This week we’d like to tackle an unconventional question, which actually was submitted weeks ago, but it has taken some time to look into it. It’s no surprise that the question comes from an unconventional Aquarius, Rossa in the U.K., who is a regular here on RealAstrologers. She asks:
I don’t know if you’ve picked up on the reports confirming (or appearing to confirm) that there is a brown dwarf star on the outskirts of our solar system. Some astronomers in Spain reckon it confirms the theory that we are a binary star system, which is fairly common throughout the galaxy . . . It was discovered in the 80s but until recently no one actually came out to say what it really might be. Found in the Sagittarius part of the sky. Just wondered whether you two lovely ladies have any insights? I’m aware of the Planet X/Niburu stories on the ‘Net, although this seems more ‘official,’ and NASA is aware of it.
[Note: Diane is on hiatus this week. She’ll be back to answer more of your questions next Friday.]
Pat’s response:
Thanks for your question, Rossa. This is the first I’d heard of it, and I checked out the URL you provided.
It was tricky researching this. As you say, it appears to be confirmed by real astronomers, and this article sounds very scientific. Moreover, many sites picked up the story, making it look as though it were true. This is a real problem on the Internet.
As a former reporter, I’ve got a lot of experience in confirming rumors, which do sometimes turn out to be true. The key is to find a reliable source. Normally, we’d turn to NASA for that, but for many people, a U.S. government site isn’t credible, because it must be hiding something it doesn’t want people to know, right? So I went to the site of Mike Brown, the Caltech astronomer who was part of the team that discovered Quaoar, Sedna, and Eris. He’s got a great blog, and apparently he gets questions all the time about stuff like this. I found an interview with him on a Discovery Channel site, which is very interesting because it also discusses his role in demoting Pluto to a dwarf planet.
“I really do get many emails and even worried calls from people who are convinced that I know something and am not telling,” Brown says in the interview. “It is very hard to convince someone who thinks that there is a conspiracy that you are not part of the conspiracy. I really, really wish there were a Planet X and that I had discovered it. That would have been serious fun.”
That’s your answer, in a nutshell. But why, then, does a story like this make such a splash? Why are people so ready to believe it? And is there anything else we should infer from the existence of brown dwarfs?
I agree with the author of the article you cite that the sense of “something big” about to happen is shared by many, and this could be feeding the belief in Planet X or Nibiru. Diane and I, along with many other astrologers, have written that the cardinal T-square and grand cross that is developing heralds sweeping changes between now and 2012. I believe this shift could be accompanied by events that we can’t predict, because we can’t even imagine them right now. Could it include some startling discoveries about our solar system and galaxy? Absolutely!
The description of brown dwarfs is fascinating, especially the idea that they are “failed” stars. As we explore this concept, we may broaden our perspective of everything being connected and gain a better understanding of the idea that some things die so that others may live.
As for Planet X, Nibiru, and 2012, I believe that it’s misguided to look for material evidence of a planet or celestial body that is going to collide with Earth. For example, Paul LaViolette has written about energy outbursts from the Galactic Core as the possible cause of global catastrophe. Energy events are every bit as real as material bodies. That may be one of the lessons here.
Thanks again for writing, Rossa. I encourage everyone to send us a note when you find news items like this. There’s so much information out there that it’s not possible for one person to keep track of it all.
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Thanks Pat. You’re right there is a lot of conflicting info and wishful thinking out there at times about this. My own feeling is that if there was a brown dwarf star on a long orbit around our Sun that when it reached it’s perigee (closest point) like the current Full Moon it would have some sort of gravitational pull on all the planets. There have been some reports of unusual movements in the orbits of the outer planets that seemed to point to an object further out than Pluto that was affecting our solar system.
I don’t subscribe to the collision with Earth theory but would consider it a strong possibility that there may be something further out than Pluto that could have an affect on us. I read somewhere recently that 2 of Nasa’s probes are almost at the edge of our Heliosphere, the extent of the solar “bubble” that envelops and protects us from cosmic rays and other unknown (for now) inter-galatic forces. Maybe once they have go past that point we may find out more about what is “beyond our shores”. As you say the next couple of years are bound to be interesting and I for one am sure pleased to be incarnated at this time.
Watch this space seems somehow more appropriate…lol!
R
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Rossa, Mike Brown notes in the interview that it’s not impossible that our Sun might have a brown dwarf companion, but it would have to be very far away. He also explains that the calculations for a Planet X beyond Neptune are 150 years old and no longer deemed valid.
