Investigating

 

14 May 2002

 

Tenth Planet or Companion Star?

 

            There exist both recent and ancient evidence that strongly suggest the existence of an unseen large planet or brown dwarf inside of our solar system, lying just beyond the orbit of Pluto.  Scientist’s debate whether or not this unseen object is in fact a 10th planet or a failed companion star, also known as a brown dwarf star. Scientists have concluded that brown dwarfs start out developing as normal stars, but fail in the process.  Scientists all generally agree that this unseen object is a brown dwarf but their debate is on their definition of a brown dwarf.  They will give you evidence to show how this brown dwarf is a planet and how it is a failed star. This paper is going to show you that both the idea of this object being a brown dwarf or a massive planet both being correct.  The fact is that brown dwarfs have also been known as a planet that is ten times as massive as Jupiter.  John Murray, a British planetary scientist, believes that an unknown planet is orbiting the Sun at about a distance approximately 3 trillion miles from the Sun.  The Sumerians, an ancient culture from 6,000 years ago claimed that our solar system is made up of the Sun and eleven planets (counting the moon).  They believe that there has always been a 12th member of the solar system, believed to be the home planet of the Nefilm. “These ancient people not only expected the arrival of the 12th planet, but also charted its advancing course” (Martell).  They knew of planets in our solar system that were unknown to western civilization until 1741 with the discovery of Uranus and the discovery of Neptune in 1846 and discovering Pluto just recently in1930.  There knowledge of these planets 6,000 years ago should be given great consideration that they knew of a planet that passes by Earth with an orbit of every 3,600 years.   Physicist Daniel Whitmire says that the object isn’t a planet but in fact a “brown dwarf”, or a failed star, a companion to our Sun that was too small to light up.  Like Whitmire, Dr. Richard A. Muller at the University of California at Berkeley is convinced that the unseen object is a companion star and that this star, or brown dwarf was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs form a comet that collided with the Earth in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.  Muller also claims that the sun’s companion has triggered periodic comet storms and asteroid collisions with Earth. This has caused the Earth’s magnetic field to reverse and at times been switched off. This he says has occurred many times throughout the planets history.  You can find evidence for this by studying volcanic rock.  The dinosaur’s extinction and the reversal of Earth’s magnetic field is evidence of a companion star, dislodging comets from the Oort cloud and hurdling them into the inner solar system (Kanipe).  “The Dutch astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort has proposed that a “storage cloud” of comet material has accumulated far beyond the orbit of Pluto, and that the gravitational effects of passing stars may send some of the material in the Oort cloud sunward, where it becomes visible as comets” (Hawthorne).  It recent years it has been confirmed that there is a type of storage cloud just beyond Pluto.  It is known that this is where most of our known comets have come from, but it is not confirmed at this point whether or not the Oort cloud has supplied the comets that could have caused periodic extinction upon our planet.  Also noted that there has been no confirmed star or any such object beyond the Oort cloud that could dislodge these comets.  This isn’t to say that there isn’t a heavenly body out there; it’s just that we don’t have the technology to detect such an object.          

       John Murray, along with fellow physicists, noticed that orbits of comets didn’t appear random but bunched together, as if tracing a path across the sky.  He explained a possibility that the comets bunching together and their circular orbital path would be what you would expect if there were a large planet or star orbiting out there with enough gravitational force to move these comets into a stable orbit.  This object would have a mass ranging from one and ten times that of Jupiter.  The nearest confirmed star to us is four light-years away (Kanipe).  A light year is the distance light travels in one year, about 5.88 trillion miles.  Scientists do believe that since this 10th planet or brown dwarf would be at this great distance, it would be too dim to see by current telescopes.  The only process or method to be able to locate this massive planet or brown dwarf is the study orbital patterns of comets that treks the inner solar system.  Scientists have noted that comets orbiting the Sun show mapped patterns not random orbits as was commonly believed.  The only cause for this randomness would be a large planet or brown dwarf star in the Oort cloud: the Oort cloud lies just beyond Pluto where these comets originated (Kanipe).  These very scientists believe in the existence of a dwarf star because they have spent their lives studying the orbital patterns of certain celestial bodies that suggest the presence of a large brown dwarf.  They conclude that this is all the evidence that they need to be convinced of the existence of another planet never before found such as a brown dwarf.

