<sarcasm> Oh good, I get to write yet another article about factually challenged fearmongering nonsense. </sarcasm>
Sigh.
Quite a few people on Twitter and Facebook pointed out this one to me. The guilty party is an article in UK tabloid The Sun. It had this breathless (and grossly ridiculous) headline:
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Yeah, not so much. The article itself then goes on to make a series of increasingly shaky and completely wrong claims (what follows are direct quotations from the article):
鈥淧lanet Nine 鈥� a new planet discovered at the edge of the solar system in January 鈥� has triggered comet showers that bomb the Earth鈥檚 surface, killing all life, says Daniel Whitmire, of the University of Louisiana.鈥�
鈥淧rofessor Whitmire claims Planet Nine鈥檚 passage through a rock laden area called the Kuiper Belt is responsible for the 鈥榚xtinction events鈥�.鈥�
鈥淣ow some are convinced there will be a collision or a near miss before the end of April.鈥�
鈥淣emesis or Nibiru were widely dismissed as crack-pot pseudo-science 鈥� until Planet Nine was identified in January by the California Institute of Technology, in the US.鈥�
No new planet
These claims, not to put too fine a point on it, are 100 per cent male bovine excrement.
First, Planet Nine hasn鈥檛 been 鈥渄iscovered鈥�. At best, astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown found indirect evidence for the existence of a massive planet out past Neptune (as have other astronomers before them). It鈥檚 pretty interesting evidence, even compelling, but doesn鈥檛 yet add up to a discovery.
Second, Whitmire doesn鈥檛 make the claim that the planet (if it exists) causes extinction events. In a recent paper, he does a bit of maths showing that the existence of a planet beyond Neptune is (more on this in a moment), but he doesn鈥檛 claim it actually does this. I鈥檓 also not sure the planet he hypothesises is consistent with the evidence presented by Batygin and Brown; some of the orbital and planetary characteristics are similar, others aren鈥檛.
Third, he doesn鈥檛 say it 鈥渒illed all life鈥� on Earth, because that would be really, really dumb. Mass extinctions don鈥檛 kill all life on Earth, or else we wouldn鈥檛 be here. They kill many, even most, species, but not all. I鈥檓 not nitpicking; in an article apparently designed to instil fear, phrasing like that is important.
Crackpot planet
Fourth, who exactly are these 鈥渟ome鈥� people who claim there will be a collision in April? The article never says. The claim is made and then never followed up. I could just as easily write, 鈥淪ome say the author of The Sun article ate 300 puppies for breakfast鈥�. As long as I (and one other person) says that phrase out loud the sentence is factually correct, though (presumably) not true.
Fifth, , whether or not Planet Nine exists. That鈥檚 because it is sheer crackpottery. The , based on , and . But gee, other than that鈥�
Nemesis 鈥� the name given to a purported faint and cool companion star to the sun 鈥� wasn鈥檛 a crackpot idea .
Sixth, again, Planet Nine hasn鈥檛 been identified. C鈥檓on.
Seventh, the basis of all this silliness is the idea that mass extinctions are periodic 鈥� that is, occur on a fairly regular cycle. But this periodicity may not even exist.
Extinction cycles
Cycles of extinctions have been claimed before, but . The fossil record is spotty, and it鈥檚 hard to get absolute dates for them. There have been claims of a ~60 million periodicity too 鈥� I wrote about that one in my book . But these claims struggle with small number statistics, .
I鈥檓 not saying the periodicity doesn鈥檛 exist, just that it isn鈥檛 anywhere near confirmed. Although to be fair to the tabloid, in his paper Whitmire does claim these periodicities are firmly shown, something I鈥檓 sceptical about. So claims based on this periodicity .
Not to be outdone, though, the New York Post with unreferenced information basically lifted directly from The Sun article, but with bonus goofiness added. Like The Sun article, the video says Planet Nine was discovered in January, which isn鈥檛 true. Then it says Planet Nine takes 20,000 years to orbit the sun, but again we don鈥檛 know that at all.
But wait! There鈥檚 more!
The video continues blithely on, saying: 鈥淪ome scientists believe this is what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.鈥� Actually, no, that impact was most likely , not part of a periodic shower of comets, and .
Killer comet?
Then the video repeats (again, with no references or basis in reality) that Planet Nine may send killer comets our way this month. Worse, it mangles the previously mangled nonsense from The Sun, saying scientists (not just 鈥渟ome鈥� people) think it may happen again this month.
That鈥檚 some .
Bottom line: Planet Nine, as described by astronomers Brown and Batygin, is likely to exist but hasn鈥檛 been found yet. It鈥檚 unlikely to cause periodic mass extinctions, which haven鈥檛 been shown to exist anyway. And it certainly won鈥檛 send a barrage of outer solar system ice our way this month.
In other words, don鈥檛 believe what you read in tabloids. Or anywhere, actually. Seek out the actual facts.
And I鈥檒l add that this sort of doomsday-tooting fearmongering is disgusting. It鈥檚 irresponsible and mean-spirited. It erodes people鈥檚 understanding of science and needlessly scares people just so the paper can sell ads.
And the worst part? They鈥檒l just keep on doing it.
This article was first published by Slate
