The , Nibiru & Comet Hale-Bopp: Dispelling myths in Archaeo-Astronomy

Duane Hamacher Department of Physics and Department of Anthropology University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65201 [email protected]

Abstract: A large number of legitimate and illegitimate ideas concerning the Vela supernova, Nibiru and comet Hale-Bopp have been used to explain problems in archaeology over the past 25 years. Some of these ideas have since been proven incorrect, though they seem to still be popular with archaeologists and non-archaeologists alike. Here, problems that have been addressed or solved using the Vela supernova, the mythical Sumerian planet Nibiru and comet Hale- Bopp will be analyzed. A new hypothesis will be presented and outdated and incorrect hypotheses and theories will be confronted.

Introduction There are several related quandaries in archaeo-astronomy dealing with Vela Supernova, the mythological Sumerian planet Nibiru, comet Hale-Bopp and a mysterious archaeological “double sun” found on artifacts dating from 2000-4000 BCE. Here, those mysteries will be addressed, clarified and explained for the reader to gather a better understanding of science and pseudo-science in modern views of archaeo-astronomy.

Over the last 25 years, the Vela supernova was used to explain mysterious images on artifacts from Mesopotamia dating back 2000 to 6000 BCE. The VSN was also used to help explain the flourishing of civilization in Mesopotamia. Comet Hale-Bopp has been cited frequently as the mythological Sumerian planet Nibiru, noting its orbital period and physical characteristics. Other researchers have attempted to explain natural disasters on earth to the Vela supernova. These assertions are largely the result of a lack of knowledge in astronomy and physics. Though some of these ideas may seem plausible, some are impossible.

The Vela Supernova The Vela (VSNR) is a resultant gaseous shell of the Vela supernova that occurred roughly 11,500 years ago (Cha et al 1999). It is about 250 parsecs1 from earth in the Vela. It currently has an angular diameter of about eight degrees; sixteen times the angular diameter of the moon or sun (the moon’s mean angular diameter is 0.5182°). Vela is one part of the constellation formerly known as Navis (along with and ). was the ship used by Jason

1 A is equal to 3.26 light years. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, approximately 5.8 trillion miles.

1 and the Argonauts as they sought to recover the . Vela represents the sail of the ship (Blair 2004).

Some researchers have attempted to use the Vela supernova to explain many mysteries in the archaeology of Mesopotamia, dating as far back as 4000 BCE. These explanations range from plausible to impossible.

One of the more plausible questions posed of the Vela SNR is “Could the SNR have been interpreted as a pair of chariot wheels by the Sumerians… providing the basis or possible supplement to the Indo-European solar chariot?

This section of the is smaller than the whole, and was likely about half its size 5,000 years ago (just under half of the remnant’s true age). A simple calculation shows that the actual angular size of the Vela SNR 5,000 years ago would be about 4.5° (nine times the moon’s angular diameter). The resolution of a typical human eye is 1/60 degree, or equivalent to being able to resolve two fine human hairs spaced one hair width apart when placed at the point of most distinct vision, the closest point an object can get to the eye before it goes out of focus (Popa 1997).

Due to the position of the constellation in the sky, it would have hung low, near the horizon as seen from the Mediterranean or Mesopotamia.

The nebula would be large enough to see with the naked eye, as the nebula was brighter during that time than it is today (especially with no light pollution)… and it is still visible with the naked eye today, but only as a hazy patch in the sky. The resolution needed to make out the shape of chariot wheels would have been impossible without a telescope or binoculars (as the “wheels” are only part of the larger nebula) as astronomical details are not in color and are distorted by atmospheric turbulence. Additionally, the photoreceptor cells used at night are rods, which sense only different levels of brightness; i.e. black and white. Since the rods are found at the edge of the retina (cones sense color and are found near the center of the retina), the object would appear brighter when viewed through peripheral vision. The actual angular diameter of the “chariot wheels” is only about a degree or so and is not visible to the human eye in color. The interpretation of the VSNR as a solar chariot seems unlikely as the nebula does not appear near the sun, nor does it have any significant mythology relating to the sun. The details of the remnant would have been more difficult to resolve as it would have appeared low on the horizon and the excess atmosphere would have distorted the image even more. The interpretation of the nebula as chariot wheels is very unlikely.

