Nibiru: Babylonian Star Name or Hidden Planet?

In Babylon, a name of Marduk and a crossing point in the sky. In modern lore, a hidden planet always about to hit Earth.

In Babylonian texts Nibiru was a name of Marduk and a crossing point in the sky, most often tied to Jupiter. The hidden-planet idea dates from 1976, and astronomers say no such planet exists.

In Akkadian, neberu means 'crossing' or 'ford'. In Babylonian astronomy, Nibiru was a celestial marker associated with the god Marduk. Which object it meant is debated: most often it seems to be Jupiter at a particular point in its path, though some texts suggest a star or the point where the sun crosses the sky at the equinox.

The key text is Tablet VII of the Enuma Elish, where Nibiru is one of Marduk's fifty names. King's 1902 translation reads: 'Let his name be Nibiru, the Seizer of the Midst! For the stars of heaven he upheld the paths.' The next lines add that he shepherds the gods like sheep.

In 1976 Zecharia Sitchin made Nibiru the twelfth planet, home of the Anunnaki, on a 3,600-year orbit. In 1995 Nancy Lieder, who said she received messages from aliens, predicted that a planet would pass close to Earth and cause catastrophe; the date was later moved to 2012 and then to later years. NASA scientists repeatedly explained that no such planet exists.

A large planet on a 3,600-year orbit would be easily visible in telescopes and would disturb the orbits of other planets, and nothing of the kind is seen. Nibiru's journey from a name in a Babylonian hymn to an internet doomsday is one of the strangest afterlives of any ancient word. The original text is short, and it describes a god who keeps the heavens in order, the opposite of a planet that brings chaos.