As for what may be causing the perturbations in our solar system, it wouldn’t necessarily have to be an object or even an energy current. Barbara Hand Clow, in The Mayan Code, suggests that our solar system simply may be “settling down” after a cataclysmic event 11,000 years ago. On a personal level, we might compare this to changes in our lives after a traumatic event and subsequent fallout. Returning to “normal” often involves disorientation and upset.
In any case, you are right that the situation bears close observation. Thanks again for writing, and happy birthday (a bit early).
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Just popped back to wish you a Happy Birthday too and caught your reply.
Yes it is believed that if there is a brown dwarf then it will be at some distance but at some point would be “closer” to us in its trajectory.
I’ve read some of Barbara Hand Clow’s work and also Carl Calleman about 2011/2012. While we may still be feeling the effects of a long ago cataclysm there are suggestions that we are approaching another one on a 11,000 year cycle. Or maybe even the culmination of something i.e. an even bigger cycle.
It would be a shame that just as we recover, something upsets the equilibrium again! Whether that includes the return of our Sun’s twin or not only time will tell.
One thing that I think most people overlook it that our galaxy also rotates around the Galactic Core in the way that the planets rotate around the Sun. Therefore we are in another part of the Universe from where we have been. And who knows what is out there that will affect us all. How long it takes our Solar System to “orbit” the Core, I don’t know. Clearly at some point in our Earth’s history we have been here before….Deja Vue?
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As I understand Mike Brown’s explanation, if we can’t find our Sun’s twin now, then it is so far away that it wouldn’t reach perigee for a very long time — well past our lifetime, and certainly not by 2012. I’m confident that astronomers are looking for it and will tell us if and when they find it. :-)
I’ve also heard the theories that perturbations in our solar system may be due to conditions in the part of the galaxy we’re currently moving through. It’s pretty much accepted now that the solar system orbits the Galactic Core, but we don’t fully understand the implications of this yet. Perhaps that will be our big revelation?
I guess I need to go back and re-read The Mayan Code, because the impression I had was that she was arguing against another cataclysm, at least from external sources, and believes that our collective fear of such is due to traumatic memories of the last one deeply embedded in our DNA. She acknowledges Paul LaViolette’s theories (she was an editor at the publisher to whom he submitted his manuscript) and concedes that he might be right, but she openly disagrees with him.
BTW, if you’ve read Calleman, then you know he disagrees with the Dec. 21, 2012 end date of the Mayan Calendar. By his calculation, the end date is Oct. 28, 2011. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Certainly wouldn’t make a good Hollywood film title.
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As I was sending that last comment, I suddenly remembered the 1982 film, 2010, based on Arthur C. Clarke’s sequel to 2001 (my all-time favorite movie).
In 2010, Jupiter explodes into our Sun’s companion star, Lucifer. The moons of Jupiter become habitable, and the inhabitants consider Lucifer the Sun, and our Sun is seen as its distant companion.
You never know what could happen this year, when Jupiter and Uranus move simultaneously into Aries. :-)
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The main problem I have with any “end date” is that I don’t believe anything will happen at a precise moment or date in time. My own belief such as it is, is that it is more likely to be a period of time, a gradual shift rather than anything “instant”. Even a cataclysm will have some period of a build up to the main event and then whatever comes after it. I guess the only exception would be for the planet to explode. That would be pretty instant I guess….lol
I like Calleman’s work as his explanation of the calendar as being a record of a series of evolutionary stages seems to make sense. In his articles he shows how each “age” gets shorter and shorter as we reach the “end”. I’m sure we’re all agreed that time seems to have speeded up and we appear to have achieved more and more in a shorter and shorter time period.
What happens when we reach the end is the moot point. Maybe the next stage is a spiritual shift i.e. internal evolution rather than the external forces we have been through so far. Either way it is an interesting time to be in and hopefully I will still be here “on the other side” of 2011-2012.
Have a good birthday whatever you are doing and I hope your health is better now that it has been. I’m off to check out some of your references that I didn’t have time to look at yesterday. R
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Rossa, I’m going to do a separate post on this topic in the next day or two.
The acceleration of time is everywhere apparent, and it’s the subtitle of Barbara Hand Clow’s book, The Mayan Code. Unfortunately, the recent documentary on 2012, which I reviewed for RealAstrologers, doesn’t include BHC and Calleman. But it’s still a good reference, and I highly recommend it as a competent debate of the various 2012 theories floating around out there.
Thanks again for bringing up the subject. Time will tell us soon enough what it all means … and I really think that’s the only way we’re going to find out. Speculation might get us close, but I maintain that what’s going to happen is unimaginable to us now — which means it probably won’t be anything we’ve already thought of. :-)
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