On the 10th of December in 2010, Leonid Elenin, a little known amateur Russian astronomer from Lubertsy City, in Russia, discovered Comet C/2010 X1, a comet now universally known as Elenin. The researcher from the Russian Academy of Sciences spotted the C/2010 X1 while reviewing four-minute footage from the ISON-NB Observatory (International Scientific Optical Network's Robotic Observatory) in New Mexico. After he recorded the find in NEO (Near Earth Objects) Confirmation Page, the sighting was later seconded by Aleksei Sergeyev and Artyom Novichonok from the Maidanak Observatory in Uzbekistan, W. H. Ryan (Magdalena Ridge Observatory, New Mexico), R. S. McMillan, J. V. Scotti and M. L. Terenzoni (Steward Observatory, University of Arizona), and H. Sato (another off-site stargazer from the Remote Astronomical Society Observatory, Mayhill), confirming the cometary nature of the 19-magnitude object.

At the time of discovery, an analysis of its orbit predicted that its perihelion (closest orbital distance to the sun) was a very negligible 8.8 Astronomical Unit (1a.u equals 149,598,000 kilometers) from us. Hundreds of thousands of objects of all shapes and sizes emerging from the Oort cloud orbits our sun at that approximate orbital trajectory at any given time, and apart from the significance that it was never tagged before, it appeared to be just like any ordinary ancient wanderer of the solar system.

Recalculation of its orbital path one month later shows that the Elenin’s perihelion has shrunk to a projected 0.15 to 0.24 a.u. That distance is still very safe, even if we consider its debris tail that runs for hundreds of miles long. Plus, comparatively speaking, the moon’s perihelion stands at 0.00256. However, we are not yet capable of conclusively determining its orbital path, and any projections at this moment of time will be based on a series of conjectures, one of them being that, its perihelion will be on the coming September 10th 2011 measuring at 0.45a.u, which is approximately 67,319,100 kilometers away. Based simply on these projections, Elenin would be visible to land-based observation beginning from mid-August this year, especially since its tail is expected to blaze brightly as its metallic content scatters the sun’s rays, deflected of the moon.


Have You Met Elenin?

Elenin, or as it is officially known, Comet C/2010 X1, is a non-periodic comet that is estimated to reach its perihelion with our Sun on September 10, 2011. The 19 magnitude (where a smaller integer indicates a higher level of brightness) comet follows a 9,900 years hyperbolic orbit around our sun. The size for Elenin has yet to be confirmed by NASA. Nevertheless, during perihelion, Elenin will be traveling at speeds in excess of 85,000 km/hr. and its approach will bring its magnitude down to 6, with the occasional 0 at selected locations during dawn. The U.S. Navy, through NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratories, has prepared a trajectory diagram of Elenin

There appears to be some reservations among amateur astronomy enthusiasts, as well as privately funded entities concerning Leonard Elenin’s discovery of the Comet C/2010 X1. There are the obvious questions of his credentials, his fortuitous luck in tracking down a Magnitude 19 moving object when many more well equipped personages have failed to do so, and more importantly, the lack of any notable press coverage over the event.

Instead, speculation is intensifying that Comet C/2010 X1 / Elenin is actually a cover for the real deal: an old brown dwarf, a sister sun for the our Sol – a moving, planetary-size mass of collapsing clouds with three moons that is on a 3,600 year orbit around the galaxy. It has been referred to as Nibiru (D23K9) by some, and NASA’s seeming reluctance to dispel the notion has only served to increase and indirectly feed the rumor mill to almost breaking point.

The alternative theory that seems to have gained ground recently is that Elenin/Nibiru’s continued approach will eventually see it inadvertently attempting to take control of the Earth’s polarity away from the sun. The contest between Elenin/Nibiru, the sun and earth, coupled with the dynamic influence of other planet-sized mass in our solar system would eventually start to affect and ultimately shatter the eons of magnetic stability on earth, along with the underlying gravitational balance that will precipitate major reactions within the earth’s core as well as on its surface that could very well lead to a global catastrophe. A shift in the earth magnetic pole is widely anticipated, with many pointing to the recent devastating earthquake in Chile as one of the earliest effect of Elenin/Nibiru. NASA has confirmed that the recent quake has shifted the earth’s axis by 3 inches, and shortened the length of our day by 1.26 millionth of a second. However, any attempt to link the incident with the approaching brown dwarf has been dismissed by NASA.