            Planetary researchers believe that brown dwarfs are more massive than planets that don’t orbit any stars.  Recently scientists have found planets orbiting known brown dwarfs.  This leads them to believe that brown dwarfs aren’t large planets but stars, since only stars have planets orbiting them.  Brown dwarfs aren’t massive enough to trigger the thermonuclear reactions that power real stars.  The nearest confirmed brown dwarf is 16 light-years away and recent discoveries have found another one just 13 light-years away.  Experts are concluding that these failed stars are more common inside galaxies than normally believed.  “If brown dwarfs do in fact exist so near our solar system, it stands to reason that they might also harbor planets.  For now, the closest candidate object for harboring planets is the star Alpha Centauri that is about 4.3 light-years away.  The brown dwarf finding offers a mechanism for generating a planet just outside our Solar System,” says Geoffrey Marcy, a renowned hunter of extra solar planets from the University of California, Berkeley (Britt).  The notion of companion stars (binary system) is more common than normally believed.  More than half of all stars are part of a binary system. A binary system is two stars that are bound to each other by gravity.  Binary star systems are quite common and the pairing of stars appears to be random in most cases (Hawthorne).  Whitmire believes that this companion star orbit would pass through or near the Oort cloud. This he concludes is the evidence of a brown dwarf that is massive enough to dislodge the comets from their once stable orbits, and send them into the inner solar system. 

            Dr. Richard Muller’s, numerous studies have found cycles in either impacts or mass extinctions on earth (Yarris).  These extinctions range from 26 million to 35 million years.  Muller believes that the Sun’s companion is responsible for these extinctions and for the changing of Earth’s magnetic field (Britt).  Since Earth has always had a crust that is on the move the evidence of periodic extinction from comets or asteroids gets buried.  He believes that a handful of these comets have caused mass extinction throughout our planets history (Britt).  Muller says evidence could be found elsewhere in our solar system.  Approximately four billion years ago, a celestial version of saturation bombing left the surface of the moon badly scarred with craters, which, because of the absence of atmosphere erosion can still be seen.  That evidence is there to prove that this event occurred.  “Voyager has shown the moons of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn to be similarly pocked,” says Dr. Muller.  Voyager is the name of the United States spacecraft that is designed to explore the planets (Hawthorne).  Scientists note that as volcanic rock cools from its lava state, it aligns itself with the Earth’s magnetic field.  Frank Christopher Hawthorne says that current theories hold that the Earth’s magnetic fields are created by currents within the liquid outer core of the Earth, which is composed mostly of iron.  This liquid core contains ions, or electrically charged atoms and molecules.  The motion of these charged particles within the Earth is thought to create the Earth’s magnetic field.  The north magnetic pole is situated in the vicinity of Ellef Ringnes Island in northern Canada.  The south magnetic pole is located just off of Wilkes Land, Antarctica.  Scientists have also discovered that the Earth’s magnetic field occasionally reverses direction.  Roughly every 500,000 years, the magnetic field changes direction, or reverses polarity (Hawthorne).  French physicist Bernard Brunhes discovered volcanic rock magnetized in the opposite direction of today’s fields.  “When molten rock crystallizes, crystals of magnetic minerals align with the Earth’s magnetic field.  The rock thus records the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field at the time of its creation,” says Frank Hawthorne (Hawthorne).  He concluded that this shows that Earth’s magnetic field is different than it is today. Earth’s magnetic field has changed many times throughout history.  Scientists believe the only way for our magnetic field to keep changing would be from a global cooling of the Earth, such as from an Ice Age or from a collision.  Scientist believe a collision could also be from a comet, asteroid or in fact from a large body such as a planet passing closely to ours.  This planet would have to be large enough for its gravitational pull to force our planet to switch its magnetic field and even switch it off.