Over the last 25 years, the Vela supernova was used to explain mysterious images on artifacts from Mesopotamia dating back 2000 to 6000 BCE. The VSN was also used to help explain the flourishing of civilization in Mesopotamia. Recent observations have constrained the age of the supernova to 11,500 years. Therefore, a new hypothesis must be presented.

2 Researchers such as George Michanowsky have directly linked the Vela supernova with the flourishing of Sumerian civilization. Researchers interpret what appears to be a bright represented on several Sumerian artifacts as the Vela supernova, not the remnant nebula. Michanowsky dates the supernova event to 4000 BCE, using available data at the time which suggested the Vela supernova was between 6,000 and 8,000 years old. If the supernova were 6,000 years old, it would correspond to the beginnings of civilization in ancient Mesopotamia (with the Sumerians).

According to Michanowsky, the ‘star burst’ was recorded by the Sumerians and coincides with the "date of creation" circa 4000 BCE (an oft quoted date of Biblical creation). The star burst was recorded as the "giant star of the god Ea in the constellation of Vela of the god Ea" on a clay tablet dating to 1000 BCE, though the cataloguing of celestial objects goes as far back as 3000 BCE (Michanowski 1977). If Michanowsky translates the date to 1000 BCE, he would be referring to the Babylonians, the successors to the Sumero-Akkadians. His translations mention the Akkadian god Ea, which is the Semitic counterpart to the earlier Sumerian Enki. The Sumerians (3000-1900 BCE) predate the Babylonians (1900-400 BCE) and though they predated the Akkadians (2300- 1900 BCE) in origin, they were essentially contemporaries. This, combined with the fact that so much of Babylonian and Akkadian mythology is based on Sumerian mythology, allows researchers assume Babylonian and Akkadian myths originated with the Sumerians, though this is not always accurate.

Michanowsky’s reasoning for interpreting this symbol as the Vela supernova is that, according to the tablet, it states (in translation) that the “constellation to the north is ‘Exalted Lady’, now the constellation Puppis. This would have put the ‘star’ on the border of Vela and Puppis, exactly where astronomers found the . The problem is that this could not have been the Vela supernova, as the supernova is over 10,000 years old… long before the first civilizations or written records.

Timothy Ferris, in his book “Coming of age in the ”, stated that the Sumerians identified the Vela supernova with their god Enki who invented writing and agriculture (the author originally quoted the god as Ea, though Ea is the Semitic Akkadian name). This ‘star’ is probably what Timothy Ferris was referring to when he mentioned the connection between the Vela Supernova (VSN) and the Sumerian god Enki.

According to Zechariah Sitchin in his book, “The Wars of Gods and Men”, there are correlations between the Vela supernova and a bright star recorded by the Sumerians that is depicted on a mural.

A wall sized mural uncovered at Tell Ghassul, which was occupied from 4000- 2000 BCE, “depicted a row of people - the first two of whom were seated on thrones - facing toward (or greeting) another person who had apparently stepped out of an object emitting rays”.

“The archaeologists who had discovered these murals during the 1931-32 and 1932-33 excavations theorized that the rayed object might have been similar to a most

3 unusual rayed 'star' found painted in another building. It was an eight-pointed 'star' within a larger eight-pointed 'star,' culminating in a burst of eight rays.”

“The mural's discoverers assumed that the eight-rayed 'star' had some 'religious significance,' pointing out that the eight-pointed star, standing for the planet Venus, was the celestial symbol of Ishtar. However, the fact is that no evidence of any religious worship whatsoever, no 'cult objects,' statuettes of gods, etc. had been found at Tell Ghassul, yet another anomaly of the place. This, we suggest, indicates that it was inhabited not by worshipers but by those who were the subject of worshipping: the 'gods' of antiquity, the Anunnaki," (Sitchin 1992).