And then, there were two - Comet Honda

Amidst the ongoing controversy over the little known Comet Elenin, a more likely suspect for an ELE (Extinction Level Event) has been left relatively untouched. Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova is projected to reach aphelion (closest orbital distance to earth) in mid-August 2011, with an estimated proximity to earth of 0.06 A.U (astronomical unit), or approximately 9 million kilometers, the closest since comet D/1770 L1 (Lexell) in 1770 and C/1983 H1 (IRAS-Araki-Alcock) in 1983.

The 45P/Honda was first discovered on December 3 1948 by Minoru Honda, an amateur astronomer from Japan. The 45P/Honda is believed to have a diameter of 1.6km, which is significantly larger than both Lexell and IRAS-Araki-Alcock. It follows an elliptical, five and a quarter years orbit around our Sun commencing from the Ophiuchus constellation at the Galactic Equator. The 45P/Honda has a perihelion (closest orbital distance to the Sun) of 0.58A.U, which will occur on September 30 this year.

With the exception of 1954 and 1990, the 45P/Honda’s aphelion has become increasingly closer to earth

Another interesting aspect of 45P/Honda is its forecasted flyby with Comet Elenin. They will cross path approximately around October 8 this year. Here is a trajectory animation of comets Elenin and 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova.

Elenin and The Maya

Scientists recently discovered that we are actually late immigrants to the Milky Way! The long held belief that we are citizens of the Milky Way appears to have been debunked with the discovery of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy in 1994 by Rodrigo Ibata, Mike Irwin, and Gerry Gilmore.

Further studies and voluminous amount of data from the infrared telescope Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) by researchers from the University of Massachusetts revealed that the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, our home galaxy, is in the midst of concluding a process that begun millions of years ago – a process of integrating themselves into the 10,000 times bigger Milky Way galaxy.

This process explains why the Milky Way always appears to be slanting sideways in the night sky instead of ecliptic, and why there appears to be a dark depth in the center of it. The orbit of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy and the Milky Way, plus to a much smaller extent, the wobble of the earth caused by its spinning along its axis coincides with the planet dipping above and below the center of that dark depth, which is also referred to as Galactic Equator.

Now, how does this relate to the Mayan prophesy, you rightly wonder. Well, let’s start in the beginning. The fundamentals of the Mayan calendar and sky charting were ‘borrowed’ from the Olmec civilization which started their stargazing approximately in 680B.C. The Mayans extrapolated and refined the Olmec’s system to assist them in the more mundane aspects of existence, such as crop plating, the appointment of a Sun God and stuff like that. Eventually, they created their own calendars, and paid close attention to the movement of the stars and planets that were marching across our sky.

One of their most popular calendars was called the Tzolkin. The Tzolkin consists of eighteen 20 days month (Uinals), where each of the twenty days is accorded a symbolic significance (a more complicated version of the modern astrology). The eighteen month totals up to 360 days, which is referred to as a Tun year. The sum of twenty of these Tuns is 19 years, eight months and 15 days, or a Katun. A Baktun meanwhile, equals twenty Katuns, or 394 years and four months. Now, thirteen Baktuns gets you one Great Cycle, or 1,872,000 days, which is approximately 5,125 years; the equivalent of one Mayan Great Cycle. Since the Mayan folklore stipulates that the universe was created on August 11, 3114BC, it stands to reason that the end of the cycle will happen exactly 1,872,000 days later, which falls on 11:11GMT, 21 December 2012.

So, how did the Mayans came to the ‘5,125 year equals one Great Cycle’ conclusion, again, you rightly wonder? Elementary, my dear Watson. It’s the wobbling stars in the sky. The movement of the stars across the night sky is often accompanied by wobbles in movement that corresponds with the solstices of both the earth and the sun. The wobbles, which coincidentally sounds like a children's TV show, is caused by a minor realignment of our planet along its axis as the gravitational forces and the recently discovered phenomena of the dark energy exerts its influence on earth. A simple (Okay, it’s not simple at all. It’s hard, like rocket science hard) calculation reveals that our movement and the sun’s, in relation to the Galactic Equator, will see the intersection of the Sun’s path across our skyline (the Elliptical) and the Galactic Equator. This intersection can only occur every 5,125 years (and the Mayans didn’t even have a scientific calculator to help with the counting then – a great many volunteer toes were probably required then)!

