counter-earth

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A hypothetical planet sharing an orbit with the earth, but on the opposite side of the…

   A hypothetical planet sharing an orbit with the earth, but on the opposite side of the sun.

   • To the same period may perhaps belong the theory that the comet is a separate planet; this eighth planet might serve, when the counter-earth had been discarded, to maintain the number ten in regard to the heavenly bodies.
   • The report of Aristotle and Philip of Opus, that the higher frequency of lunar than of solar eclipses was explained by the presence of the counter-earth, and perhaps also other earth-like bodies in space, takes us into a similar context.
2. 2

   Alternative form of counter-earth.

   • Possibly to explain eclipses, and possibly to achieve for the astral world the perfection of the number Ten, Philolaus imagined that a dark Counter-Earth existed, invisible to the Earth.
   • These ten Spheres were the sun, moon, Earth, the five additional known planets at the time—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn—the counter-Earth, and the central hearth.
   • His convoluted ideas, derived before the concept of the gravitational force was known, had the Earth and the counter-Earth orbiting a central fire of the universe, which was not the Sun.

The neighborhood