From tha internets:
"Comet Elenin
Some have also associated Nibiru with Comet Elenin,[32] a long-period comet discovered by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin on December 10, 2010.[33] Accounting for errors in the known trajectory, on 16 October 2011, Elenin will pass 0.2338 AU (34,980,000 km; 21,730,000 mi) from the Earth,[34] slightly closer than the planet Venus.[35] Nevertheless, this has led some conspiracy websites to conclude that it is on a collision course, that it is as large as Jupiter or even a brown dwarf, and even that the name of the discoverer, Leonid Elenin, is, in fact, code for ELE, or an Extinction Level Event.[32] Although the sizes of comets are difficult to determine without close observation, Comet Elenin is likely to be less than 10 km in diameter.[36] Elenin himself estimates that the comet nucleus is roughly 3–4 km in diameter.[37] This would make it millions of times smaller than the supposed Nibiru. Comet hysteria is not uncommon.[38] In 2011, Leonid Elenin ran a simulation on his blog in which he increased the mass of the comet to that of a brown dwarf (0.05 solar masses). He demonstrated that its gravity would have caused noticeable changes in the orbit of Saturn years before its arrival in the inner Solar System.[39]
[edit] Scientific criticism
Astronomers point out that such an object so close to Earth would be easily visible to the naked eye (Jupiter and Saturn are both visible to the naked eye, and are dimmer than Nibiru would be at their distances), and would be creating noticeable effects in the orbits of the outer planets.[40] Some counter this by claiming that the object has been hiding behind the Sun for several years, though this would be geometrically impossible.[12] Images of Nibiru near the Sun taken by amateurs are usually the result of lens flares, false images of the Sun created by reflections within the lens.[41]
Mike Brown notes that if this object's orbit were as described, it would only have lasted in the Solar System for a million years or so before Jupiter expelled it, and that there is no way another object's magnetic field could have such an effect on Earth.[42] Lieder's assertions that the approach of Nibiru would cause the Earth's rotation to stop or its axis to shift violate the laws of physics. In his rebuttal of Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision, which made the same claim that the Earth's rotation could be stopped and then restarted, Carl Sagan noted that, "the energy required to brake the Earth is not enough to melt it, although it would result in a noticeable increase in temperature: The oceans would [be] raised to the boiling point of water ... [Also,] how does the Earth get started up again, rotating at approximately the same rate of spin? The Earth cannot do it by itself, because of the law of the conservation of angular momentum."[43]
In a 2009 interview with the Discovery Channel, Mike Brown noted that, while it is not impossible that the Sun has a distant planetary companion, such an object would have to be lying very far from the observed regions of the Solar System to have no gravitational effect on the other planets. A Mars-sized object could lie undetected at 300 AU (10 times the distance of Neptune); a Jupiter-sized object at 30,000 AU (1000 times the distance of Neptune). To travel 1000 AU (30 times the distance of Neptune) in two years, an object would need to be moving at 2400 km/s — faster than the galactic escape velocity. At that speed, any object would be shot out of the Solar System, and then out of the Milky Way galaxy into intergalactic space.[44]
[edit] Conspiracy theories
Many believers in the imminent approach of Planet X/Nibiru accuse NASA of deliberately covering up visual evidence of its existence.[45] One such accusation involves the IRAS infrared space observatory, launched in 1983. The satellite briefly made headlines due to an "unknown object" that was at first described as "possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this Solar System".[46] This newspaper article has been cited by proponents of the collision idea, beginning with Lieder herself, as evidence for the existence of Nibiru.[47] However, further analysis revealed that of several unidentified objects, nine were distant galaxies and the tenth was "intergalactic cirrus"; none were found to be Solar System bodies.[48]
Another accusation frequently made by websites predicting the collision is that the U.S. government built the South Pole Telescope to track Nibiru's trajectory, and that the object has been imaged optically.[49] However, the SPT (which is not funded by NASA) is a radio telescope, and cannot take optical images. Its South Pole location was chosen due to the low-humidity environment, and there is no way an approaching object could be seen only from the South Pole.[50] The "picture" of Nibiru posted on YouTube was revealed, in fact, to be a Hubble image of the expanding light echo around the star V838 Mon.[49]
[edit] Public reaction
The impact of the public fear of the Nibiru collision has been especially felt by professional astronomers. Mike Brown now says that Nibiru is the most common pseudoscientific topic he is asked about.[42]
David Morrison, director of SETI, CSI Fellow and Senior Scientist at NASA's Astrobiology Institute at Ames Research Center, says he receives 20 to 25 emails a week about the impending arrival of Nibiru; some frightened, others angry and naming him as part of the conspiracy to keep the truth of the impending apocalypse from the public, and still others asking whether or not they should kill themselves, their children or their pets.[45][51] Half of these emails are from outside the U.S.[12] "Planetary scientists are being driven to distraction by Nibiru," notes science writer Govert Schilling, "And it is not surprising; you devote so much time, energy and creativity to fascinating scientific research, and find yourself on the tracks of the most amazing and interesting things, and all the public at large is concerned about is some crackpot theory about clay tablets, god-astronauts and a planet that doesn't exist."[1] Morrison states that he hopes that the non-arrival of Nibiru could serve as a teaching moment for the public, instructing them on "rational thought and baloney detection", but doubts that will happen.[45]
Morrison noted in a lecture recorded on FORA.tv that there was a huge disconnect between the large number of people on the Internet who believed in Nibiru's arrival in 2012 and the majority of scientists who have never heard of it. To date he is the only major NASA scientist to speak out regularly against the Nibiru phenomenon.[51]"
In other words, CAN WE GET THIS CRAP OFF THE MAIN PAGE!?
andalaugh: