Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2021

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2021 can recognize some similarities with real space exploration projects. Beyond some inconsistencies be- tween the appearances of the alien planet “live” and in photography, “Close Up” offers a starting point for reflection on the hypothetical location of that planet. In fiction, the images take about four months to reach Earth, which means that the planet of the aliens is four light months away, in this case not being able to hypothesize accelerating technologies. Four light months is equivalent to almost 8% of the dis- tance between the Sun and the nearest star, Proxima Centauri. This means that the alien planet can be considered gravitationally linked to the Sun, or at least in slow transit to the extreme periphery of our solar system. When the UFO story- line was set, the outer planets of our system were poorly under- stood. Pluto, in particular, was com- pletely unfathomable, presenting itself as a speck without detail even in the most powerful telescopes. Imagining a habitable planet far beyond Pluto, but still in the Sun’s field of influence, must have seemed too much even to the An- dersons, and therefore they chose not to precisely place the mysteri- ous planet in the sky, which then