Zechariah Sitchin is a popular author of several books about the mythological Sumerian planet of Nibiru and its indigenous pre-human alien species. His ideas are comparable those of famed ‘ancient astronaut’ researcher Erich Von Daniken.

Linguistically, ‘Vela’ is derived from the Spanish verb velar, meaning “to watch”. The Akkadians spoke of the Land of Shumer - which meant the ‘Land of the Watchers’ (Sitchin 1983).

Though these views of the murals are popular, they have no direct correlation to the Vela supernova. The ‘star’ may indeed be an actual astronomical object or phenomenon, but the likelihood that it was the Vela supernova is impossible if current astronomical data is correct. Sitchin and Michanowsky were only able to use the Vela supernova as an explanation of this ‘star’ if the true age if the supernova were only 6,000 years. However, modern astronomical observations and calculations of the nebula and the spin-down age of the Vela have shown that its age is very close to 11,500 years. This would put the remnant not as a bright star, but as a luminous, gaseous cloud with an angular diameter nine times that of a full moon.

I propose an alternative hypothesis to the current Vela hypothesis. On the edge of the Vela Supernova Remnant, a second SNR is clearly visible (see Figure 11). This is the supernova remnant of Puppis-A, 6,000 light years away, which went about 3,700 ±400 years ago as seen from earth (Winkler et al 1988: 65). Since it occurs in exactly the same line of sight as the Vela SNR (though Puppis-A is 5,185 light years beyond the Vela SNR), we can use the upper limit of the supernova’s age and interpret this as the ‘second sun’ described in artifacts dating back to the 23rd century BCE. These artifacts include the Victory Stela of Naram-Sin (to be discussed shortly) and the previously discussed Tell Ghassul mural (using the lower limit of the murals age of 4,000 years). From a distance of 1,840 , the visual magnitude2 of the supernova would have been about -6.7 when seen from earth (in comparison, the planet Venus has a maximum visual magnitude of -4.6. The Puppis-A supernova would have been about 50 times brighter that Venus). Therefore, the Puppis-A supernova makes a

2 Using equation: m-MV = -5+5 log10(d), where m is the , MV is the and d is the distance in parsecs. From models in stellar astrophysics, the type of supernova that described Puppis A releases light at an absolute magnitude of approximately -18.

4 good candidate for this mysterious object, as the position, time and visual magnitude all correlate.

3Figure 11: Vela SNR in X-Ray. The Puppis A remnant is the bright spot on the upper right of the Vela SNR. It lies nearly 4 times farther away than the Vela SNR.

Possible ties may exist between astronomical events, such as the Puppis-A supernova that occurred during this time period in the line of sight of Vela, and the object found on archaeological artifacts, but it was not the Vela supernova. Attempting to tie the entire foundation of civilization, mythology and religion to something like a supernova is far-fetched and highly unlikely. As we have learned from history, things cannot be so easily combined or explained. It certainly could have had an influence, but would have not formed the entire foundation.

The Vela Supernova and Earthly Catastrophes In a book entitled When the Earth Nearly Died4, D.S. Allan and J.B. Delair, brought together a mass of evidence that a catastrophic impact of extra-solar material occurred in 9500 BCE. They believe that this debris was ejected by the Vela supernova or caused from its shock-wave. They present a compelling amount of physical and other evidence of multiple impacts, giant tidal surges, massive rearrangements of the surface of the Earth, overnight mountain-building, as well as a polar shift5.