To be fair, the Mayans did not prophesize what exactly will happen to the galaxy, which they referred to as the Sacred Tree, then. It could be a simple display of aurora borealis, it could be a period of rebirth or, seeing that the Mayans consider the sun as a representation of their God, Kukulkna, it could also imply (as many seem to be in favor of) a cataclysmic extinction level event.

So you sigh in silence, exasperated, wondering yet again as to the link between Elenin’s arrival in September-October 2011 and the Mayan prophesized Armageddon in December 2012. To be as brief as possible, the solar dating system that is the Gregorian calendar that you swear by, inherited a number of flaws in them. The most obvious one would be of the missing day every century, owing to the rounding up of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45.25 seconds to 3651/4 days in the Julian calendar that was used before the Gregorian one, which by the 16th century, saw to the ‘disappearance’ of 14 days! In addition, Pope Gregory, who authorized the conversion to the Julian calendar in 1582, shifted the calendar by 11 days, which saw the calendar leap from March 4, 1582 to March 15 the next day. In addition, the new calendar is still losing 30 seconds from the solar cycle annually. Add to the fact that the Julian calendar that was adopted by, who else, Julius Caesar in the eight century made a leap of 67 days to sync with the solar cycle, and upon his death, there were confusions with the methodology involved, with the most damaging being the three years leap years (instead of the now common four). Recalculating the Great Cycle in its entirety against the modern calendar, taking into account the faults and adjustments incorporated into it would reveal that the prophesized date would in fact be on October 28, 2011 – within weeks of Elenin’s projected perihelion, and more alarmingly, within 12 days of its forecasted perigee (closest orbital distance to the center of earth).
More on the Mayan Long Count Calender and the 2012 connection

Elenin and The Hopi

The Hopis prophesy ties a little into the Mayan’s concept of creation - the Great Cycle. The prophesy has been part of their tribe’s oral tradition that has dated back since time immemorial. This is their prophesy, as recited by White Feather of the Bear Clan to Reverend David Young in 1948.

"The Fourth World shall end soon, and the Fifth World will begin. This the elders everywhere know. The Signs over many years have been fulfilled, and so few are left.

"This is the First Sign: We are told of the coming of the white-skinned men, like Pahana, but not living like Pahana men who took the land that was not theirs. And men who struck their enemies with thunder.

"This is the Second Sign: Our lands will see the coming of spinning wheels filled with voices. In his youth, my father saw this prophecy come true with his eyes -- the white men bringing their families in wagons across the prairies."

"This is the Third Sign: A strange beast like a buffalo but with great long horns, will overrun the land in large numbers. These White Feather saw with his eyes -- the coming of the white men's cattle."

"This is the Fourth Sign: The land will be crossed by snakes of iron."

"This is the Fifth Sign: The land shall be criss-crossed by a giant spider's web."

"This is the Sixth Sign: The land shall be criss-crossed with rivers of stone that make pictures in the sun."

"This is the Seventh Sign: You will hear of the sea turning black, and many living things dying because of it."

"This is the Eight Sign: You will see many youth, who wear their hair long like my people, come and join the tribal nations, to learn their ways and wisdom.

"And this is the Ninth and Last Sign: You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, above the earth, that shall fall with a great crash. It will appear as a blue star. Very soon after this, the ceremonies of my people will cease.

"These are the Signs that great destruction is coming. The world shall rock to and fro. The white man will battle against other people in other lands -- with those who possessed the first light of wisdom. There will be many columns of smoke and fire such as White Feather has seen the white man make in the deserts not far from here. Only those which come will cause disease and a great dying. Many of my people, understanding the prophecies, shall be safe. Those who stay and live in the places of my people also shall be safe. Then there will be much to rebuild. And soon -- very soon afterward -- Pahana will return. He shall bring with him the dawn of the Fifth World. He shall plant the seeds of his wisdom in their hearts. Even now the seeds are being planted. These shall smooth the way to the Emergence into the Fifth World.”

Forget about how the first eight Signs seem eerily familiar to events and characters in the past century. Instead, concentrate on the final Sign, the Ninth sign. There is no way you could miss the meaning behind the phrase. An object of blue color, hurtling in from space would fall and end everything. The Age of Purification?