Talk:Phaeton (hypothetical planet)

Untitled
What stories does Phaeton appear in besides Ocean? Whoever that wrote "many stories" section should have added them.

-I recall that Stranger in a Strange Land mentions a nameless fifth planet being destroyed, so I shall add it. If anyone with better memory than I can disprove it, by all means do so. -Anonymous Idiot

It does indeed. Many thanks. Mrwuggs 20:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Is 3200 Phaethon asteroid in this article only because it has a similar name? Should there be a note for disambiguation instead? It seems superfluous to mention facts about it and that it has "unusual properties" that are unrelated to the hypothetical planet. Punstress (talk) 14:13, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Moved Sitchin stuff...
I moved Sitchin's stuff from the intro down to the bottom. I believe that this article should deal first with the Phaeton hypothesis, then explore and mention similar theories, recalling that Olbers theorized on Phaeton centuries before Sumerian cuneiform was even deciphered and Sitchin first proposed his theories of Nibiru and Tiamat. Sound good? TuckerResearch 00:16, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to add that this planet is NOT thought to be "Nibiru", "planet X", or "The 5th Planet"! There is very strong evidence in Greek writings about this planet. Even a story of the son of the sun god (Apollo) allowing Phaeton to drive the "sun chariot". To many people take Greek myth as fake stories w/ no truth, this is a very incorrect stance to take.

Due to their perceptions, stories are not "scientific" per se. Yet, we know the Greeks, like the Mayan cultures (though maybe not as advanced in astronomy, but close), were avid star watchers. The names of most our planets are the same names the Greeks called them. We find it hard to believe that they could see that far out, w/o modern telescopes, but they definitely did! Phaeton was one such planet that they believed was a god, & prayed to it. It was also, by their records, the brightest (brighter than any star in our sky, today) star/ planet. They recorded it exploding (a bright flash, & then gone).

Now, the reason for its "explosion", is not known for sure (or, at least, not given out to the general population). Their is several theories. One is that Nibiru came to close, & collided. Timing seems to fit w/ the Mayans (& several other advanced civilizations whove documented Nibiru (planet X, 5 th planet, etc). There is evidence, by NASA, of a huge planetary object that is in that area every several thousand years, that flings debrie from the debri field into the inner system. Mathematicians have stated that it would take an object the size of a Brown Dwarf to cause the pulling & shoving that has been increasing in the past couple decades. And would definitely have the ability to destroy a smaller planet, w/ a direct hit.

So, I wouldn't be so quick to classify this as fiction. There is A LOT of evidence, both current & historical, to give credence to this. -HLM — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.76.135.195 (talk) 07:31, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I must agree with HLM. The idea is very sound because the evidence for it is strong and comes from many different sources. Also, it has nothing to do with Sitchin.--Capt. Ciel (talk) 23:25, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Merging with Phaeton Fifth planet (hypothetical)

 * Disagree with merger. Phaethon has a storied history in the "hypothetical fifth planet" field. TuckerResearch 04:10, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge, the same topic. гык 17:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Pheaton is related to the "hypothetical fifth planet" and has a huge part to play in it.
 * Agree with merge. I can't tell what the difference between the two is suppose to be... FusionKnight (talk) 21:05, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The origin of the Phaeton hypothesis
The attribution of the name Phaeton to Krinov is incorrect. The earliest reference I could find so far is the German linguist Johann Gottlieb Radlof who called Olbers' destroyed planet by that name already in 1823. ("Zertrümmerung der großen Planeten Hesperus und Phaethon", https://books.google.de/books?id=qRI5AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA59&dq=Phaeton+planet&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjtqOT3suLSAhXFKywKHTb3DbEQ6AEIHzAA#v=onepage&q=Phaeton%20planet&f=false ) Nafiris (talk) 16:59, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Excellent find. Do you know what the German text says?  Do you think we should add a sentence to the article?  If so, what do you suggest? TuckerResearch (talk) 20:27, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes. I happen to be German. ;-) But here is an introduction to Radlof's work in English (note that he uses the spelling Phaethon): http://www.mythopedia.info/radlof.htm Nafiris (talk) 22:08, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I added a little bit on Johann Gottlieb Radlof (who, as you can see by the red link, doesn't have a page in English) and planet Phaeton. I added two links.  Please feel free to edit and make better. TuckerResearch (talk) 23:50, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Done. I removed the Klinov stuff because I cannot find any second reference to it but added an attribution to Soviet astronomer Sergei Orlov instead. Nafiris (talk) 11:01, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

