planet x and mysterious death of dr robert harrington

Popular Planet X doomsday scenarios surface regularly to remind us of its myth and mystery. An e-mail exchange at rense.com offers one listener's view followed by a rebuttal by yet another unnamed source. The opposing views highlight nicely arguments for and against the existence of an unknown large object in our solar system! The first e-mail asserts Pioneer 10 and twin Pioneer 11, launched in the seventies to find Planet X and summarizes other arguments which brought intense interest to the search. "September 10, 1984 US News and World Report declared in the article 'Planet X - Is It Really Out There?' that NASA had indeed found something approximately 50 billion miles away. Then in a 1992 press release NASA stated that, '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 [ONLY] 7 billion miles from the sun'". Dr. Robert S Harrington, a professional astronomer, also convinced, using same methods employed to detect Pluto and its moon, wrote in 1988, "The Location of Planet X," for the Astronomical Journal.

Harrington, chief astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory, took an 8-inch telescope in 1991 to Black Birch, New Zealand, an optimal spot for sighting Planet X according to writers John Dinardo and Janice Manning in, "Planet X and the Mysterious Death of Dr. Robert Harrington." In just two years, the astronomer had died of esophageal cancer and many question the timing and rapid demise at age 50. "By analyzing time-lapse photographs using the "blink comparison" technique, originated by famed Pluto discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh, Dr. Harrington proved that Planet X was indeed inbound into our Solar System. Harrington sent back reports of this ominous discovery, but died of what was reported to be esophageal cancer before he could pack up his telescope and come home to hold what would have been a highly publicized press conference." Is this the truth?

In rebuttal, the second anonymous email at rense.com dispatches many persuasive points with minimum words. Harrington credited with reigniting search for Planet X with calculations Pluto too small to account for perturbation in Uranus and Neptune orbits, second email concludes Planet X was never found. Is this the truth or is truth suppressed? It continues with dismissing twin Pioneer probes as not experiencing any perturbations in their trajectories. Voyager 2 found Neptune to be less massive than previously thought, thus accounting for its 'apparent' orbital perturbances. The most difficult argument is the the Infra-Red Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) which detected a large object not once but twice in six months. The response is perhaps most crafty of all with, "we don't know what it is?" The IRAS data found the object in same location after six months and implies data hints it's not a planet or there would be movement? Is this the truth? Or is the object too far away to measure movement with any accuracy?

On an intuitive level, a mind suspects something is up? Many preparations are underway such as the Svalbard Seed Vault and current wave of underground shelters. Is it too much to suspect, oligarchs are behaving as if they know their countless misdeeds will never be punished?

weekend starview: cassini at saturn

Weekend starview continues with Cassini Mission by Chris Abbas. An excellent two minute video of footage captured by Cassini space probe. Nancy Atkinson and her Universe Today article are thanked for the link. It's a thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing video!

april 28th morning planetary conjunction

Adrian West invites readers to rise a half hour before sunrise tomorrow, in order, to get a glimpse of Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and Mars in conjunction. West urges in a Universe Today article, "Planets Party in The Morning April 28-May 1": "Go out and with either a pair of binoculars, a small telescope, or just use your naked eyes and find an unobscured view of the Eastern horizon to see a conjunction (objects near each other in the sky) of the planets Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury, below and to the left of the thin crescent moon." The month of May will provide more astronomical sights with details available here.

great moon hoax of 1835

The New York Sun, founded in 1833 as a penny press paper, catered to a wide audience with narrative style and a cheaper price. On August 25, 1835, the first of six articles appeared  in the paper that became known collectively as, "The Great Moon Hoax".

The first article brought increased sales and entertainment. Supposedly, the series was reprinted from a science journal in Edinburgh, Scotland, which had already ceased publication. Articles reported "discoveries" by astronomer Sir John Hershel at new observatory in South Africa. Writing style of the day can also fascinate today's reader. A nice treatment of the hoax at Universe Today provides following description of the man bats (pictured). "...They averaged four feet in height, were covered, except on the face, with short and glossy copper-colored hair, and had wings composed of a thin membrane, without hair, lying snugly upon their backs from the top of the shoulders to the calves of their legs.”

On April Fool's Day, 365 Days of Astronomy produced a great podcast of Moon Hoax, which makes for great listening! A tip of the hat goes to Universe Today for the link. Museum of Hoaxes website provides complete treatment and worth a visit. It's free sci-fi from 1835!

canals on mars?

Cecil Adams wrote "Whatever Happened to the Canals of Mars?", as a response to the popular myth.  Adams believes the lines spotted on the planet were an optical illusion.  In 1877, Giovanni Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer, was first to widely circulate observations of  "canali" which means channels in Italian.  The English translation of Schiaparelli's work became canals, implying a source of higher intelligence however. "This idea was taken up a few years later by the amateur American astronomer Percival Lowell, who had built an observatory near Flagstaff, Arizona. Lowell made detailed observations of Mars and published several popular books about the planet, notably Mars and Its Canals (1903), which included elaborate maps of the canals and outlined the theory that they were waterways used for irrigation."

 Lowell is the principal source for the longevity of the myth with Lowell's 1909 map of Mars.  Adams concludes the Mariner 9 satellite, which took close up pictures of Mars in 1971, dispelled once and for all "the canals myth" as an illusion, but at the same time, refers to many channels formed by some liquid that appear to be of natural origin.  Adams, an obvious debunker, brutally concludes his response with throwaway lines, "...the old theory that one of the Martian moons is an artificial satellite is out the window, too. As for that business in recent years about a "face" on Mars … please, let's say no more." 

Pictures taken by telescope of Mars such as this one by the Air Force as recent as 1962 along with a mapping history of the Red Planet can be found at the Planetary Blog.  The pictures would seem to push the idea of canals at least into the sixties as the present writer remembers?  Were the Mariner program pictures air brushed (no Photoshop) and why only map projections shown in this blog, which distort the planet's surface? The blog states the inelegant map projection is great for storing data but makes features far less apparent!  Is the Red Planet really red or a tint added?  Do you trust NASA? 
Please move along there is nothing to see here!

1859 carrington event

NASA website recaps 1859 Carrington Event the largest known solar flare observed by English astronomer Richard Carrington. "Just before dawn the next day, skies all over planet Earth erupted in red, green, and purple auroras so brilliant that newspapers could be read as easily as in daylight. Indeed, stunning auroras pulsated even at near tropical latitudes over Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, El Salvador, and Hawaii." "Spark discharges shocked telegraph operators and set the telegraph paper on fire. Even when telegraphers disconnected the batteries powering the lines, aurora-induced electric currents in the wires still allowed messages to be transmitted." This entry on NASA website reassures "...statistics suggest that Carrington flares are once in a half-millennium events". Here is a link to an audio version of 1859 Carrington Event.

scientists find most massive star ever discovered

from ap: A huge ball of brightly burning gas drifting through a neighboring galaxy may be the heaviest star ever discovered - 100s of times more massive than the sun, scientists said Wednesday after working out its weight for the first time. Those behind the find say the star, called R136a1, may once have weighed as much as 320 solar masses. Astrophysicist Paul Crowther said the obese star - twice as heavy as any previously discovered - has already slimmed down considerably over its lifetime... it's burning itself off with such intensity that it shines at nearly 10 million times the luminosity of the sun.