3 Figure 11 taken from http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/~wpb/hstvela/hstvela.html

4 D.S. Allan and J.B. Delair (1995) reissued as Cataclysm: Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 BCE.

5 According to J.B. Hare in his introduction of the book Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel by Ignatius Donnelly (1883)

5 The age of the supernova is 11,500 years. Therefore, it would take debris another 815 years to reach the earth traveling at the speed of light. Of course, special relativity prevents this. In fact, the material from the Vela supernova is not even halfway to the . The remnant it is only 210 light years across and its origin lies about 815 light years away from earth. Therefore, the debris is still about 600 light years from earth. As the shock wave from the supernova speeds through space, it collects interstellar dust. The amount of material depends on the density of material in that region. It would be possible for this debris to reach earth, but not for several thousand years. Even then, the debris it picks up is also expanding into larger regions of space. This, combined with the slowing of the nebula’s expansion, would reduce the overall density of the material shock-wave. Over such a long period of time, it is highly unlikely that material from or picked up from the Vela supernova shock-wave would reach our solar system with enough energy to cause any sort of direct or indirect catastrophes on earth.

Nibiru, Comet Hale-Bopp and the Vela Supernova: a correlation? Sitchin, along with several other researchers, have tried to connect the mythological planet Nibiru with Comet Hale-Bopp and the Vela supernova. According to Sitchin in The Wars of Gods and Men, several distinct characteristics about the orbital trajectory and orbital period of comet Hale-Bopp hint toward the comet being the mythological planet Nibiru, or “Planet X”. Despite the obvious fallacy that Nibiru is home to a pre-human alien race, it is possible that comet Hale-Bopp could have been the mythological planet Nibiru, though it does not correlate to the Vela supernova.

According to D.R. Williams (2000), comet Hale-Bopp has an average orbital period of about 4,200 years, depending on its trajectory and the perturbations caused by the other planets during its journey. This would have put the last visible appearance at about 2200 BCE. This does coincide with the Sumerian civilization.

The most recent perihelion of comet Hale-Bopp was 83 million miles on April 1st, 1997. In comparison, the earth is 93 million miles away from the sun.

According to Russell Sipe, a Hale-Bopp researcher and editor of Hale-Bopp Magazine Online, there may be a possible recording of comet Hale-Bopp dating back to the 23rd century BCE. The Victory Stela of Naram-Sin is an artifact recovered in what is now Iraq (see Figure 12) and scholars date Narim-Sin's reign to the 23rd century BCE. The artifact shows a scene with two large sun-like objects at the top. Sipe believes that this second ‘sun’ does not represent the moon, Venus or any other known heavenly body, as all of these known bodies had specific symbols, and those symbols were not used to describe the anomaly.

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6Figure 12: The Victory Stela of Naram-Sin, circa 2200 BCE The second ‘sun’ could be interpreted as comet Hale-Bopp. However, it would seem more plausible that it was the Puppis A supernova.

Though the origin and meaning of the second ‘sun’ is unknown, it is possible, according to Sipe, that comet Hale-Bopp could be responsible for this second sun, as the comet would have been about -1 magnitude7 (well within the visible range at night, but not during the day), making it one of the brightest comets ever seen (Kidger 1997).

It is possible, though unlikely, that the star-like object would have been comet Hale-Bopp. Hale-Bopp would not have appeared as a pointed or stationary star, but rather a smeared ‘star’ with a long, hazy tail. Comets change position over a few weeks as they speed toward, and away from, the sun. It would have only been visible for a couple months at best, and would have changed position… unlike a star which remains static in appearance. It seems more likely that star-like object would be the Puppis-A supernova (3,700 ±400 years old; 14th century to 22nd century BCE), though the supernova would not have appeared near the sun.

6 Taken from http://www.sipe.com/halebopp/chron02.htm

7 In astronomy, the magnitude scale determines the brightness of an object. The fainter the object, the higher its magnitude number; the brighter, the lower the number.

The sun has a magnitude of -26.74, and a full moon has a magnitude of -12.

Learn more about magnitude here: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=569

7 Scientists have recently found a very large impact in southern Iraq with a diameter of two miles.

According to Robert Matthews (2001); “Today's crater lies on what would have been shallow sea 4,000 years ago, and any impact would have caused devastating fires and flooding. The catastrophic effect of these could explain the mystery of why so many early cultures went into sudden decline around 2300 BC.”

