As I gaze into the night sky watching it blink from countless glimmers of light, I can’t help but wonder if “Planet X” (A.K.A. Nibiru) is blinking silently somewhere in the distance as it slowly approaches to shake Earth’s hands in the most uncomfortable celestial greeting.
If you are not familiar with Planet X, please allow me to make the sobering introduction. This little gem was discovered by NASA’s Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) in January of 1983.
On December 31 of that year, the front page of The Washington Post proudly declared that a discovery had been made by IRAS, which had some declaring that this was the fabled Planet X. The satellite that happened to be peering past poor, demoted Pluto picked up an object twice the size of Jupiter. The object’s close proximity to Earth provoked those with an extra $50,000 to seek an additional address at one of the many underground bunkers that have been constructed all across the US.
There have been other releases distributed by astrological societies supporting the notion that we may indeed have a celestial visitor on our doorstep in the near future. The general perception of this potential arrival as friendly or hostile is still open for debate. There has been one such observation made by NASA, which reports disturbances taking place in our solar system that seem to support the Planet X theory. As explained in a 1992 NASA press release:
“Unexplained deviations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune point to a large outer solar system body of 4 to 8 Earth masses, on a highly tilted orbit, beyond 7 billion miles from the sun.”
So, does this mean I’ll need to add an extra planet to my son’s bedroom solar system?
