Expert: Tom Whiting - 11/15/2010

Question
First I apologize in advance for what is most probably a moronic question. I, however was coerced by my eleven year old son who has become increasingly disturbed by youtube as of late. Our question involves the IRAS findings in 1983 in which an object was found to be allegedly causing irregularities in plutos orbit. I guess you have already gathered the next portion of our question so any REAL facts you could give which could set his mind at ease would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Thanks for the question... it's always good to dispose of irregularities.  Of the 10 visibly unknown infrared objects discovered by the IRAS satellite, 9 turned out to be what we thought they were, namely distant, dim, cool galaxies. The 10th item turned out to be intergalactic "cirrus" clouds, or warm dust and gas.  See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRAS

There is no brown/red dwarf star Nemesis.
There is no mystery planet "X" called Nibiru, Wormwood, or the "Mormon
Planet".  Any large Solar System planetary body would have already revealed itself by either photography, infrared, or gravitationally.
That's not to say that relatively small asteroids "Pluto size" or smaller won't be discovered... in fact they are out in the Kuiper asteroid belt. And about a dozen new comets are discovered every year, as the distant Oort Cloud and Kuiper asteroid belt out by Pluto is always injecting new very small bodies inward.
There are 8, and only 8 major planets in the Solar System. The real primary reason Pluto was downgraded was because it turned out to be one of the largest bodies in the Kuiper Asteroid belt out there. At the time of Pluto's discovery, we had no idea that belt was out there. It took more powerful equipment to find the other bodies, which is still on-going today. Pluto is only about 1500 miles in diameter, smaller than our own moon!  At least one body, Eris, is already thought to be 10% larger than Pluto, and there could be many, many more. (You want to memorize 100 planets in the Solar System? I sure don't want to)!
Oh, there are no irregularities in Pluto's orbit around the sun, now that other Kuiper belt asteroids have been discovered. Any small irregularities have already been explained. And it is not unusual for other small asteroids to pass over or under, other major planets' orbits. They pass over or under the Earth all the time, see bottom page of http://www.spaceweather.com
for about 1,100 near-Earth asteroids recently discovered.

This was not without precedence... in the early 1800's, bodies Ceres,
Pallas, Juno, and Vesta (today the BIG 4 asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter) were discovered, and called
"planets".  Later, in the mid 1800's, many many more smaller bodies,
asteroids, were discovered, so the BIG 4 were also downgraded from planet status to asteroid status, with just as much fanfare.
So, history repeats itself... but we in science have to call a spade a spade.  Turns out Pluto was really never a major planet to begin with, but only one of the largest in the Kuiper Asteroid Belt. Us humans were just faked out for a while, due to our ignorance of the presence
of a distant Solar System asteroid belt out by Pluto, that's all. With better, bigger scopes, we now know of thousands of Kuiper belt objects now.  (Just exactly like the early 1800's).
In addition, there is no doomsday event coming up on 12/21/2012 or any other time. Heck, the Mayan's couldn't even predict their own demise,
how on Earth would you expect them to predict ours??  Just because their calendar ends, doesn't mean the Gregorian calendar ends, and that's the one we use. There IS a big event on December 21 but it's this year... for the USA we have a total lunar eclipse on that date beginning around 1:36 am EST (first bite of the Umbral shadow)  if you're out and about.
Suggest your 11 year old get off the U-Tube and all those "conspiracy theories",... and get into the real astronomy, which is far more interesting, and truthful, at
www.spaceweather.com
www.skyandtelescope.com
www.heavens-above.com
for the real science stuff... sometimes boring, but always truthful and accurate.  (With the internet and U-Tube as our 'primary source', it's no wonder that the USA is dead last in mathematics and science.)
Hope this helps,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA USA