PART ONE

Gigi my dear friend, asking astronomers to predict the path and arrival of Nibaru is like asking a novice bartender to concoct a pousse cafe.

You make a pousse cafe by pouring small amounts of several different liqueurs into a shot glass, one at a time, trickling each down the side of the glass so it forms a layer. The finished product has layers of different colors. It requires art, skill, patience and nerves of steel. Then some idiot pays for it and drinks it, and like a Picasso on a dinner napkin, the masterpiece is no more.

The first, most basic reason Nibaru is unpredictable by scientific means right now is the eccentricity of its orbit. A planet that spends thousands of years beyond the conventional solar system cannot be studied till it is detected, and it has just been detected. It will take time to study its path, then predictions can be made based on that path.

Another reason is we don't know its orbital angle from the plane of the ecliptic (the geometric plane on which the Sun and most of the planets lie). If it is close to the plane, then its path can be affected by every planet it nears as it approaches the Sun, both on its inbound and outbound legs. And it gets trickier. A near miss of Jupiter, let's say, when Jupiter approaches the path of an inbound Nibaru would pull our visitor into a tighter line to the Sun: but if Nibaru passes in the orbital wake of Jupiter, that planet's gravity would pull Nibaru away from the Sun. Imagine a Paris traffic circle at rush hour, and throw in one British driver, and you get the idea.

If Nibaru comes at right angles to the plane of the ecliptic, predicting its path is much simpler. We only need to determine when and where it will enter the plane, and when and where it leaves. Then we need to determine which, if any, of the other planets will be close to it on entry or exit, to calculate how much the gravitational pull will skew its path. Here, take an aspirin, and be grateful I'm not an astronomer.

If this visitor is old enough to bear an ancient Sumerian name, we posit its orbit to be closer to 90 degrees to the plane; otherwise it likely would have decayed and fallen into the Sun or become our second moon, or whatever.

Someone must tell us its angle to the ecliptic and its speed before we can begin to calculate its path, and even then we shall be guessing. Does it cross Earth's orbit in August, at a point we shall be in December? Whew, that's a lucky break. But then it goes outbound again--does it cross us with the Sun in Leo, and we in July? Burny-burny.

Some months ago somebody posted here a synopsis of legends from diverse primitive cultures worldwide, all of which spoke of a day that lasted a week, or a night that long, when the Earth stopped and winds raged and the sky bellowed fire and waves as tall as mountains tore at solid ground.

There goes the New World Order, some stupid wispy dream crisped by the blaze of dawn, there goes Order itself, there go theories like Mark's of racial purity, because the survivors will not be one race, but those few ducking at the right time, in the right places on Earth, wherever they may be. Let God sort them out.

Personally, I'll really miss the internet till we become telepathic. And I hope there's a few cases of good aged brandy stashed somewhere.

Here's what we do know about Nibaru. One, it has been here before. Two, it is accelerating and will keep doing that till it is well outbound again. The gravitational pull of the Sun will draw Nibaru into a tight parabola, wrapping the visitor around it on invisible strings and whipping it outward again. As it loses orbit it gains velocity, a la the "slingshot" effect of so may sci fi novels. (It's really more akin to a sling, than a slingshot. Sling being that small pocket with a stone in it whirled by hand on a short tether till the stone is moving superfast, at which time the wrist flicks and the stone shoots out like a missile. The Once and perhaps Future King ofIsrael, King David, killed Goliath with a sling.)

PART TWO deals with some predictions, then lapses into metaphysics before attempting to trash all human history as irrelevant. Alas, I've already used Britney Spears Nude, so the next part will simply be called PART TWO.

END OF PART ONE