Planet Nibiru: what's wrong with the internet conspiracy theorists' favourite and why it won't kill people

The mythological planet Nibiru, which terrifies netizens year after year as the main character in various pseudo-prophecies promising the complete destruction of humanity, probably does not exist. Scientists believe that even if such a planet existed in the orbit that conspiracy theorists claim, its life in the solar system would not be very long.

The IFLScience publication provides details about the network's favourite. For those who survived the pseudo-apocalypses of 2003 and 2012, as well as the third one in 2017, the planet Nibiru sounds familiar and probably even somewhat intrusive.

According to conspiracy theorists, Nibiru is a planet in our solar system that was allegedly discovered by the Sumerians. It is in such an elongated orbit that it approaches the Earth only once every 3,600 years. According to conspiracy theorists, it is during one of these encounters that the planet will collide with the home of humanity, completely destroying all life on Earth.

The arrival of Nibiru on the Internet was linked to the end of the Mayan calendar. The date was originally set for May 2003. But when the seers realised that they had failed, they simply postponed the apocalypse to 21 December 2012. As the Internet had already become ubiquitous by then, the new theory of the end of the world was accompanied by a considerable online discourse about what kind of destruction awaited humanity.

Of course, as you can imagine, there was no end of the world then. The Mayan calendar simply ended the period of long counting, but (surprise, surprise) instead of the death of all living things, a new period simply began. Surprisingly, all the supporters of the doomsday theory were extremely surprised, because every year they somehow survive the approach of 31 December and do not panic about it.

Of course, in 2017, no giant planet came close to Earth again, let alone destroyed it. And the reason for this is quite simple: Nibiru is just a myth that adds interest to someone's life, but in the real world, such a planet does not exist.

"Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an internet hoax. There are no factual grounds for these claims," NASA openly stated back in 2012.

Scientists explained that if such a planet were real and heading towards a meeting with the Earth, "astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the last decade, and it would have been visible to the naked eye."

For his part, Mike Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, also explained that if Nibiru did exist in the elongated orbit described by fans, we would have seen it by now. But, more importantly, it would not be able to exist in such an orbit for too long.

"If the planet had the orbit that is attributed to it, it would only exist for about a million years before it would come too close to Jupiter and be ejected from the solar system," he explained.

It should be noted that despite the fact that the planet Nibiru, exactly as described by conspiracy theorists, does not exist, the so-called Planet 9 (or Planet X) may still exist in our solar system. As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, scientists even have circumstantial evidence pointing to this possibility.

Subscribe to OBOZREVATEL's Telegram, Viber and Threads channels to keep up with the latest developments.