Once every 27 million years (give or take an epoch), life on Earth takes
a bit of a battering from the cosmos. Asteroids, comets and other space
dwelling rocks strike the surface of the Earth, sending up clouds of
debris that wreak havoc with the climate, not to mention squashing
anything directly underneath. And this regularity has prompted various
theories throughout the ages, from asteroids from the asteroid belt
having unstable orbits, to long period comets somehow missing Jupiter
and colliding with Earth.
But one of the most plausible and yet most ridiculous being that the Sun has an evil twin - Nemesis.
Named for the Greek Goddess of Divine Retribution, the hypothetical
Nemesis would be a small red dwarf star. Red dwarves are the class of
star below our own Sun (which is a yellow dwarf), containing about 10%
of the mass and producing far less light. However, despite the name red
dwarves are not red, but a bright orange, roughly the same colour as
Fanta.
Nemesis would orbit the Sun at a distance of somewhere between 0.25 and 1
light years on a highly elliptical orbit. This orbit would place
Nemesis in the middle of a region known as the Oort Cloud, a vast region
containing most of the solar system’s comets. The presence of such a
star would knock comets out of their normal orbit, sending them into the
inner solar system where they might collide with one of the planets.
That comets come out of their natural habitat and seek out the planets
is not in question, and as recently as 1994 a large comet known as
Shoemaker-Levy collided with Jupiter, leaving a scar about the same size
as Earth. Even more recently (although less widely reported), another
object collided with Jupiter, leaving a scar merely the size of the
entire Pacific Ocean.
The Binary Research Institute
(BRI) has found that orbital characteristics of the recently discovered
planetoid, “Sedna”, demonstrate the possibility that our sun might be
part of a binary star system. A binary star system consists of two stars
gravitationally bound orbiting a common center of mass. Once thought to
be highly unusual, such systems are now considered to be common in the
Milky Way galaxy.
Walter Cruttenden at BRI, Professor
Richard Muller at UC Berkeley, Dr. Daniel Whitmire of the University of
Louisiana, amongst several others, have long speculated on the
possibility that our sun might have an as yet undiscovered companion.
Most of the evidence has been statistical rather than physical. The
recent discovery of Sedna, a small planet like object first detected by
Cal Tech astronomer Dr. Michael Brown, provides what could be indirect
physical evidence of a solar companion. Matching the recent findings by
Dr. Brown, showing that Sedna moves in a highly unusual elliptical
orbit, Cruttenden has determined that Sedna moves in resonance with
previously published orbital data for a hypothetical companion star.
In the May 2006 issue of Discover, Dr.
Brown stated: “Sedna shouldn’t be there. There’s no way to put Sedna
where it is. It never comes close enough to be affected by the sun, but
it never goes far enough away from the sun to be affected by other
stars… Sedna (Nemesis) is stuck, frozen in place; there’s no way to move
it, basically there’s no way to put it there — unless it formed there.
But it’s in a very elliptical orbit like that. It simply can’t be there.
There’s no possible way – except it is. So how, then?”
“I’m thinking it was placed there in the
earliest history of the solar system. I’m thinking it could have gotten
there if there used to be stars a lot closer than they are now and
those stars affected Sedna on the outer part of its orbit and then later
on moved away. So I call Sedna (Nemesis) a fossil record of the
earliest solar system. Eventually, when other fossil records are found,
Sedna will help tell us how the sun formed and the number of stars that
were close to the sun when it formed.”
Walter Cruttenden agrees that Sedna’s
highly elliptical orbit is very unusual, but noted that the orbit period
of 12,000 years is in neat resonance with the expected orbit
periodicity of a companion star as outlined in several prior papers.
Consequently, Cruttenden believes that Sedna’s unusual orbit is
something indicative of the current solar system configuration, not
merely a historical record.
“It is hard to imagine that Sedna would
retain its highly elliptical orbit pattern since the beginning of the
solar system billions of years ago. Because eccentricity would likely
fade with time, it is logical to assume Sedna is telling us something
about current, albeit unexpected solar system forces, most probably a
companion star”.
Outside of a few popular articles, and
Cruttenden’s book “Lost Star of Myth and Time”, which outlines
historical references and the modern search for the elusive companion,
the possibility of a binary partner star to our sun has been left to the
halls of academia. But with Dr. Brown’s recent discoveries of Sedna and
Xena, (now confirmed to be larger than Pluto), and timing observations
like Cruttenden’s, the search for a companion star may be gaining
momentum.
Unfortunately, there is absolutely no evidence that this star exists
as the theory predicts. Stars tend to be fairly visible objects (source:
the night sky) and the fact that this star cannot be demonstrably seen
does put a blow to the theory. As more powerful telescopes have searched
the sky, the scope for Nemesis being slightly too dim to detect have
diminished to the point that if it does exist, its nowhere near where
the theory puts it.
But like all evil twins, it is known by many names.
Tyche, the Greek Goddess of Fortune and Prosperity (and sister of
Nemesis) gives her name to the brown dwarf Tyche, not a star but a very
massive planet. Brown dwarfs are stars that never quite made it,
possessing insufficient mass to compress the hydrogen in their cores to
start nuclear fusion. Still, they would emit a lot of heat, and Tyche is
predicted to glow blood red as it weaves its way through deathbringer
comets. And this theory does has some (slight) evidence.
An object called Sedna, briefly called the 10th planet by the media
on its discovery, has an orbit that by all known laws should not be
possible. Its highly elliptical orbit is even at its closest twice as
far away as Pluto, but it never quite gets far away to belong to the
Oort Cloud either. The only explanation is that some other star must
have caused the impossible orbit. Tyche proponents suggest this as
evidence for a large planet, about five times the mass of Jupiter,
orbiting somewhere near the Oort cloud and pushing and pulling the small
rock in unpredictable ways. The other competing theory suggests that
the early solar system contained several stars in its interior, that
eventually coalesced into the Sun we see today. Sedna, the theory says,
would be a remnant of that era.
However, like Nemesis, Tyche has not been observed. Even though it
would not emit light in the same manner as a star, its proximity should
make its reflected light easily visible, and yet the sky contains no
such object
The theory seemed to be dead and buried, until just recently,
astronomers found a large object racing away from the sun. At a distance
of 20 light years, Scholz’s star is too distant to be bound to our Sun,
however by extrapolating its trajectory it has been discovered that
70,000 years ago, it must have passed through our solar system, coming
as close as 0.8 light years. This would put it not only bang in the
middle of the Oort cloud, but exactly where Nemesis/Tyche was predicted
to be. Upon further analysis, Scholz’s star was found to be a binary
system, consisting of a small red dwarf star, and a blood red brown
dwarf companion.
Perhaps there was something to the theory after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment