Re: Orbital Elements for the 12th Planet

Article: <[email protected]>
From: [email protected](Nancy )
Subject: Re: Orbital Elements for the 12th Planet
Date: 13 Feb 1997 16:30:11 GMT

In article <[email protected]>
Paul Campbell writes:
> The only way to get a 3600 year orbit is if you place the
> 12th planet way out there. If it's expected to return every
> once in a while and enter the solar system it must be on a
> very highly elliptical orbit, with one foci located near the
> sun and the other way out there. Except that means that the
> 12th planet would enter from Orion and leave in the general
> direction of Orion. It certainatly wouldn't head out towards
> Sagittarius as that is in the opposite side of the sky.
> "Paul Campbell" <[email protected]>

(Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
Your dilemma is due to your lack of understanding on how comets behave when outside of your view. As we explained in the long running Re: Ephemerides - the Zetas Explain thread, which ran for 2 months on this message board a year ago, comets DO NOT form perfect ellipses, they form something akin to the shape of an ice cream cone. All comets have more than one foci, and develop the shape you SEE only when rounding a focus.

1. When far out in space they head directly toward the Sun, but fan to the side in an attempt to evade the solar wind, which is what keeps them from going into the Sun and pushes their tails AWAY from the Sun.
2. They then skirt around the Sun, exiting toward a second focus when they reach a point where the combination of the forward motion impelling them at all times on a tangent line away from the Sun as they round the curve, the push from the Solar Wind, and the gravity tug from the second focus exceeds the gravity attraction of the Sun.
3. Thus the PORTION of an ellipse, which you see, is caused only by the factors at play as the comet rounds the Sun. As the comet exists the Solar System, the Solar Wind diminishes and the comet then heads straight towards its second focus, most often coming to a dead halt at a point between this second focus and the Sun before turning around for a return trip around your Sun. This is due to the diminished Solar Wind essentially eliminating this push away from the Sun, so that the Sun's gravity pull again becomes the dominant voice.

In the case of the 12th Planet, it indeed DOES have a long elliptical orbit, as we have explained. We will ask our emissary, Nancy, to report a portion of our prior Zetatalk on that issue.
(End ZetaTalk[TM])

As requested, the excerpt:

(Begin Zetatalk[TM] excerpt on 12th Planet Orbit)
ZetaTalk: 12th Planet Orbit

The 12th Planet's path is elliptical, making a long flat circle around its two gravitational masters, your Sun and a body you cannot see. The Sun's alter ego in this matter is not an object on your sky maps, but for the purposes of calculating the 12th Planet's orbit, you can assume it be have the same mass as the Sun, and to be at a distance that allows the curve of the ellipse to smooth to an essentially straight line between the two orbital foci. The 12th Planet's travels are not unlike a train on parallel tracks, where the train is on one side of the tracks going in one direction, and on the other side coming back. It will surprise you to know that the second foci is not that far away. Since it rivals the Sun in mass, the assumption would be that your astronomers would know about it. However, being dark, they stare past it and think it space. To use multiples of the distance from your Sun to its farthest known orbiting planet, which you call Pluto, this foci is from the Sun 18.724 times as far away.
(End Zetatalk[TM] excerpt on 12th Planet Orbit)
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