The Dark Star: The Planet X Evidence (31 page)

We have seen that our solar system was not born in isolation, and
probably interacted with at least one other star system in the early days.
¹⁶
Scientists have begun to speculate whether a low mass star, or even a brown
dwarf system, may have come so close to the sun that part of its system was
captured, leading to the existence of scattered disc objects in the Edgeworth-Kuiper
Belt, and other anomalies in the outer solar system.
¹⁷
Perhaps the
low mass star moved close to the sun during the period of the late, great
bombardment some 3.9 billion years ago, when the terrestrial bodies in the
inner solar system were subject to an unprecedented period of destruction
caused by a swarm of massive asteroids and comets.

This would imply that the sun's planetary system was deluged by
the other star's outer entourage of comets, perhaps even its planets. Many of
them were captured by the sun and fell into distant orbits, like Sedna and 2000
CR105. We don't yet know the scale of this capture of objects, but it seems
entirely reasonable to speculate that one of them was the Dark Star Marduk; an
extraordinary object of mythic proportions.

Would these bodies become resonant around the rogue planet among
them? I believe so. Resonances are important to astronomers, because the
repetitive influence of a major planet can stabilize or destabilize the orbits
of smaller bodies in its vicinity. If the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt played host to
the perihelion transit of the Dark Star then its influence on some of the
smaller bodies in the belt should become fairly structured over time.

There are precedents for this in the planetary solar system. Pluto
shares a resonant orbit with Neptune that has a three-to-two ratio: Neptune
orbits the sun three times for every two circuits by Pluto. This arises because
the gravitational effect of the larger body over time, shepherds the smaller
one into a stable orbital orientation.

This results in a situation where their orbital paths actually
cross in a spatial sense, but they never actually meet, or collide, because
they dance around each other in a coordinated fashion. This is the way the
dynamics of planetary bodies normally works. The same is also true for three of
the four Galilean moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa and Ganymede orbit the mighty
gas giant in a 4:2:1 resonance.

ExtraSolar Planets

The hunt for planets outside our solar system (known as 'extrasolar'
planets) is providing a growing data base of planetary behaviors, which will
allow scientists to build new models about how the solar system formed. Few
expect the current understanding to last for long. Already, many of the new
planets exhibit unexpected behavior, indicating that our own sun's planetary
system need not provide the blueprint for the entire galaxy.

For instance, brown dwarfs have been discovered orbiting parent
stars in very stable systems. The sheer gravitational pull of these massive
planets was once thought to rule out such possibilities. It had been thought
that they would disrupt the orbits of the other planets in the star system,
creating chaotic planetary systems. This is evidently not the case.

The idea was challenged by a discovery by Dr. Geoffrey Marcy's
team regarding a star system some 123 light years away. The system, named
HD168443, contains a giant planet that is 17 times as massive as Jupiter.

Normally, the astronomers would classify this is a brown dwarf,
but this body's close proximity to its star has brought that straightforward
classification into question (18). To be circling the star in the relatively
close orbit involved, the body should have formed by gas accretion, yet is far
more massive than the standard model for planetary formation should allow. The
brown dwarf should theoretically have a destabilizing effect on the planetary
system as a whole. Yet the HD168443 system is "extremely stable".
¹⁹

To complicate matters still further, another massive planet, this
time 7 times as massive as Jupiter, enjoys a circular orbit within the orbit of
the first. A planet this size could be termed a “sub-brown dwarf”. Even with
this second massive planet embedded within the planetary system, the overall
system is still 'extremely stable'. This example serves to prove that
gargantuan planets such as these, that defy easy classification, can surprise
astronomers. They need not be disruptive at all. Instead, they might even
create a certain pattern of order within a planetary system.

Further research conducted by Geoffrey Marcy, et al., has shown
that planets circling a star can be strongly locked into resonant orbits. A
second planet discovered around the star Gliese 876, a small M-type star 15
light-years from Earth, was found to orbit the star in exactly half the time it
took for the previously discovered planet to do so. This impressive finding
raises questions about how gravitational influence and planetary migration are
involved in creating unexpected orbital configurations like this.
¹⁸

This last point is important to our investigation into the
question of Planet X. Arguments leveled against the existence of Planet X,
based upon the current models of the solar system's emergence and development,
may be on shaky ground. We simply don't know enough yet to rule anything out.
But the other fascinating point about Marcy's discovery is this question of
resonance. It's almost as though these two planets are harmonically converged
like strings on a musical instrument.
²⁰

This kind of resonance pattern applies to the Edgeworth-Kuiper
Belt Objects (EKBOs); small celestial bodies orbiting in an extended belt
beyond Neptune. Theo Kermanidis, an engineer with an interest in the existence
of Planet X, recently suggested that I study the orbits of the known EKBOs, to
see if resonant patterns might indicate the presence of Nibiru within, or
beyond, the Kuiper Belt.
³
He provided some data and analysis that
suggested to him that an undiscovered body may indeed be interacting with some
of the EKBOs - but that its orbit would seem to lie well within the parameters
normally suggested for Nibiru. He wondered whether a clearer picture would
emerge over time, as the database of EKBOs increased, perhaps leading to the
discovery of another planet in the solar system. Theo outlined his approach:

"I plotted out the known EKBO distribution and attempted to
compare that with the distribution of asteroids. A couple of things to note:

1.
The EKBO count could be
too low to get meaningful results, but trends in the data could be discerned.

2.
Asteroids cluster around
specific resonances while avoiding others... because they are dynamically
stable.

3.
The dynamically unstable
resonances can be a more accurate indicator for projecting possible
relationships between orbiting bodies, because these notches in the graph are
very well defined (otherwise known as Kirkwood gaps). Whereas, stable or
semi-stable orbits are shown as broad peaks.

