The Dark Star: The Planet X Evidence (13 page)

Brown dwarfs also display unpredictable behavior. They are capable
of emitting intense flares detectable in the X-Ray range. This is similar to
those flares emitted by stars. Because Brown dwarfs are thought to behave more
like gas giants, this was an unexpected discovery.
⁷
The intense
activity appears to be the result of turbulent magnetized material below the
surface of the brown dwarf, heating the atmosphere and giving rise to intense
X-ray flares, rather like storms on Earth create lightning.
^8,9

In the Chapter,The Sumerian 'Nibiru', we looked at some of the
ancient descriptions of the Dark Star, known in the creation myths as Marduk.
These flare-like properties are clearly in keeping with the Babylonian god's
ability to breathe fire! Brown dwarfs, although dim, are clearly emitting light
to some degree. At times, they seem to emit a great deal of light.

Brown dwarfs are at their brightest when young, particularly under
1 million years. In 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope focused its attention on 2
sets of these young brown dwarfs, as they emerged from their respective
birth-places some 1,500 light years away. The images show piercing red stars,
as predicted by the various models describing very young brown dwarfs.
¹⁰
As brown dwarfs get older, their ability to radiate light diminishes rapidly,
explaining the apparent ease with which these much younger clusters of brown
dwarfs were photographed at a distance of 1,500 light years. Other, older brown
dwarfs in our vicinity continue to prove difficult to image despite being
significantly closer. The Dark Star is as old as the sun, so its light emission
will be substantially dimmer than these objects: in fact, many orders of
magnitude less.

But
the fact that older brown dwarfs emit strong flares indicates that a Dark Star
is anything but 'dead'. Privately, experts on brown dwarfs consider it likely
that the smaller, older variety might yet hold some surprises of its own.
Despite the age of our Dark Star, the density of these objects creates intense
surface gravity which consequently affects their magnetic activity, thereby
leading to flares and intense storms.

Astronomers
specializing in the study of brown dwarfs have been trying to explain why many
of these objects are brighter than expected to be according to theory. Common
sense would dictate that as brown dwarfs cool over time, their relative
brightness should also diminish. Apparently, this is not necessarily the case.

Using
weather models derived from Jupiter's own atmospheric system, and applying them
to brown dwarfs, a model has emerged which may explain the anomaly. Brown
dwarfs emit a faint glow, like an ember from a fire that gives off both heat
and light energy as it dims.
¹¹
This glow can be monitored by
scientists using infra-ed detection equipment.

The
reduction in this glow as the brown dwarf ages is not as linear as it was once
believed. For a while, at least, brown dwarfs appear to get brighter as they
cool. This may be due to fluctuations in upper atmospheric conditions. The
higher cloud layer may part, exposing the inner regions of the brown dwarf, and
allowing significant sources of heat to be recorded. In other words, the
weather systems of a brown dwarf produce fluctuations in the heat and light
they emit, making them less predictable objects to study.

Light-emitting Planets

The
term 'light-emitting planet' has been used to describe free-floating planets
which are so young that they emit light, and can be imaged.
¹²
Such
discoveries overturn our entire understanding of the difference between stars
and planets.

Of
particular interest is the fact that these 'planets' are free-floating, as
Nibiru was before crashing through the planetary zone 4 billion years ago.
These wandering light emitting planets may provide us with a model of what
happened to our own star system shortly after its birth; nomadic giant
planet-sized entities Was the Dark Star such an entity, propelled from another
star's proto-planetary disc to find itself crashing into our sun's own young
planetary system?

We
now know that many of the newly discovered 'extrasolar planets' have eccentric
orbits, indicating that non-circular orbital arrangements in star systems might
be fairly normal.
¹³
In at least one case, a brown dwarf has been
found embedded within a 'normal' extrasolar planetary system, without its
presence seeming to create chaos among the other planets.
^14,15
The
birth of planetary systems appears to be anything but simple.

In
relation to the Dark Star Theory, the modern understanding of these failed stars
appears to offer an ideal platform to explore the concept of an inhabitable
world in our comet-cloud, as described by the Sumerians. A world orbiting a
dark star that is essentially invisible to us, but that emits massive amount of
heat and enough low-frequency light to support life, whilst not subjecting the
denizens of that world to the sort of harmful radiation we are subject to from
our sun.

Could
this also explain the almost immortal life-spans that Sitchin claims for the
Anunnaki? One might speculate that our woefully short life-spans are due to our
constant exposure to high energy particles radiated from the sun. Astronaut
'Gods' coming to our world might find their life-spans significantly shortened,
as well as the subsequent life expectancies of their children. Life on Earth is
necessarily mortal. Perhaps the less hostile environment of a habitable moon
orbiting a brown dwarf would help to extend the human life cycle.

Brown Dwarfs Have Planets Too!

