The Dark Star: The Planet X Evidence (27 page)

15. Sedna

So far, we have looked at the historic search for Planet X, and
renewed speculation about the potential for a binary companion object orbiting
the sun. Work in this field, both academic and alternative has been going on
for many years and, under these circumstances, it is natural for a certain air
of despondency to hang over the very concept of Planet X. In times gone by,
many astronomers refused to even consider it to be a possibility, despite the
growing mass of evidence we have looked at in this book.

So it must have come as a bit of a shock to them when a bona fide
Planet X was actually discovered in 2004! Not only has it opened many
commentators' eyes to the possibility of yet more planetary objects awaiting
discovery, but it has raised questions about some of Science's basic
assumptions about the nature of our solar system. Something very odd is going
on out there...

“Sedna” is the name given by astronomers for this newest planet to
be discovered orbiting the sun. Although the details of the size of the planet
are still being sought, it is thought to be about 1,300 miles in diameter and
could be of a similar size to Pluto. Given that Pluto is generally accepted to
be a planet in its own right, Sedna technically becomes the tenth planet to be
found orbiting the sun.

NASA had previously hinted about an announcement planned for
Monday, 15th March 2004, to be given by Dr. Michael Brown of Caltech.
¹
His team had recently discovered another large Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt object
called 2004 DW, details of which had been released in February 2004.
²
His research team makes use of the recently launched Spitzer Space Telescope.
At that time, he made the following tantalizing comment:

"It's now only a matter of time before something is going to
be discovered out there that will change our entire view of the outer solar
system."

It turns out that Dr. Brown wasn't simply speculating on a remote
possibility. His astronomical research team, including Chad Trujillo in Hawaii
and David Rabinowitz of Yale University, had discovered the presence of Sedna
back in November 2003, and were busy preparing their paper for a public
announcement of the find. It had been catalogued as object 2003 VB12.

I had picked up on this development in early March, and I hinted
on some astronomical websites that the forthcoming announcement chalked in for
15th March could turn out to be important regarding the Planet X question.

Even so, I was still amazed to hear the news of this announcement
on BBC radio on the Monday morning, preceding the actual press conference.
³
It enabled me to relay this news onto the Internet through my website, as the
USA was waking up in the morning.

I consider the scientific discovery of Sedna to be a major step
forward in the hunt for a massive Planet X. It has forced many nay-sayers to
rethink completely.

The Tenth Planet?

Sedna is currently located in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt, some 13
billion km from the sun
³
, or about 85 Astronomical Units ―
which is about three times more distant than Pluto. This places it actually
within the Kuiper Gap, or Kuiper Cliff, an area unexpectedly devoid of
predicted objects. Perhaps it may partially help to explain the lack of
companions out at this distance, although it is too small in practice to have
swept the Belt clean by itself.

However, although it is located here, it may actually be an object
from the distant Oort Cloud of comets. At the moment it is nearing perihelion,
which has brought it into the Kuiper Belt. It is the most distant object to
have been located orbiting the sun.

It appears to be following an elliptical orbit of between 10 and
12 thousand years duration. Its orbital path is highly eccentric, with a
perihelion of 76 AU and an aphelion in the region of 1000 AU.
^4,5
Thus,
astronomers were only able to spot Sedna because it was fortuitously nearing
perihelion (which it will actually achieve in 2076). For the most part, Sedna
would have been too distant for telescopes to detect. This highly elliptical
shaped path is very similar to the kind of orbit envisioned for Nibiru.

However, size-wise, Sedna is too small to be Zecharia Sitchin's
Nibiru, and its orbital period is three times as long. Nor is this rocky, icy
world anything approaching the size of a 'Dark Star', although it is remarkably
red. Whether it is directly connected with Nibiru or not, it is a thrilling
discovery, having been confirmed by astronomers at the Tenagra Observatory in
Arizona, and then directly imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope.
³

The planet was then named "Sedna", after the Canadian
and Greenlandic Inuit Sea Goddess.
⁶
This mythical Sea Spirit
partially takes the form of a woman, who sends out her animals to hunt from her
lair on the seabed.
⁷
There is certainly some symbolic relevance to
this choice of name.

Firstly, the Arctic myth is metaphorically in keeping with the
ultra-cold environment of the outer solar system. Secondly, this new planet is
readily associated with other similar, but smaller objects in the scattered
disc of the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. These distant EKBOs also emerge from the
darkness of the Abyss during perihelion, appearing like transient hunters from
the Void. The name "Sedna" is clearly a perfect choice!

One might argue that the actual discovery of Sedna is not entirely
unexpected, in that new technology is helping astronomers to look deeper into
the void beyond Pluto to search out dark objects, some of them clearly sizable.
If Sedna turns out to be as large as Pluto, which is still possible, then it
would properly be called a planet. However, this is likely to re-ignite debate
about what a planet really is, and whether Pluto itself is simply a large,
spheroid-shaped asteroid, accompanied by its relatively large 'moon' Charon.

At the moment, it is thought to be smaller than Pluto, but bigger
than another substantial EKBO called Quaoar, so it is by no means certain what
will be decided for it in time. After all, officially adding to the sun's
retinue of planets would mean the re-writing of school books, let alone those
of science. Who's to say how many more Sednas are still out there?

Sedna is currently near to its closest approach to the sun, or its
'perihelion'. The outer portion of its highly elliptical orbit falls within the
boundary of the inner Oort Cloud, meaning that its entire orbit occupies the
substantial gap between the EKB and the Oort Cloud. Because the position of the
Oort Cloud is still largely theoretical, findings like this add to the
fledgling body of evidence actually describing it.

