Page 9 - 201212 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - December 2012

Nibiru and Doomsday 2012 Nibiru and Doomsday 2012: Questions and Answers Stories about the fictional planet Nibiru and predictions of doomsday in December 2012 have blossomed on the Internet. There are more than 300 books listed on Amazon.com dealing with the 2012 doomsday. “Ask an Astrobiologist” has received thousands of questions about Nibiru and 2012, with more than 500 answers posted. Following is a list of the most popular “Twenty Questions” organized in a logical succession and answered in some detail. 1. What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in December 2012? The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. Zecharia Sitchin, who wrote fiction about the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer, claimed in several books astronomy. Certainly they did not know about or Eris, not Nibiru. And what about the giant (e.g., “The Twelfth Planet”, published in 1976) the existence of Uranus, Neptune or Pluto. They planet Tyche? that he had found and translated Sumerian also had no understanding that the planets documents that identify the planet Nibiru, orbited the Sun, an idea that first developed in “Planet X” is an oxymoron when applied to a orbiting the Sun every 3600 years. These ancient Greece two millennia after the end of real object. The term has been used by Sumerian fables include stories of “ancient Sumer. Claims that Sumerians had a astronomers over the past century for a possible astronauts” visiting Earth from a civilization of sophisticated astronomy, or that they had a or suspected object. Once the object is found, it aliens called the Anunnaki planet named Nibiru, are the product of is given a real name, as was done with Pluto and http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/. Sitchin Sitchin’s imagination. Eris, both of which were at some time referred suggested a return of Nibiru and the Anunnaki to as Planet X. If a new object turns out to be not sometime this century. Then Nancy Lieder, a 3. How can you deny the existence of Nibiru real, or not a planet, then you won’t hear about self-declared psychic who claims she is when discovered it in 1983 and the story it again. If it is real, it is not called Planet X. Eris channeling aliens, wrote on her website Zetatalk appeared in leading newspapers? At that is one of several dwarf planets in the outer solar that the inhabitants of a fictional planet around time you called it Planet X, and later it was system, found by astronomers using the star Zeta Reticuli warned her that the Earth named Xena or Eris. conventional ground-based telescopes. All of was in danger from Planet X or Nibiru the dwarf planets are on orbits that will never http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planet IRAS (the NASA Infrared Astronomy Satellite, bring them near Earth. Like Pluto, Eris is x/. This catastrophe was initially predicted for which carried out a sky survey for 10 months in smaller than our Moon. It is very far away, and May 2003, but when nothing happened the 1983) discovered many infrared sources, but its orbit never brings it within 4 billion miles. doomsday date was moved forward to none of them was Nibiru or Planet X or any Tyche, in contrast, is supposed to be a giant December 2012. Then these two fables were other objects in the outer solar system planet (with several times the mass of Jupiter) in linked to the end of the Mayan calendar long- spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/tchester/iras/no_te the far outer solar system count at the winter solstice in 2012 – hence the nth_planet_yet.html. Briefly, IRAS cataloged http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyche_). It was predicted doomsday date on December 21, 350,000 infrared sources, and initially many of suggested in 1999 from an analysis of the orbits 2012. these sources were unidentified (which was the of comets. It has never been seen or detected, point, of course, of making such a survey). All and most astronomers do not believe it exists. It 2. The Sumerians were the first great of these observations have been followed up by if were real, even at a very great distance from civilization, and they made many accurate subsequent studies with more powerful the Sun, it should have been picked up in recent astronomical predictions, including the instruments both on the ground and in space. infrared sky surveys such as WISE existence of the planets Uranus, Neptune and The rumor about a “tenth planet” erupted in h t t p : / / e n . w i k i p e d i a . o rg / w i k i / Wi d e - Pluto. So why should we not believe their 1984 after a scientific paper was published in field_Infrared_Survey_Explorer. Even if such predictions about Nibiru? Astrophysical Journal Letters titled an object exists, it can have no effect on the “Unidentified point sources in the IRAS planets or their orbits. Nibiru is a name in Babylonian astrology minisurvey”, which discussed several infrared sometimes associated with the god Marduk. sources with “no counterparts”. But these (Continued on Page 10) Nibiru appears as a minor character in the “mystery objects” were subsequently found to The Java Jive: Babylonian creation poem Enuma Elish as be distant galaxies (except one, which was a - Americans drink about 400 million cups of recorded in the library of Assurbanipal, King of wisp of “infrared cirrus”), as published in 1987. coffee per day - or 146 billion cups every year. Assyria (668-627 BCE). Sumer flourished No IRAS source has ever turned out to be a - Coffee has absolutely no nutritional value. much earlier, from about the 23rd century to the planet. A good discussion of this whole issue is - Legend has it that coffee was discovered over 17th century BCE. The claims that Nibiru is a to be found on Phil Plait’s website 1,000 years ago when an Abyssinian planet and was known to the Sumerians are www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/scie goatherder noticed his goats prancing on their contradicted by scholars who (unlike Zecharia nce.html#iras. The bottom line is that NASA hind legs after sampling the fruit of a wild Sitchin) actually study and translate the written astronomers never discovered or announced a coffee tree. He tried the raw berries himself records of ancient Mesopotamia. Sumer was planet. To an astronomer, persistent claims and began dancing wildly. indeed a great civilization, important for the about a planet that is “nearby” but “invisible” - Four out of five adults in the US drink coffee. development of agriculture, water management, are just plain silly. They put away an average of three cups a day, urban life, and especially writing. However, which ads up to about a third of the world’s they left very few records dealing with 4. Maybe we should be asking about Planet X supply.