A large meteor or comet would have been visible before the impact. The second sun could be interpreted as this very meteor. Additionally, it could explain aspects of the Gilgamesh which notes "Seven Judges of Hell", who raised their torches, lighting the land with flame, and a storm that turned day into night, "smashed the land like a cup", and flooded the region (Matthews 2001), being the source of the original Noah’s Flood story. However, a meteor large enough to be as bright as the sun would have been extremely large with an impossibly high albedo and would have caused massive global extinctions (the KT boundary meteor that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was only about 6 km across). A small comet or meteor would seem more plausible, as it could have caused tsunamis from hitting the shallow sea and could leave a crater as small as two miles.

The Puppis-A supernova would better explain the ‘second sun’ than comet Hale- Bopp or a meteor/comet impact. Even the age of Puppis-A does not fit exactly, as the higher limit of the age places it 100 years later, though further observations of the supernova remnant will constrain the age for a better analysis. However, age constraints of archaeological artifacts and astronomical data are relatively limited and are subject to large error.

Some researchers speculate that the Vela supernova shockwave actually caused fluctuations in the Oort cloud, a very distant home to most Solar System comets, sending what we know of as comet Hale-Bopp tumbling towards the sun, very similar to the accounts of D.S. Allan and J.B. Delair. That problem has already been addressed.

The researchers who support the Vela supernova origin of Nibiru hypothesis note that Nibiru has a 3,600 year orbit (it is no coincidence that this number is also the base of the Sumerian calendar) according to Sumerian mythology. They extrapolate the Hale- Bopp perihelion and aphelion distances at dates in the past and compare those dates with the age of the VSN. They also assume that the 4,200 year orbital period of Hale-Bopp varies (from fluctuations caused from the planets during its orbit) and can be averaged to 3,600 years. This has a significant variation of 600 years, which is quite a bit too large in terms of orbital period fluctuation.

To determine if Comet Hale-Bopp was the result of the Vela supernova, as some researchers have speculated, we need to examine the possibilities. First, as mentioned before, the debris from the SNR is still 600 light years from earth, so material from the

8 Vela supernova could not affect anything in our solar system. Gravitational waves8 from the supernova could cause small fluctuations in the Oort cloud, possibly sending comets spiraling toward the sun. This is unlikely, as gravitational waves, over long distances, are very tiny. In a region around a black hole, they would be huge, but from an 11,000 year old supernova that is several hundred light years away, it would have little affect.

Other ideas are that the flux of neutrinos from the Vela SN could have caused and increase in solar reactions, increasing the sun’s luminosity, which in turn perturbed comets in the Oort cloud. Neutrinos react very little with matter because of their extremely small mass. Their flux into the sun would not have caused any major changes in nuclear reactions or increased solar luminosity.

Conclusion The Vela supernova had no effect on comet Hale-Bopp nor is it responsible for any catastrophes on earth. The Vela supernova was not seen by the Sumerians, or any civilization for that matter. The Vela supernova is too old. The ‘double sun’ found on several 2000-4000 BCE artifacts and murals could have depicted the Puppis-A supernova. The Puppis-A supernova seems a more plausible explanation than comet Hale-Bopp or a meteor/comet impact.

Which is Which? For those with a limited background in astronomy, confusion from inconsistencies in nebula names and ages can arise. According to Wijers and Sugurdsson (1997), the Vela supernova pulsar (remnant of the core of the exploding star) may have had a binary companion neutron star9 that is now ploughing a channel through the supernova remnant cloud. The binary companion may have been formed from a supernova that occurred about 3 to 10 million years ago which formed part of the (see figure 11 on next page). The Gum Nebula, from Earth, appears as a gaseous shell with radius of about 20º, covering an area of the sky 40º X 90º. Currently, the Vela supernova remnant is expanding into the old remnant of the Gum Nebula. Often, the Vela Supernova remnant is mistaken for the Gum Nebula. Though the Vela SNR is part of the Gum Nebula (just as Puppis-A), it is not the Gum Nebula.