I removed the sentence that says the idea is similar to Velikovsky. It is not. Velikovsky never promoted such an idea. It is only similar in that he partly bases his theory on myth. Many other theories based on myth also have nothing to do with Radlof's idea. --Capt. Ciel (talk) 23:15, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

I undid my edit because there is some similarity, and so a clarification was needed, which I put in.--Capt. Ciel (talk) 18:03, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Who named the hypothetical planet?
We really need an authoritative, non-WP:PRIMARY source about who dubbed the planet Phaethon/Phaeton/Phaëton. Sources differ: TompaDompa (talk) 20:18, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Paul Murdin (2016) says Yevgeny Krinov followed by "Sergei Orloff" (presumably Sergei Vladimirovich Orlov).
 * https://www.guide-to-the-universe.com/planet-phaeton.html (probably not WP:RELIABLE) says It wasn't until the 20th century that this destroyed object was named Phaeton.
 * Mike Bara (2010, 2013) says that it was Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers himself.
 * This article currently states, based on a primary source, that it was Johann Gottlieb Radlof.

History of the hypothesis
This article lacks some important information. When exactly did the Phaeton hypothesis get discredited? What evidence made scientists doubt it? Did the scientific discussion last long? The only thing the article says is that 'today' the hypothesis has been replaced by the accretion theory. And surely I could get the answers for some of these questions from other articles, but all the same, this article should tell us more about the history of the idea. Steinbach (talk) 17:11, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

The idea was never discredited. It only fell out of favour.

I removed the sentence that says Van Flandern alternatively proposed a collision. This is entirely made up. --Capt. Ciel (talk) 23:20, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Naming of this article
Why is the article called "Phaeton" when it states in the second paragraph that the correct spelling is "Phaethon"? Also, it seems that "Phaeton" is used not only here in this article, but in the large majority of works I find by doing a brief google search on the subject; spelling is conventional, right? So should we remove the notion that it is "sometimes incorrectly spelled Phaeton", and substitute the notion that it is "sometimes incorrectly spelled Phaethon"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.133.79.7 (talk) 00:52, 7 January 2018 (UTC)


 * You need to read a little more carefully. The second paragraph you speak of refers not to the hypothetical planet, but the asteroid 3200 Phaethon, which is officially spelled with a th, but sometimes incorrectly only gets a t.  As for the subject of this article, it is named after Φαέθων, Phaéthōn, with a theta (θ), the th sound, but throughout history it has often been transliterated with just a t: Phaeton.  Which, as you point out is the predominant spelling.  Which is why the predominant spelling is used as the title of this article and within this article. TuckerResearch (talk) 22:00, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Phaeton (hypothetical planet). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added tag to http://metaresearch./
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070311142924/http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Heinrich_Wilhelm_Matthias_Olbers to http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Heinrich_Wilhelm_Matthias_Olbers
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060718111327/http://www.geocentricity.com/ba1/no74/phaeton.html to http://geocentricity.com/ba1/no74/phaeton.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 21:37, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

"Odessan"
what other scientists in this article are named by their city rather than country? K. N. Savchenko was in Soviet Ukraine. This looks like an unhappy attempt to avoid the illegal Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory. But it was 1955. --142.163.195.153 (talk) 15:40, 26 February 2021 (UTC)