Dictionary

counter-earth en · NOUN

Etymology

From counter- + earth.

Meanings

1. (no-plural) A hypothetical planet sharing an orbit with the earth, but on the opposite side of the sun.
   • The interposition of the counter-earth between the sun and the moon is the cause of their eclipses. And just as our earth has a counter-earth, each planet has a counter-planet, a planetary companion (as Bruno would say in his later works), which revolves with the other one on the same circle but at the opposite end of its diameter. 2016, Miguel Á. Granada, Patrick J. Boner, Dario Tessicini, Unifying Heaven and Earth, page 126:
   • 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. 1881, Eduard Zeller, Sarah Frances Alleyne, A History of Greek Philosophy:
   • 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. 1972, Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, page 344:

Forms

Translations (1)

grc ἀντίχθων (a hypothetical planet sharing an orbit with the earth)