Nibiru's Existence Challenged - Page 3

With the theoretical orbit of Nibiru, the current location, as well as future locations can be found.

As of now, Nibiru would be just outside of Saturn's orbit. Sometime in 2010 it would cross Saturn's orbit. Nibiru speeds up as it approaches the Sun, and it would cross Jupiter's orbit entering the inner solar system near the end of 2011, before reaching its closest point of approach on December 21st, 2012. This orbital model may vary slightly, depending on where the assumed closest point of approach is, but the largest variance would only be on a scale of months which is nothing significant considering what we are looking at here.

At its closest point of approach to Earth, Nibiru would be traveling at about 23 thousand kilometers per second, or 51,000 miles per hour! A large gravitational body traveling at this velocity close to Earth could result in violent tidal force interactions, leading to an increase in volcanic activity. Whether or not this would happen would depend on how on the distance from Earth to Nibiru's closest point of approach.

Because of the large uncertainty of where Nibiru's closest point of approach is, a direct conclusion cannot be found. However, a conclusion about the size of Nibiru at a given closet point of approach so that it will have an impact on tidal activity can be found. By assuming that Nibiru must produce comparable tidal forces on the Earth that the moon produces by a simple tidal force relation, a table of distance versus the mass Nibiru to have impact is displayed below.

Once you begin to reach distances well outside of the Moon's orbit, you can see that Nibiru must be quite massive to make any noticeable impact during its flyby on December 21st, 2012. Once you begin to reach distances close to that of Mars, the mass of Nibiru blows up and becomes very unrealistic. For comparison, Jupiter is about 317 Earth Masses.

The sphere of influence in astrodynamics is the spherical region of which a gravitational body such as a planet, star, or black hole is responsible for the primary gravitational influence on any orbiting objects. The Earth is in the Sun's sphere of influence, where as the Moon is in the Earth's sphere of influence. If Nibiru were to come close enough so that we entered its sphere of influence, that could lead to apocalyptic events. The Earth's orbit would likely change, which would likely lead to devastating climate change. The Earth could also be kicked out of the Solar System, or even be captured by Nibiru, which would ultimately lead to our planet freezing over as it leaves the solar system. Something like is highly dependant on the mass of Nibiru, and how close it would have to approach for Earth to enter its sphere of influence. Below is table which displays how close Nibiru would have to approach Earth for Earth to enter Nibiru's sphere of influence.

Nibiru would have a very large sphere of influence because of its very large semi-major axis (the a_p value in the equation for the sphere of influence shown above). For the distances in the table above, to get a better idea of these distances, they are compared to the distances between when Earth and Mars are closest to each other.

Even at low masses Nibiru would not have to come close to effect the orbit of Earth. Nibiru could approach at a distance further than the Earth to Mars closest distance and still have an impact on our planet if it is of sufficient mass. If anything this is probably the best case one can make at Nibiru causing an apocalyptic event. However, Earth, Mars, and Nibiru would likely be scattered at different locations around the Sun, and not lined up as displayed in the image above. Earth could be sitting safely on the other side of the Sun when Nibiru would make its closest approach.