Although the sizes of comets are difficult to determine without close observation , Comet Elenin is likely to be less than 10 km in diameter . Elenin himself estimates that the comet nucleus is roughly 3 – 4 km in diameter . This would make it millions of times smaller than the supposed Nibiru . Comet hysteria is not uncommon . Attempts have been made to correlate Elenin 's alignments with the 2011 Japan earthquake , the 2010 Canterbury earthquake , and 2010 Chile earthquake ; however , even discounting Elenin 's tiny size , earthquakes are driven by forces within the earth , and can not be triggered by the passage of nearby objects . In 2011 , Leonid Elenin ran a simulation on his blog in which he increased the mass of the comet to that of a brown dwarf ( 0.05 solar masses ) . He demonstrated that its gravity would have caused noticeable changes in the orbit of Saturn years before its arrival in the inner Solar System
2010 Chile earthquake
2010 Chile earthquake
Nibiru cataclysm