So the discovery of Sedna, and other 'scattered disc objects' will
lead astronomers to reconsider the position of the comet-cloud. For example,
Dr. Brown now speculates that the inner Oort Cloud may be closer than once
thought, having arisen as a result of the action of a rogue star near to the
sun.
⁴
This is reminiscent of the argument for the existence, whether
past or present, of a binary companion.

Speculation about the existence of a binary star at the early
point in the solar system's history is now bound to grow, as will the
possibility that the sun was once subject to a stellar "fly-by". As a
result, the outer solar system is starting to look like a very interesting
place indeed, fueling interest and research efforts among the astronomical
community.

So what can we expect next; Planet XI, Planet XII, Planet XIII...?
Is there an Earth-sized planet out there that might have something to do with
this gap in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt? Is there something even larger further
out, like a binary 'Dark Star', that may still be lurking among the comets?

No one knows for sure, but what is likely is that discoveries will
continue to be made, as the ability of astronomers to discover increasingly
dark and distant objects orbiting the sun improves. The pace of those
discoveries is also likely to accelerate.

I have hinted above that there are several anomalous aspects to
this discovery, not least of which is Sedna's orbit. It is simply not behaving
as it should, at least according to the model of the solar system used by
astronomers. To have such an elliptical orbit, it would have to have been
pulled out of an ancient circular orbit by some other, massive object. Yet no
such object is known to exist out there, and the potential existence of an
undiscovered massive object has long been dismissed by astronomers.

Sedna's discovery has lead to new speculation amongst some of the
biggest names in planetary science. As we have seen, the leader of the team who
discovered Sedna, Dr. Michael Brown, has questioned whether the previously
accepted position of the inner Oort Cloud is correct - and wonders whether the
sun formed in a star cluster whose brethren may have dragged minor planets like
Sedna into eccentric orbits.
⁸
Other astronomers, each with their own
pet theories about the outer solar system, have contributed other ideas - like
the effect of a passing star, or interaction with Gigantic Molecular Clouds.

Perhaps surprisingly, the director of the Minor Planet Centre, Dr.
Brian Marsden, has gone on record speculating about the existence of a terrestrial-sized
planet, or bigger, several hundred AU away.
⁸
The idea still leaves
open the question of how the planet could have formed at that distance, but
such a body might provide a mechanism whereby Sedna's own orbit became so
eccentric. At some point, Sedna must have interacted with a larger planetary
body - flinging it into its now wildly elongated orbit.

It is clear that the notion of a terrestrial-sized planet X is now
taking hold within the astronomical community, even though it still faces the
same problem encountered before by Brunini and Melita. They argued for an
embedded planet in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt.
⁹
Their proposed body
led to quite a reasonable match for the truncation of the Edgeworth-Kuiper
Belt, particularly, as it turns out, with a more eccentric orbit for such a
planet.
¹⁰
But the lingering question of its lack of discovery is an
urgent and difficult one.

If the undiscovered planet lies further out, towards the inner
Oort Cloud, it must be more substantial in size to create the same effect on
EKBO orbits, which is why Dr. Marsden opts for a multiple-Earth-mass planet.
But then, how did such a body form in this region of low density of matter? The
problem continues to deepen with every turn.

We also have the question of whether the truncation of the
Edgeworth-Kuiper Disc was caused by a very massive object. Models of stellar
fly-bys can produce some, but not all, of the observed effects.
¹¹
In
the last chapter, we saw that a Jupiter-plus sized object in an eccentric
orbit could create the truncated disc, although Dr. Quillen, who carried out
the work, doubts whether one could still be out there. I am not so sure,
particularly given Sedna's orbital properties. Sedna seems to call for a more
urgent reappraisal of the situation in the outer solar system.

Could a very substantial planet still be out there and have evaded
detection? I have argued that that is the case on several occasions
¹²
,
and this view seems to have been backed up by Dr. Brown's analysis of previous
searches, like IRAS. He has stated that there is an area in the sky covering
about 20% of the celestial sphere, which has not been properly searched for a
hidden planet orbiting the sun.

This region lies in the direction of the Milky Way - specifically,
towards the centre of our galaxy.
⁸
This is, of course, the region
that I have already highlighted as being the most probable location for the
Dark Star,
i.e.
in the vicinity of the constellation Sagittarius.

This area is a prime hunting ground for the Dark Star for a number
of reasons, not the least of which are textual references to Sagittarius being
the direction the mythical planet departs towards.
^12,13
There are
other, more scientific reasons for considering this region for a candidate
object, as already discussed in the Chapter, Binary Companion.

One could be forgiven for thinking that things are dovetailing
together. Does Sedna's strange orbit give us reason to think that a massive
body lies in a region of the sky that previous sky searches simply neglected?
Dr. Brown certainly thinks there might be a planet lying in the direction of
the galactic core, and his team are actively searching in that region for one
(8). This is a much more difficult task than one might imagine.

Apart from anything else, the planet's relative motion against the
background of the galactic stars will be very slow. It might very much appear
as if it's standing still, particularly if its orbit is like Sedna's, and
highly elliptical. Under those circumstances, the greatest proportion of its
movement will be towards us. Its lateral movement in the sky will be slight,
meaning that it is quite possible that it has already been detected, but then
incorrectly catalogued as a galactic star.

'Star Wars' fans might wonder whether this missing planet is
similar to Kamino; in this case the missing planet may well turn out to have
been in the archive all along!