There is a strong Kirkwood gap with resonance 2:1, as well as 3:1,
5:2 and 7:3. Given these resonances, this will then be used to predict the
semi-major axis of a possible influencing body".
²¹

Intrigued by Theo's suggestion, I contacted an expert on EKBOs at
Harvard about the potential for this approach. His reply was encouraging in
terms of the application of Theo's method, although in this case, Neptune
appeared to be the dominant influence.
²²

The EKBO data appears to be consistent with a resonant pattern
with Neptune, but it turns out that this generalization is not universally
adhered to. The bizarre, highly eccentric orbit of 2000 CR105 is a case in
point. Its 'dynamically unstable' orbit is placed well beyond the influence of
Neptune, raising questions about the early influences which may have played a
part in forming the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt.
^23,24

The Kuiper Belt is classically thought to extend out to about
200AU.
²⁵
So an elliptical orbit that extends to 400AU, places 2000
CR105 between the Edgeworth-Kuiper Disc and the inner Oort Cloud (which starts
about 2000AU away, according to theorists). If this object had a 'normal' orbit
at 400AU, it would circle the sun every 8,000 years or so, yet its actual
elliptical orbit achieves a revolution around the sun in less than half the
time. In itself, this has important repercussions for the possible orbit of the
Dark Star.

Based on the precedent of this eccentric orbit, we can in turn
potentially extend the aphelion distance of the Dark Star, perhaps towards the
inner boundary of the Oort Cloud. This extreme distance may help explain the
difficulties of directly detecting an object whose influence is so keenly felt
by the solar system.

To satisfy myself that a more conventional explanation for 2000
CR105's dynamically chaotic orbit had not been established in the meantime, I
contacted Dr. Holman, one of the researchers involved in its discovery. Its
origins, he noted, still remain a mystery and the subject of much speculation.
²⁶

I think that Theo's proposal about the resonance of the
Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt Objects deserves further consideration: there may be more
scattered EKBOs, whose perihelion distances lie beyond the point where
Neptune's influence can be invoked as an explanation for their behavior. If
these more distant objects were also to show a resonance pattern - but this
time with an unknown Perturber beyond the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt - then the
position of this planetary body may be readily verifiable in the not too
distant future.

This would assume, of course, that Planet X is 'behaving itself'.
But, what if its orbit is itself erratic?

The idea of "resonance" is an intriguing one. One
assumes that it is an effect that emerges over time as planets 'shepherd'
comets, asteroids, or even moons. As we have seen, Geoffrey Marcy's
planet-hunting team, from Berkeley, California, have found two planets whose
orbital periods resonate together.

Evidently, this effect is a strong one, yet the astronomers seem
surprised by this. Presumably, although resonance is noted, it is not predicted
for planetary bodies. In other words, our current understanding of celestial
mechanics does not lead us to presume that the planets will fall into orbital
patterns whose periods become integer ratios of one another. Is that because
most of the planets in our solar system quite clearly are not in resonance with
one another? Because they are quite evidently more chaotically arranged, we
have never assumed that resonance is 'the norm'.

Let's follow this line of thought for a moment. The ancients were
not averse to the idea that there was a natural harmony at work in the heavens.
Pythagoras, for instance, believed that there was a "dynamic harmony"
in the universe, and that the constant movement of the planets and stars
created a metaphysical 'music', that was detectable by those with a mystical
understanding of the universe.
²⁷

I'm not about to suggest that we could scientifically qualify this
belief, but the idea of a celestial harmony at work is an interesting one
nonetheless. Perhaps, then, there is a force at work within celestial mechanics
that creates harmony between the 'celestial spheres', one that scientists have
not discovered yet. But why wouldn't they have? Because, simply, the evidence
from our solar system does not immediately support the idea of a universal
resonance between the worlds. The planets simply don't behave like that.

But we now know that they can and do behave like that elsewhere.
Perhaps our solar system is the exception, rather than the rule. If more
double/triple planet star systems are discovered which exhibit the same kind of
resonance as that found in the planetary system of Gliese 876, then our
understanding of the influence of planets over one another would have to be
reconsidered.

I think this could be a distinct possibility. In fact, I would go
so far as to say that I would predict such an effect. You see, I think that
this harmonic resonance is not found in the solar system as much as it should
be, because the solar system has recently been disturbed.

The natural harmony, or resonance, between most of the planets of
the solar system no longer exists. Over time, I suspect that the resonance
would once more be achieved, but the current relative 'chaos' within the
pattern of planetary orbits around the sun indicates the presence of another
major planet, one whose distant orbital pattern is a disruptive, rather than
cohesive, influence.