Planet X
Written by Abby Cessna
You may have already heard something about planet X or the 2012 doomsday predictions. The idea of planet X, and the search for the elusive planet, started in the middle of the 19th century after Neptune was discovered, since many astronomers believed there was another planet beyond Neptune’s orbit. In the early 1900’s, the famous astronomer Percival Lowell searched for planet X and claimed that this mysterious planet was the reason why there were discrepancies in the orbits of the gas giants in our Solar System. When Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930, it was believed to be planet X, confirming the hypotheses of Percival Lowell and many other astronomers. However, in 1978, astronomers discovered that Pluto could not be planet X because it was too small to affect the orbits of the gas giants.
After this discovery, some astronomers continued to look for planet X. Robert Harrington was one astronomer who continued the quest throughout the 80’s and 90’s. By the time of his death in 1993, he had not found planet X. A number of other scientists, including Joseph Brady, proposed their own theories regarding planet X. Just a few months before Harrington’s death, the astronomer Myles Standish calculated Neptune’s mass with the Voyager 2 probe. When calculations were done with this revised mass, the discrepancies regarding Uranus’ orbit disappeared. This led scientists to conclude that no planet X, at least Percival Lowell’s version, exists.
You may be wondering what the situation concerning planet X and 2012 is. Well, 2012 – December 21st 2012 to be exact – has been marked as the day the world will end, at least according to some people. This date has been picked as the end of the world because this is the day when the Mayan calendar ends. (The Mayans’ developed a Long Count calendar that lasts 5126 years, and it runs out on the 21st of December in 2012.)This has spurned numerous theories on why this is going to be the end of our world. The whole Mayan Prophecy theory is based on the idea that when the calendar runs out, something terrible will happen.
Well that is where planet X fits in for some. One of the many theories as to how humanity will be abolished in 2012 is by planet X crashing into Earth and destroying all life. To further complicate matters, some people who believe in 2012 have also linked planet X as being the same as Nibiru. The Nibiru theory says that an alien race came to Earth on the planet Nibiru thousands of years ago and genetically altered beings into humans in order to serve them. Nibiru is supposed to return in 2012 to cause havoc and destruction.
Universe Today has articles on 2012: no planet X and planet X is not Nibiru for a more detailed analysis of these issue.
If you are looking for more information, you should check out planet X and what astronomers thought was the tenth planet – planet X.
Astronomy Cast has an episode on Pluto and the outer Solar System.
Filed under: Astronomy
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