When
we talk about brown dwarfs, we are walking the line between stars and planets.
Their properties fall into one camp or another, and one of the more important
distinctions to be made is when the brown dwarf is forming. Does it form like a
star does, in a stellar nursery, or is the brown dwarf simply an over-sized
planet? Research by Ray Jayawardhana of the University of Michigan would tend
to suggest that they follow the star route.
¹⁶

Dr. Jayawardhana also indicates that young brown dwarfs have dust
discs, in a similar way to the proto-planetary discs of stars, and that these
may allow the formation of planets around brown dwarfs as well. Indeed, it
seems quite possible that brown dwarfs could have an entire retinue of
asteroids, comets and planets which formed in these discs during the early
period of the life of the parent brown dwarf.
¹⁶

Let us say, then, that the sun was born in a stellar nursery,
whose environment was fairly dense with other simultaneous star formations. Let
us say that a brown dwarf was born in the sun's vicinity, and gravitationally
held to it as a distant binary. If that binary failed star, or small brown
dwarf, followed Dr. Jayawardhana's logic, then it would have its own dust disc
and the potential for the creation of its own system of planets/moons, comets
and asteroids. These would then form separately from the sun, excluding us from
having to account for their formation from the accretion models of the sun's
own proto-planetary disc. In one fell swoop, we can avoid a whole raft of
objections to the potential existence of a massive solar companion.

The stellar nurseries containing new born stars are sometimes
densely packed. Astronomers analyzing the chaotic conditions of star-birth have
noticed that stars can form so close together that they interact during the
formation process, competing for the remaining material in the stellar
environment.
¹⁷
This leads to chaotic, dynamic conditions, during
which proto-planets are tugged from their initial circular orbits in the
accretion discs. Similarly, brown dwarfs might be ejected proto-stars that
never really got the chance to accrete enough mass to become proper stars. This
mechanism may explain why there appear to be as many brown dwarfs in the Milky
Way galaxy as there are actual stars.

When brown dwarfs are ejected from young star systems, they take
with them the material from their immediate environment. This essentially
strips the young star system of some of its outer proto-planetary disc. It is
thought that this mechanism explains why some proto-planetary discs are seen to
be curtailed, what astronomers refer to as 'truncation'.
¹⁷
If brown
dwarfs are as common as thought, then examples of this kind of truncated disc
should be common, and there should be a measurably shortened 'edge' to the
planetary zone of a given star, stripped of a brown dwarf companion.

Our
own solar system appears to have a healthy series of planets, implying that it
did not itself lose a brown dwarf during its early development. However, it
also has a measurable 'gap' in its outer regions, known as the Kuiper Gap. This
implies some kind of dynamic process having occurred there, which is at the
moment unexplained.

But,
losing brown dwarfs from star systems is not the only new mechanism being
considered by astronomers. A brown dwarf has also been imaged orbiting its
parent star at a distance of 14 AU, equivalent to a position between Saturn and
Uranus in our system.
¹⁸
This was not thought to be possible, given
our present understanding of planet formation in the outer regions of planetary
zones. Some other process appears to be taking place. Again, this opens the
door for new science, and increases the likelihood that we may yet find a Dark
Star orbiting our own sun.

When
we consider the possibility that our sun might harbour a binary companion, or
may have had one in the distant past, we are dealing with two possibilities: it
formed alongside the sun as a classic Binary star system, or it was captured
after the sun was born.

If
it was born into the solar system, then it is the same age as the sun
i.e.
4.6
billion years old. An established companion brown dwarf is likely to have been
born in the same cluster as the sun, complete with its own proto-planetary
disc.

If
the companion is a captured object, then it probably became so 3.9 billion
years ago during the "late, great bombardment". But, the chances that
a brown dwarf from interstellar space moved so close to the sun that it became
captured is remote. Of course, nothing is impossible, but statistically it is
unlikely, even taking into account the probability that there are a similar
number of brown dwarfs in the galaxy as stars.

However,
when the solar system first formed, the density of stars and brown dwarfs in
the immediate neighborhood was much greater, and so such a capture was more
likely. In that case, a captured object is also likely to be of a similar age
as the sun, having been born into the same stellar nursery.

So,
the likely age for a binary brown dwarf companion is that of the sun, except in
the extreme example of a more recently captured interstellar object. This
means that a proposed binary companion will be old, small and thus very dim in
terms of its luminosity. This, of course, is why none has been discovered
orbiting the sun so far, given the kinds of orbital distances we are talking
about. Just because we have not yet found a companion, does not rule out the
possibility that one exists.

Even
the infrared sky-search IRAS left room for doubt, as we have seen. Some
sources detected by IRAS are still to be examined, meaning that some data from
the 20-year old sky-search is still left untouched by scientists.