            The Sumerians believed that there has been another planet in our solar system.  The ancient people charted this planets advancing course.  “Sumerians describe a planet that its orbit takes it far beyond Pluto, but also comes in from the south and moves in a clockwise direction passing by Earth.  Mesopotamian texts exalt the planet’s radiance and suggested that it could be seen at daytime: “visible at sunrise, disappearing from view at sunset.”  A cylinder seal found at Nippur, depicts a group of plowmen looking up with awe as the planet (depicted as the Cross) is visible in the skies,” notes the Berlin Museum of Ancient Near East. These texts spoke of the planet’s periodic appearance as an anticipated, predictable, and observable event.  This passing planet was expected to cause rain and great flooding, as its gravitational effects have been known to do (Martell).  Mesopotamian and biblical sources present strong evidence that the orbital period of the planet is 3,600 years.  People of the ancient world considered the nearing of the planet as a sign of great upheavals, which was the post effect of Nippur's gravitational force changing Earth’s magnetic field (Martell). 

         There is conflicting evidence between whether the mysterious object is a 10th planet or a companion of the sun.  Evidence of a 10th planet can be found by looking at ancient culture history accounts.  In 1982, NASA themselves officially recognized the possibility of a planet or Planet X, with an announcement that some kind of mystery object is really there, far beyond the outermost planets.  One year later the newly launched IRAS (Infrared Astronomical Satellite) spotted a large mysterious object in the depths of space” (Chang, Kenneth).  The Sumerians believe that it’s a planet and NASA isn’t denying that it isn’t.  Then there is strong evidence supporting the theory of a brown dwarf. It could be argued that the existence of the Sun's Nemesis (companion star, meaning brown dwarf) has caused the extinction of the dinosaurs by dislodging the orbit of comets from the Oort cloud and hurtled toward the inner solar system.  So whether it is a brown dwarf or a planet doesn’t matter because it is all the same.  Brown dwarfs have also been classified as free-floating planets that wander through space.  Theorized brown dwarfs are intermediate in mass between small known stars and large planets.  It is not unlikely for a binary system to have one of its stars to be a brown dwarf (Hawthorne).  In October of 1995, scientists have discovered a binary system that contained a brown dwarf that is located in the constellation Lepus and this brown dwarf is a companion to a known star that is 18.6 light years from earth.  Scientist question whether these objects account for the missing mass in our solar system, know as theoretical dark matter.  It is agreed that brown dwarfs can have planets orbiting them and that there are brown dwarfs that orbit other stars either as a planet or as a companion.  So I see it as playing both roles of planet and companion, so whether it is a brown dwarf or a planet doesn’t matter because as I see it, it is all the same. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Martell, Jason. “Research Network-NASA, MARS, EARTH, PLANET X, SUMERIAN” January 2002

http://xfacts.com/x2.htm

 

 

Kanipe, Jeff. “Searching for a Tenth Planet.” 15 October 1999

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/outer_planets_991014.html

 

 

Hawthorne, Frank Christopher. “Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2001”

http://www.encarta.msn.com

 

 

Britt, Robert Roy. “New neighbor may be closest known brown dwarf.” 27 Nov. 2000

http://ww.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/brown_dwarf_001122-2.html

 

 

Yarris, Lynn. “Does a companion star to the sun cause Earth’s periodic extinctions?"

Spring 1987 LBL Research Review

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/extinctions-nemesis.html

 

 

Britt, Robert Roy. “Nemesis: Does the Sun Have a ‘Companion’ "? 03 April 2001

http://ww.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/nemesis_010320-2.html

 

 

The Official Website of ABC News: Chang, Kenneth

http://www.abcnews.com