This is the first part to a multipart series in the attempt to understand exactly what this Planet X really is – where it is – and what we can expect should it swing close enough to us in its path around our Sun. What you will read in this series is my own thoughts and opinions coupled with text from existing research sites.
 
What I have done is research the topic of Planet X, culled information from other research sites, tried to present it in a sequential and logical manner interspersing my own opinions and clarification to this data as required.
 
Note: Material in this seven part series which originates, comes from current research on other websites is declared as such by the website address.

This article is attached as an Acrobat Reader PDF file for your storage convenience.
 
~Len
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What is Planet X – Part 1 Introduction to your Solar System

 
In order to understand just what this Planet X really is …. We need a summary to the entire Planet X hypothesis,  little introduction to basic astronomy and most importantly ….  And introduction to Your home – Your Solar System..
 
 

A Summary of the Planet X Phenomena

I think a summary of this phenomena is in order to accommodate those who may be very new to this topic.

In the early 1980’2 I read an article in the Boston Globe. It described a planet shaped and planet sized object, heading in-bound to the solar system, was leaving an ion trail behind it, had made two distinct movements that the article described as course corrections, and was now on an intersect path to the Earth. A scant 3 years after I read that article … ALL mention and reference to this planet sized/shaped object was wiped from the media – both in print and in archive.

Ten years later I am living in another state and am exposed to the Planet X hypothesis. As I have always been involved in astronomy at a lay person’s level and strictly amateur, I know that the RULE to our galaxy is – most solar systems consist of TWO stars, not one. So this hypothesis of an unknown planet in our solar system interested me.

The idea that there may be a planet we have not yet catalogued beyond the orbit of Pluto has  become popular among astronomers. At a NASA's Ames Research Center conference on June, 1982, a number of researchers discussed the growing evidence that something is out there: perhaps a planet, perhaps the remnant of a burned-out white dwarf or neutron star that is a companion to the Sun, makes our solar system a BINARY solar system with TWO stars – not one as previously thought.

I read everything I could about – beginning with Zacharia Sitchin’s work – The Twelfth Planet series … http://www.sitchin.com/ . But that wasn’t enough. Something about this simply did not make sense to me.

I discovered other sites INCLUDING one extraordinary man – Robert Solarion! This man is a genius. A prolific writer and researcher, he grabbed onto the topic of Planet X and didn’t let go until he exhausted every avenue of research … well every avenue except one which we are coming to soon in this series.

His website is here http://www.apollonius.net/cosmictree.html . Read every word --- especially this page http://www.slowmotiondoomsday.com/diagrams.html . Planet X has been immortalized in all world mythologies and religions from Bhuddism to Islam to Christianity to Judaism to the religions practiced by the ancient Greeks and Romans …. Our civilization is inundated with clues that we are not alone!

Our Solar System

 The Golden Rule in the Milky Way – which is our galaxy is this: Most solar systems consist of two stars. They call this a binary star system.
 
In a binary star system, usually there is one large star and one smaller star. The smaller star orbits around the larger star in similar fashion as Earth orbits around our Sun. The path that the smaller star (or any planet for that matter) takes is called the orbital shell.
 
Our star system is no exception to this rule. We live in a binary star system. The reason we have never seen this second star is because it’s orbital shell takes it very far outside even Pluto’s orbit – which is the last planet in our solar system.
 
In a binary star system, each star of the pair follows an elliptical orbital path. Mutual gravity causes the stellar companions to glide around their orbits as if tied to the ends of an elastic string passing through a balance point between them. The balance point is the system's "center of mass".
 
The picture below shows our Solar System inner planets – as we have always known it to be.
 
http://www.nineplanets.org/overview.html
 

 

The picture below shows our Solar System outer planets – as we have always known it to be.
 
http://www.nineplanets.org/overview.html
 

 

 

Every Yard has a Fence

 
Yep pretty much right! Every yard has a fence. Well our Solar System yard has a fence too. And this fence is called the Oort Cloud. The Oort cloud is an immense spherical cloud surrounding the planetary system and extending approximately 3 light years, about 30 trillion kilometers from the Sun. This vast distance is considered the edge of the Sun's orb of physical, gravitational, or dynamical influence.
 
The picture below shows an artistic depiction of this fence of ours.
 
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/oort.htm
 

 
Named after Jan Hendrik Oort (who was the discoverer http://www.nineplanets.org/help.html - oort), the Oort Cloud is the origin of all the comets and meteors that scream through our solar neighborhood.
 
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/oort.htm
 
Within the cloud, comets are typically tens of millions of kilometers apart. They are weakly bound to the sun, and passing stars and other forces can readily change their orbits, sending them into the inner solar system or out to interstellar space. This is especially true of comets on the outer edges of the Oort cloud. The structure of the cloud is believed to consist of a relatively dense core that lies near the ecliptic plane and gradually replenishes the outer boundaries, creating a steady state. One sixth of an estimated six trillion icy objects or comets are in the outer region with the remainder in the relatively dense core.
 
The Oort cloud is the source of long-period comets and possibly higher-inclination intermediate comets that were pulled into shorter period orbits by the planets, such as Halley and Swift-Tuttle. Comets can also shift their orbits due to jets of gas and dust that rocket from their icy surface as they approach the sun. Although they get off course, comets do have initial orbits with widely different ranges, from 200 years to once every million years or more. Comets entering the planetary region for the first time, come from an average distance of 44,000 astronomical units.
 
Long period comets can appear at any time and come from any direction. Bright comets can usually be seen every 5-10 years. Two recent Oort cloud comets were Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp. Hyakutake was average in size, but came to 0.10 AU (15,000,000 km) from Earth, which made it appear especially spectacular. Hale-Bopp, on the other hand, was an unusually large and dynamic comet, ten times that of Halley at comparable distances from the sun, making it appear quite bright, even though it did not approach closer than 1.32 AU (197,000,000 km) to the Earth.
 
The Oort Cloud is also sometimes termed the Kuiper Belt. The illustration below comes from http://www.solarviews.com/cap/comet/kuiper2.htm and is used in a discussion on binary objects that the Hubble telescope is beginning to find in the Oort Cloud. This picture gives you a better idea of what the Oort Cloud is and the threat it poses to Earth. The threat is --- whenever an object like Pluto for example whose orbit cuts through the Oort Cloud regularly, passes through it …. The passing object tends to knock those rocks around like balls on a pool table. This at times can send them into an orbit around our Sun and thereby also posing a threat to Earth as they pass by us.
 

 
 
Amazing isn’t it? That we are still here that is! We are surrounded – as though by design – by a near to impenetrable barrier of speeding comets, meteors and asteroids light years thick! Somewhat like being a living target in a pinball game.
 
Stay tuned for Part 2 Our Binary Star System where we will discover that we have had a second star as part of our solar system all along!.