12/20/02 3:10:43 PM Pacific Standard Time

Hi.

This is Andy Lloyds reply to recent Nibiru positions...

He's replying to my reponse...

Re: More Signs Solar System Has Tenth Planet Personally I have a "gut" feeling (and I trust them) that Nibiru is at about 545 AU (maybe somewhat farther) and that it's outside of the visible light spectrum thus the problem "seeing" it with conventional telescopes, however there's SOOO much sky out there that looking for it is like looking for a needle in the haystack... NASA seems intent on feeding us photos from areas that are light years away... Kinda makes one wonder.

andy lloyd The Theorist Posts: 207 (12/19/02 4:06:54 pm) Reply

Re: More Signs Solar System Has Tenth Planet NASA have been quite unequivocal about the possibility of a Planet X. They deny it's even possible. They base this on a (perceived) lack of evidence in the solar system, prefering to dismiss orbital anomalies among the other planets as lying within margins of error etc. I think their reluctance to embrace the possibility of another planet in the solar system is also historical, based upon accepted planet-forming models. In other words, because the potential for a Planet beyond Pluto does not fall within the parameters of understood planet-building models, there can't be one out there. Of course, this is not really acceptable as an argument, because it assumes that the current theories, having been based upon scant data of known planets, are necesarily correct. They needn't be. And now we are gaining better knowledge about extra-solar planets, and Kuiper Belt Objects, the possibilities are beginning to open up. Even so, it's a brave astronomer who starts to talk about Planet X, and the fact that the New Scientist article is written by established popular science writers, and quotes esteemed academics, is a major development. The whole subject is becoming acceptable to discuss. Yet NASA will still be hard to budge. Their plans to visit Pluto with a probe, and from there explore parts of the vast Kuiper Belt, have been put on ice several times, mostly because of that funding black hole known as the ISS. Will NASA relent and accept the importance of exploring the outer reaches of the solar system? You raise an interesting point about detectability. The party line is that a planet sized object at 50AU would almost certainly have been detected by the sky searches performed already. Yet here we have scientists trying to explain a major irregularity in the Kuiper Belt at this distance with an Earth-sized planet. The searches haven'dtfound it, yet the data suggests it should be there. So the Planet has been at 50 AU, to sweep out the Kuiper Belt at that point, but presumably lies further away now. Possibly at 545AU? Who knows? Implying an irregular, elliptical orbit...Sounds familiar?