In addition to confusing nomenclature, inconsistencies arise when dealing with the age of a supernova remnant. Usually, the age is calibrated from when the light reached the earth. The Puppis-A supernova appeared in the sky to earthlings 3700 ±300 years ago, though it actually occurred 6,000 years before that (as it lies 6,000 light years from earth). The actual age of the Puppis-A supernova is 9,700 ±300 years. The recording of an object’s age depends on the researcher. If the Puppis-A supernova were

8 Current experiments show that gravitational waves travel with approximately the same speed as light. Read more about gravitational waves here: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/GravWaves.html

9 Neutron Star: a compressed core of an exploded star made up almost entirely of neutrons. Neutron have a strong gravitational field and some emit pulses of energy along their axis. These are known as .

9 actually only about 4,000 years old, it would take another 2,000 years for the light to even reach earth.

10 Figure 11: Part of the Gum Nebula and the Vela SNR

Though the Vela supernova, at one point, would have made a very plausible explanation of mysterious the ‘second sun’ found in so many artifacts of the era in Mesopotamia, the idea simply fell through. However, researchers were not far off… it seems they were just looking at the wrong object. The Puppis-A supernova may not necessarily be responsible for the dawning of civilization, but its presence in the sky certainly would have had an affect on the contemporary cultures of the time that included it in their cosmology and mythology.

10 © 1999-2004 Axel Mellinger Taken from: http://canopus.physik.uni-potsdam.de/~axm/images/Vela_50mm.html

10 Bibliography

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Blair, B. P. Vela Supernova Remnant File http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/~wpb/hstvela/hstvela.html Accessed on 2004-04-18

Cha, A.N., Sembach, K.R., Danks, A.C. The Distance to the Vela Supernova Remnant The Astrophysical Journal, Feb 1999

De Luca, A., Mignani, R.P. and Caraveo, P.A. The (PSR B0833-45) proper motion revisited with HST astrometry Astronomy & Astrophysics 354, 1011–1013 (2000)

Ferris, T. Coming of age in the Milky Way William Morrow & Co, 1988

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Kidger, M. The Light Curve of Comet Hale-Bopp European Space Agency Official Website, 1997 http://www.eso.org/outreach/info-events/hale-bopp/comet-hale-bopp-summary-apr04-97-mk.html Accessed on 04/20/2004

Matthews, R. (Science Correspondent) Meteor clue to end of Middle East civilizations The London Telegraph, 04/11/2001 http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml%3B$sessionid$41ZD1XYAAA5OLQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUI V0?xml=/news/2001/11/04/wmet04.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/11/04/ixhomef.html%5C Accessed on 04/19/2004

Michanowsky, G. The Once and Future Star Hawthorn Books (New York), 1977

Nemiroff, R. and Bonnell, J. The Pencil Nebula Supernova Shockwave NASA Official Website, 06/09/ 2003 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030609.html Accessed on 04/19/2004

Sipe, R. Comet Hale-Bopp Magazine (Online) http://www.halebopp.info Accessed on 2004-04-19

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Sitchin, Z. The Wars of Gods and Men Bear & Co, 1992

The Stairway to Heaven Avon Books, 1983

Wijers and Sugurdsson The Vela pulsar `jet': a companion-punctured bubble of fallback material MNRAS; 17 April, 1997 http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/9704/9704225.pdf

Williams, D.R. Comet Hale-Bopp NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD NASA Official Website http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/halebopp.html Accessed between 03/20/2004 and 04/25/2004

Winkler, P.F., Tuttle, J.H., Kirshner, R.P., & Irwin, M.J. (Edt R. S. Roger & T. L. Landecker) Supernova Remnants and the Interstellar Medium Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988

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