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So, some friends of ours have learned about "Planet X" in school...

One theory I've read posits that there could be a brown dwarf circling the sun out there in the Oort cloud, which sends a bunch of comets inwards every 20 million years or so.. (apparently that happens on a regular basis?)

Anyway, I'm sure there are surprises out there in our solar system waiting to be discovered.. even big surprises.

I personally think Pluto should be demoted to a Kuiper Belt Object.. but that's just me :)
 

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Hey I have known about Planet X since I was a kid! The World Space Authority dispatched the P-1 interplanetary vessel to study the newly discovered Planet X back in 1965. Cold, calculating, and deadly, the inhabitants of Planet X were a duplicitous alien race located on a nearby celestial body, visually obscured be the enormous girth of Jupiter.

xilian65_01.jpg


These were a people who mined gold in great abundance, but lacked one key necessity: water. This scarcity prompted the race to attempt the colonization of a new planet, one with a great abundance of the resource they so desperately desired; they needed to conquer Earth! Secretly, the Xilians, as they were called, landed scouts and advance forces on the planet to pave the way for the next phase of their dastardly plan. The Earthlings were made to believe that this small, rocky planet was under the constant threat of King Ghidorah, and permission was requested to operate freely on Earth to procure Godzilla and Rodan. Only these colossal creatures could protect Planet X, the Controller reasoned, and in return for human cooperation, the Xilians promised the Earthlings a cure for all diseases.

As the nations of the Earth agreed to this proposition, the Xilians revealed that they had already arrived! Godzilla was lifted from the depths of Lake Myojin, and Rodan was pulled from the cliffs of Washigasawa by the aliens' flying saucers. The monsters were transported deep into space and were released on Planet X, where they fought and repelled King Ghidorah. It seemed as though a great service had been done for these interplanetary neighbors of humankind, and a fond farewell was bid as the astronauts returned to their home world with the medical cure-all. Humankind, however, was deceived!

The secret formula was in fact a device that foretold of the Xilians' plans for domination. These belligerent beings planned to utilize Godzilla, Rodan, and King Ghidorah, now under their control, to destroy human civilization, unless Earth agreed to become a possession of Planet X. As a plan of defense was being formulated, the invasion began! Luckily, there was one fatal flaw in the plans of these invaders. One of their own kind, who went by the name of Namikawa on Earth, had fallen in love with a human. She passed the secret vulnerability of her race to her lover shortly before her demise. It turned out that the Xilians' weakness was high amplitude sonic waves! This weakness was exploited when the high-pitched sound was broadcast throughout the region, and the Xilians writhed in pain. Simultaneously, a device called the a-cycle light ray was used to disintegrate the mind control over the monsters. With their plans for domination thwarted, the Xilians destroyed their flying saucers and took their own lives. King Ghidorah was soon defeated by Godzilla and Rodan, and the world was rescued from a terrible fate.

That's all in the history books. Right?
 

I remember learning in grade school (and this would've been late '70s / early '80s) that there probably was a tenth planet, but no one was sure. I can't recall if the name "Planet X" came up, however.
 


Videssian said:
One theory I've read posits that there could be a brown dwarf circling the sun out there in the Oort cloud, which sends a bunch of comets inwards every 20 million years or so.. (apparently that happens on a regular basis?)
Yes, the Nemesis theory. That's not fared well in recent years, though. Few people take that theory seriously anymore.
Videssian said:
Anyway, I'm sure there are surprises out there in our solar system waiting to be discovered.. even big surprises.
No doubt. It wasn't until the early 90s that we really knew that there was a Kuiper Belt, for that matter. Obviously Gerard Kuiper had theorized that it could exist, but it still needed to be discovered. Sedna's another odd recent discovery; we still don't know for sure what it is; an extremely elliptical and distant Kuiper Belt Object, or part of some kind of inner Oort Cloud structure, or what. The whole theory of planets migrating orbits has also only recently been formulated; until about 10-15 years ago nobody suspected that such a thing would have happened.

No doubt from me at all that the Solar System still has plenty of surprises.
 


Joshua Dyal said:
Yes, the Nemesis theory. That's not fared well in recent years, though. Few people take that theory seriously anymore.
Murphy's law dictates that a comet was sent on a collision course with earth because of that.

Mother nature has a cruel sense of irony.
 

Joshua Randall said:
I remember learning in grade school (and this would've been late '70s / early '80s) that there probably was a tenth planet, but no one was sure. I can't recall if the name "Planet X" came up, however.
Up until the late 80s, it was believed that the characteristics of Neptune's orbit might imply the existence of a large planet beyond its orbit. Then after Voyager 2's flyby, it turned out that Neptune's mass had been overestimated, and the 10th-planet correction turned out to be unnecessary after all. Whoops!
 


That's okay, my school was into free thinking theory and we were actually debating whether Pluto should be considered a planet. That was in the 80s.From a purely astrologic point of view, they should either both be planets or neither one should be a planet (They share similar characteristics of composition, orbit, mass, etc).
(Please be advised the final statement is a generality which of course all generalities, including this one, are false)
 

Into the Woods

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