Planet X

July 30, 2005

Astronomers announced yesterday that they had found a lump of rock and ice that was larger than Pluto and the farthest known object in the solar system.

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The new object - as yet unnamed, but temporarily known as 2003 UB313 - is now 9 billion miles away from the Sun, or 97 times as far away as Earth and about three times Pluto's current distance from the Sun.

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The discovery was made Jan. 8 at Palomar Observatory in California. Dr. Brown and the other members of the team - Chadwick A. Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and David L. Rabinowitz of Yale University - then found that they had, unknowingly, taken images of the planet, using the observatory's 48-inch telescope, as far back as 2003.

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Informally, the astronomers have been calling it Xena after the television series about a Greek warrior princess, which was popular when the astronomers began their systematic sweep of the sky in 2000. "Because we always wanted to name something Xena," Dr. Brown said.

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What is most surprising is that the orbit of the planet is sharply skewed to most of the rest of the solar system. The orbits of most planets lie close to the same plane as Earth's, known as the ecliptic plane. The orbit of 2003 UB313 is tilted by 44 degrees.

"That blows my mind," said Harold Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., who was not involved in the discovery.

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Mark V. Sykes [...] wondered whether it had an atmosphere and what sort of geological processes generated its apparently bright surface.

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Astronomers will also have to figure out how the body made it to its current skewed orbit.

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  NY Times article

November 1, 2003

Planet X is the new kid on the solar system block. The “X” can either refer to the fact it would be the tenth planet of our solar system, or an unknown planet. In many respects, it is probably the former, in that there appears to be a great deal of information on this deep denizen -- at least from the runaway nature of the Internet and e-mail circuits. For example, one circulating e-mail provides an executive summary to wit: “Two things are certain: 1) Planet X exists, and 2) it is coming between May 15 and May 30 of 2003.

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Ancient Sumerian texts indicate that the Earth (“Tiamat”) was struck by a large planet, which moved it into its present orbit, and created the Moon and the Asteroid Belt. In his books, The Twelfth Planet and The Cosmic Code, Zecharia Sitchin outlines this “celestial battle”, as described in the Babylonian text, the Enuma Elish [“Epic of Creation”].

The planet “Marduk” (the Sumerian “Nibiru”), as it came into the solar system on its clockwise elliptical course, struck Tiamat, which was moving in a counterclockwise orbit. One of Marduk’s satellites struck Tiamat first, followed by two more of Marduk’s moons. Then Marduk itself, an enormous planetary body, struck Tiamat, smashing one half of the planet into pieces, which became the Earth’s Moon and the “Great Band” (Asteroid Belt). The other half of the planet, which was struck by a smaller moon of Marduk, was moved into a new orbit, along with a chunk of material which became its moon. The new planet was then called “KI,” meaning “cleaved one.” The Earth’s original moons were dispersed, many changing the direction of their orbits.

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The ancient tale of Nibiru’s Celestial Battle is actually scientifically sophisticated, and current advances in astronomy have recently corroborated certain aspects of the Sumerian cosmogony, among them the following:

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  Library of Halexandria article

Aug 25, 2002

So what? You may ask. The answer is that Sitchin's studies led him to conclude that the creators of humankind reside on Planet X, which returns to our orbit every 30,000 years or so. The parents coming to visit?

I assure you there are factions in the alphabet community who believe so.

Just tossing it out here.

....and hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update 8/2/05:

Andy Lloyd draws a picture.