Perhaps
aware of this short-coming, there are a large number of new sky-searches due to
begin work in the next few years. Our updated abilities to detect increasingly
cold and dim objects in the solar neighborhood are orders of magnitude better
than IRAS was, allowing scientists to probe the skies for a greater range of
cool and dark objects in the sun's vicinity. This also means that within the next
decade, scientists should be able to state with greater authority whether the
sun is truly alone with its present cohort of planets, or whether new additions
to its flock must be added on.

When
I first started writing and researching this subject in the late 1990's, I was
working on the basis that every celestial object bigger than Jupiter but
smaller than the sun, could be categorized as a brown dwarf. So, when I talked
about Sitchin's mythological planet being a brown dwarf, I was allowing for a
huge range of possibilities...after all, the sun is about 1000 times as massive
as Jupiter.

But
for my theory to hold ground, it became increasingly evident that my Dark Star
must be much closer to Jupiter's mass than the sun's. In fact, it was likely to
be smaller than the minimum requirement for its inclusion in the brown dwarf
set. It was a 'sub-brown dwarf', whose mass was less than 12 Jupiters. The
reason I came to this conclusion was that a more classic brown dwarf-sized
object would produce enough light to have been detected, even given the great
distances involved, along with the extended age of the Dark Star.

It is a fact that 'planets' a few times larger than Jupiter are
denser than it is, and hence actually smaller. It is also true that they would
be warmer, yet less reflective of the sun's light: as its upper cloud-layers
would be darker, hence more absorbent of light. So, for example, a sub-brown
dwarf of several Jupiter masses that was located next to Jupiter, would
actually be smaller and also less luminous than its bright brother. It would
simply be warmer, like the embers of an extinguished fire.

But the Dark Star isn't located near Jupiter; it is likely to be
at least 100 times further away. It can thus defy detection, at least for the
time being. Within the next few years, that situation could easily change as
the new detection systems come into line.

The best chance lies with a system now called WISE (previously
NGSS).
¹⁹
This project actually has as part of its scientific remit,
the task of discovering brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood. Another system,
called SIRTF, will hunt down infrared sources to a much better accuracy than
IRAS, to the extent that any 'Dark Stars' within about 30 light-years should be
discovered.
²⁰

Readers new to this subject might find this all rather
far-fetched. How could we not have discovered such massive bodies so close to
us, when we have the capability to see the most remote galaxies in the
Universe? Yet, this is not that unlikely.

Charles J. Lada, of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, has
spoken publicly about the possibility of discovering planets orbiting around a
nearby free-floating brown dwarf. He expects that this brown dwarf would be
discovered outside the solar system, at a minimum distance of 1 light year
²¹
,
a quarter of the distance of the nearest star. This kind of thinking is clearly
not science fiction.

A New Breed of Brown Dwarfs

Although hard facts about brown dwarfs are still fairly hard to
come by, particularly for the smaller ones, they have already been split into
sub-species. Between them, they cover quite a range of masses, starting from 12
times the mass of Jupiter. These cooler brown dwarfs, at the lower end of the
scale, are known as T-dwarfs. These bodies are thought to be dimly magenta
after the initial flourish of their youth is over
²²
, which gives us
a possible color for our Dark Star.

But it is also possible that the Dark Star lies on the edge of the
brown dwarf spectrum. It is too large to be simply a massive gas giant, but its
stellar properties may be too minimal to allow it to be classed as a brown
dwarf. It would fit into a class of objects that have yet to be properly
defined or studied. However, astronomers are contemplating what these sub-brown
dwarfs might be like, with accompanying speculation that there might be at
least one more stellar class beyond the T-dwarfs.
²³

If the Dark Star was to be discovered here in our solar system,
this would clearly be the opportunity that astronomers have been waiting for. At
the present time, the knowledge of these small sub-brown dwarfs is limited,
even at a theoretical level. We do not know the extent of their stellar
characteristics; how warm they are, how active their atmospheres are, and how
much light they emit, if any.

Their extensive magnetic fields are a mystery, and they may or may
not form like regular stars. With so many unknowns, we cannot predict what
scientists will discover next about these objects, and what this will tell us
about a possible Dark Star orbiting our own sun. But what we can comfortably
predict is that new discoveries will be forthcoming in the near future, and
that, based on the history of brown dwarf studies so far, those findings will
contain the unexpected.

Small Brown Dwarfs Have Their Own
Planets

The discovery of a binary brown dwarf Companion in the solar
system could come at any time. If it did, then scientific speculation about the
existence of a planetary system orbiting even the smallest type of brown dwarf
would be rife. This is because an example of just such a planetary system has
been found, leading to speculation that similar examples may be observed in the
future, in the case of tiny brown dwarfs.

