A ‘Phantom Planet’

Last year, in France, a pending discovery –- an astounding discovery – was announced in the pages of the prestigious monthly Science & Vie (“Science and Life”). In its issue of February 2003 it published an update on the planetary makeup of our Solar System in light of recent discoveries in the “Kuiper Belt” (a zone on the Solar System’s fringes). Titled “PLANETS – But How Many Are There In Our Solar System?” the long article, by the journal’s Valerie Greffos, made a sensational announcement: there is one more, unknown, planet in our Solar System –


The assertion was based on statements made to the journal by Alessandro Morbidelli, an astronomer at France’s observatory at Côte d’Azur. The Solar System, he explained, was chaotic in the beginning. There was a celestial collision involving a “supplementary planet” that had existed where the Asteroid Belt is now. It happened about 3.9 billion years ago; and those events explain the unusual long elliptical orbit of the “Phantom Planet.”

“I expect that one day we will discover a new, Mars-sized planet!” he told the journal with certainty, a planet whose orbital period is “several thousand years.” He provided the journal with a sketch of the planet’s elongated elliptical orbit and even indicated in the sketch where the “Phantom Planet” is probably now:



“It’s Sitchin’s Drawing!”
The article in Science & Vie, with its sensational statements by the French astronomer, was brought to my attention (regrettably belatedly) by a fan in France, who could not resist writing on the photocopy, above the sketch: “It’s Sitchin’s drawing!”

Now, were the French astronomer merely suggesting the existence of one more large planet far out from the Sun, his announcement would have been just one more addition to the decades-long discussions by astronomers regarding a “planet X” beyond Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. I, for one, would have welcomed such an additional affirmation, especially from a French observatory known for its interest in the subject. (cont.)