Tyche - The 9th Planet in Our Solar System

Many followers of the Late Zacharia Sitchen have been claiming that this planets existence is proof of the legendary Nibiru spoken of by the ancient Babylonians. It was claimed that an alien race called the Annunaki lived on a world much larger than Earth that came crashing through the Solar System destroying a world between Mars and Jupiter and that the asteroid belt is the debris cloud left over from that impact. It is also said that men were enslaved by the alien inhabitants of Niburu and that we were made to mine gold for them.

"What do we know? We have a very limited perspective on the world and our universe and we are observing it all through our little fishbowl." My Wife Jazzma.

The definition of our Solar System keeps evolving even now into the 21st century. As our scientific technology advances so does our knowledge base about the universe we live in. I grew up in a world of nine planets. One of those nine was a small two world system called the Pluto Charon system. But Pluto and it's dance partner have been demoted from planet to dwarf planet and moon.

Since then even more ice worlds have been discovered orbiting far out beyond the orbit of Neptune. These objects are called Neptunian Orbit Crossing Bodies or Kuiper Belt Objects. Even Neptune's Moon Triton is believed to be a captured Kuiper Belt Object since it orbit retrograde around the gas giant. Something only observed in the far frozen reaches of Neptune's home. We are even to this day finding more and more of these ice bodies beyond Pluto.

But recently a proposed theoretical larger Jovian world nicknamed Tyche (The Greek Goddess of Luck) has possibly been found by observing perturbations in the orbital dynamics of the outer Kuiper Belt Objects.

The hypothetical giant is said to orbit in the Solar System's Oort Cloud near the very outer influence of the Suns gravitational envelope. Astronomers are postulating that this is possibly a rogue planet that entered the Solar System long ago and that it did not originate from the Sun's Solar Nursery. So in a sense this planet would be a stow away.

NASA may be able to find the location of Tyche using the WISE space telescope. Astrophysicists Daniel Whitmire and John Matese of Louisiana University of Lafayette are asking thta NASA do just that. Once it is located the two scientists will release their data to the public. It may take up to two years before we are able to locate Tyche using observations of Kuiper Belt Objects and data records to do comparisons of any orbital abnormalities which could only be explained by a large planetoid at the edge of the Solar System.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) will have the final say on if Tyche gets full membership as the 9th planet in its status. It is possible that because Tyche is more likely and alien hitchhiker to our Solar System that we may need to create an entirely new category of planetoid for Tyche.

Once Tyche has been located, it is up to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) whether or not it gains full “planet” status. The main problem the IAU could have with the proposal is that Tyche probably formed around another star and was later captured by the sun’s gravitational field. They might even have to create a whole new category for the gas-ball giant.

Tyche is believed to be 4 to 5 times larger than Jupiter and is 15,000 times further from the Sun that Earth is. It is thought to made like the other Jovian worlds of hydrogen gas and helium the two most abundant gasses in the universe. It may even harbor moons, be a major source of the cometary debris from the Oort Cloud. An interesting thought though, if Tyche is an alien world from a close by stari perhaps we can visit that world and understand more than ever our place in the Universe.