This
ground-breaking direct observation was made possible because the glare of the young
brown dwarf was so much smaller than that of 'regular' stars, so astronomers
were able to directly image material in a disc around it. Some of this material
was clumping, indicative of planet formation. It is thought that the total mass
of the proto-planetary system orbiting a brown dwarf would be equivalent to
about 10% of the Dwarf's own mass. That provides enough material to form a
Saturn-like planet, as well as a number of terrestrial worlds.

The
brown dwarf in question lies about 500 light years away, in the sky region
known to astronomers as Chamaeleon I, which is a known stellar nursery. The
disc was observed by the Spitzer telescope, appearing relatively bright in the
infrared part of the spectrum. The finding has fuelled speculation in the scientific
community, that life-supporting planets might be discovered around brown
dwarfs. The observed disc itself covered the brown dwarfbrown dwarf's habitable
zone; which was between 1.5-7 million kilometers away. Given that the parent
dwarf is about 2000 degrees Celsius, liquid water may eventually be found at
this distance among the orbiting planets.
²⁴

Finding
habitable worlds in these kinds of systems might actually be easier than
looking for planets in more classical star systems, where the glare of the
stars makes it very difficult to image much of anything in its immediate
vicinity.

The
scientific team, led by Kevin Luhman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, hopes to extend its search to
even smaller brown dwarfs to see how small they can get, while still allowing
planetary formation. They have been studying this particular region of the sky
for a while, hunting for small brown dwarfs. In 2004, they discovered a binary
brown dwarf system that was separated by a distance of 240 AU. This is quite a
wide separation, similar to the kind of distances envisioned for our own binary
companion, thus creating an interesting precedent. The difference is that the
Dark Star is likely to be in a highly elliptical orbit, creating a much greater
distance at its furthest point from the sun.

Astronomers are generally skeptical about finding planets at this
distance, because they believe that the orbits would be easily subject to
perturbation, causing the binaries to break down. This discovery brings this
long-held belief into question. It implies that the brown dwarfs did not form
in a larger star system, as per the ejection scenario already discussed.
Instead, they must have slowly formed in the vicinity of each other, which
leads us to suspect that at least some brown dwarfs form independently from
parent star systems.
²⁵

Not only does this research raise questions about how star and
their planetary systems develop, but it also opens the door to more urgent
speculation about the nature of a binary brown dwarf Companion in our own solar
system, should such an object be discovered in the future. The potential for
life to have developed in such a system is increasing; at least, that is the
verdict of science!

A Brown Dwarf 'Sun'

We have seen that brown dwarfs are sub-stellar objects that are
many times more massive than Jupiter. Yet they remain approximately the same
size. As a result their mass is confined to an area roughly the size of
Jupiter, and this makes them extremely dense. This, in turn, makes their
atmospheric activity levels so much greater than mere gas giants as their
surface gravity becomes proportionate to their density. This is what gives
these planet-sized objects the ability to create significant flares of high-energy
radiation, as well as emit light, particularly in their early years.

This idea is generally accepted on a theoretical level, but there
have until recently been few small brown dwarfs observed to test the theory. It
was thought that the brown dwarfs would gradually increase in size as they
moved towards a more typical dwarf star, like a red dwarf. In the absence of
evidence to the contrary, it is natural to assume some kind of smooth linearity
to this trend.

However,
scientists on the 'OGLE' program have analyzed one particular binary brown
dwarf, which is closely orbiting a sun-like star towards the centre of the
Milky Way, and which has a density that is way off the charts. They have
discovered - to their surprise - that this binary companion shines like the
sun, yet is only 16% larger than Jupiter.
²⁶
This is amazing, because
the binary companion is 50 times as massive as Jupiter, which makes it very
dense indeed.
²⁷
Previously, brown dwarfs of this magnitude were
imagined to be much larger objects.

This
'sub-stellar object' has broken the trend set out by theory because it is
simultaneously in the mass range of the brown dwarfs, shines like the sun but
is the size of a regular planet! This creates diversity among these objects in
practice which has surprised experts on brown dwarfs. As far as the Dark Star
studies are concerned, the finding enables us to be versatile when discussing
the properties of the smallest of these objects. Even though our brown dwarf
companion may be only the size of a gas giant like Jupiter, it may still be
very massive, and so active. That's not to say that our binary solar companion
shines as brightly as the sun, of course, because if it did we would clearly
have detected it by now. But we are left with a spectrum of possibilities that
defies previous attempts to discredit my general thesis regarding how a binary
solar companion might actually behave.

In
the near future the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission will
undoubtedly reveal more of the mysteries surrounding these strange objects
called brown dwarfs. The launch date for this NASA mission is set for 2008. The
space-based telescope will carry sky-survey instruments that are half a
million times more sensitive than the previous IRAS mission in the 1980s.
²⁸
This mission will be the best chance for discovering the Dark Star, an
incredible object which lies at some considerable distance within our own solar
system.