and very noticeably change in duration for one planet year and becoming more elliptical.
One of the simulations showed that Earths orbit was 261 days for 1 year!!!
Also what you see is when this Nibiru left the solar stem all planets are in a very eleptical orbit, and tilted badly, and Earth would move between Venus and Mars. So clearly Niboru would never have been here before.
Also interesting is that Nibiru's orbit itself changed, one time I managed to eject it out of the solar system. So one time it will have an orbit of 3600 years, next pass 71000 yeas then another one 1200 years very iregular.
November 14th, 2009 at 11:38 am
How did I make circa successful simulations. Every simulations starts from point- aphelion, but when Nibiru is in aphelion? I watched planets how they move on their orbits and I started to shift Nibirus period, parameters so, that it-Nibiru entered among outdoor planets approx. 20 years ago,…20 years before 2012, such way that Nibiru should be in perihelia 6.6. 2012 in time of Venus transit. I know that when you put Nibiru only so, without correct synchronisation point among planets, so planets are after short time in mess,..
November 14th, 2009 at 11:46 am
It took circa 2 weeks of plaing with Winorsa symulations to find suitable eccentricity, starting point,…..for circa successful results for Nibiru from range 5-25 Masses of Jupiter,…
November 14th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Just to correct an all too common misunderstanding. Pluto's orbit was never predicted. It was not found due to any perturbations. Poor Tombaugh was directed to check the entire ecliptic to see if anything out there moved. Horribly hard work. It was even on a recent episode of Astronomy Cast. Look it up.
Next, there are no unexplained perturbations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. Yes, N was found by studying U, but that did indeed take care of the last wiggles. The urban myth of additional deviations arose as a result of too poor an understanding of the masses of U and N. I believe those were not properly measured until the Voyager fly-by, actually.
November 14th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
I thought that small perturbations were involved with finding Pluto, but I guess I am wrong.
I am playing with Winorsa, it is sort of fun. Nothing about this ephemeris code makes me think there exists a Nibiru.
LC
November 15th, 2009 at 8:05 am
senmut, let me ask you this question, what is the closest distance Nibiru earth according to your calculations?
I saw one claiming 1.5 AU! But at the distance Nibiru would have near zero effect. The Earth would move a bit but no end of the world, maybe an increased sea level of 1 cm and no one would notice it.
The gravitational difference between the front side and back side of Earth would be close to zero.
In order to have a end of the world scenario something has to be small, very heavy and coming very close like 0.1 AU or so and move pretty slow relative to Earth. At the speed of 120.000 km/h gravity effects would not get a chance to do something, it is gone before you know it.
November 15th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Olaf, the closest distance of Nibiru to Earth should be circa 0,3AU. That distance depends on position of Earth on it's orbit during Nibiru's passing. I made computations for that case and water from southern hemisphere was sucked on northern part of globe such way, that even Ararat could been overflooded.
Take in account, that Moon is revolving around Earth and so only 1/60 of Moon's gravity is causing tidal effects on Earth. similar way it is on Earth due to Sun, because Earth is revolving around Sun,…There is even effect of fact, that Nibiru should flyby Earth not in plane of Ecliptic, so there are not 2 influxes, outflows due to axis rotation of Earth but there is much longer time, not 6×4 hours for change,….Nibiru is not revolving around Earth or vice versa, so there is working much bigger part of gravit. forces m/(LxL), than tidal dxm/(LxLxL),…
November 16th, 2009 at 2:16 am
@sugarkane Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
You state that the earth/solar system will cross the galactic plane on 21-12-12. Well as far as astronomers aer concerned we crossed the plane a few million years ago and are still travelling 'upward'. The system bobs above and below the plane in a sine-wave pattern reaching around 65-70 light years above and below. Also as has been pointed out near the top of the page the plane of the Milky Way is not a sharp dividing line but a band around 6000 light years in thickness. Also the 'scare' about the central black hole is a total red herring. It is NOT going to reach out across 25,000+ light years and send us spinning out of control. Read some introductary astronomy books.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:20 am
In the arts section of The Times of London at the weekend the film critic reviewed the 2012 film. His conclusion went along these lines. 'After a number of Hollywood blockbusters and huge acclaim the director has finally pulled it off by producing the most expensive comedy in film history. Some of the humour is obviously intentional i.e. a man and woman face each other across an ever widening chasm and she says, "Something is keeping us apart". Let's sell it it a a comedy shall we?
November 16th, 2009 at 2:39 am
for Paul,..there are too many various bodies like planets, stars, neutron stars, black holes,..particles, what are very quickly rotating around our central supermasive black hole. Some part of these bodies are sucked into that super black hole, some part of materia,..is shot from that area, mainly in galactic plane. Mainly some bodies from double, triple, quadruple systems are such way divided,…For example such way shot neutron stars can radiate mainly in plane of galactic plane. I think that radiation, probability that some sort of heavier bodies, cosmic rays,..passes close to us in time of our crossing of our galactic plane is so higher,.. It was prooved that more cosmic rays in our atmosphere causes more rain,…
November 16th, 2009 at 3:54 am
To senmut. While it is true that many bodies get sucked iinto the central black hole any material and X-rays are ejected from the accretion disc and sent out perpendicular to the disc i.e. along the poles of rotation. This is seen in quasars, pulsars, accreting white dwarves and weird bodies like SS 433. Any neutron stars forming from a supernova event that are shot out of a binary system do NOT preferentially 'radiate mainly in the plane of galactic plane'. There trajectories will be totally random. There is no reason to suppose that there is an increase in cosmic rays during any galactic plane crossings. In fact due to the increase in the thickness of interstellar dust in the plane we might expect to see fewer cosmic rays hitting the earth. And as I stated earlier we crossed the plane a millions of years ago and continue to climb out of the disc of the Milky Way.
WHile it has been conclusively proved, yet, that more cosmic rays lead to more rain it has been postulated that they will increase cloud cover leading to an overall global cooling. That does look promising. Everything else in your posts do not. Sorry.
November 16th, 2009 at 3:56 am
Senmut. The Titus -Bode Law may well have held some attraction to astronomer and theorists 150 years ago but it quickly became redundant following the discovery of Neptune.
November 16th, 2009 at 6:25 am
I too can't find a way of installing Winorsa for my work pc or my home Mac. Any ideas??
November 16th, 2009 at 6:44 am
I don't remember exact link, maybe it was this:
http://orsa.sourceforge.net/download.html
November 16th, 2009 at 7:57 am
I've downloaded Gravity Simulator, which can simulate the effect of adding on object like "Nibiru" or "Nemesis" to the solar system.
So far I've confirmed that orbital parameters similar to those supplied by senmut do, indeed, correspond to an object which reaches perihelion around 2012:
a = 135 au
e = 0.9934
i = 30 degrees
longitude of the ascending node: 90 degrees
argument of periapsis: 270 degrees (periapsis = perihelion, since the focus is the Sun)
(I don't need to have a test object with any significant mass at this point, all I'm doing is producing an orbit).
For mean anomaly, I found that 359.4 degrees works well enough (periapsis, which is perihelion, is ~in mid 2012; it is "among" the outer planets by approx 1992).
Note that my starting time was 15 November, 2009.
By Kepler's 3rd law, this object has a period of 1569 years (rounding to the nearest year).
My aim? To show that an object with an orbit similar to the above, and a mass of ~5 Jupiters (let alone 20), will have produced deviations (from a standard, '8 planet', solar system) in the positions of some of the outer planets quite a while ago, deviations more than big enough to have been extremely obvious (ergo, since such deviations weren't seen, a senmut-type Nibiru does not exist).
November 16th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I try to make again some simulations with Winorsa,….and I try to use also that Gravity Simulator,…positions of planets on 23. Dec. 2009 are known and Nibiru should be above head of Orion,….so I'll start from that point.
November 17th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
At the top of the comments section, it states:
Well, senmut has already made 19 posts doing just that!
That so-called "comment policy" is as effective as a one-legged man in a kick-ass contest!
Furthermore, come January 1, 2013, when NOTHING AT ALL HAS HAPPENED AND NEVER WILL, we should round-up all those 2012 nutters, place them in medieval stocks, and then hold a kick-ass contest for everybody else!
November 17th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Goddamn it! That should read emphasis, not "emaphais".
November 18th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
IVAN3MAN,…this is topic about 2012, so what promotion of my theory! Here we speak about what could happen in 2012,…If you don't want discuss this topic what is very interesting for many -, so you have enough other article here for discussion,….
November 19th, 2009 at 4:41 am
What IS interesting is why in the face of the evidence people like senmut continue to bang on about Nibiiru/Planet X etc and it's imminent arrival. The idea of this body swirling around and through the solar system is not of interest to the informed thinkers here.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:25 am
I made lot of simulations in Winorsa 0.7.0 again. It took me whole day. I had found such starting point from aphelion, that Nibiru's arrival to perihelion is exactly at 6.6.2012,..time of Venus transit,..Orbits of planets are after 50,..years stable and nearly without change!!!
px: 0.02 134,991 0,994 30 90 270 180
ne: 0.04 880 0 30 90 270 180
starting point year 1239, 01.01
approxim. -5 quick,…
November 20th, 2009 at 2:56 am
Where exactly is the perihelion of this non-existant planet? Inside the orbit or Earth, Venus, Mercury or further out? How and why does the transit of Venus have any bearing on the matter? Rather than give out an endless stream of numbers just give us the areas.
November 20th, 2009 at 4:03 am
Perihelion of Nibiru should be circa above orbit of Venus. Venus cycles, are more stable than those of other planets,…it looks so also from that reason, ..and that is why Mayans had probably choosen Venus motions on sky for making of calendars.