Nemesis: Does the Sun Have a 'Companion'? ---------------- "The trouble with most folks isn't so much their ignorance. It's know'n so many things that ain't so." -- A favorite quote of Richard A. Muller, by 19th century humorist Josh Billings. When you think big, as Richard A. Muller does, you're bound to create ideas now and then that are so compelling you just can't let go of them -- ideas so outlandish that mainstream scientists are equally eager to dismiss them. Muller, a physicist at University of California at Berkeley, has had his share of big ideas. If you don't count the restaurant he owned between 1976 and 1982 ("If anyone near and dear to you wants to open a restaurant, I can now be hired to talk them out of it."), Muller's ideas are generally rooted in solid science and genius extrapolation. He's got a gaggle of prestigious awards to prove it, with titles that say things like "outstanding" and "highly original." But Muller's biggest idea is a real Nemesis. Or so he claims. Like a thorn in the side of mainstream researchers, Muller's Nemesis theory -- that our Sun has a companion star responsible for recurring episodes of wholesale death and destruction here on Earth -- seems to reemerge periodically like microbes after a mass extinction. It's a theory that has many detractors. And it's a theory that has been beaten down and left for dead in the minds of most scientists. Yet it is a theory that just won't die. Nemesis is cautiously supported by a handful of scientists, who often sound like ringside rooters eager for a victory but thankful they don't have to put the gloves on. Muller meanwhile acknowledges the possibility that the whole idea could turn out to be wrong, but he is nonetheless confident that Nemesis will be found within 10 years. "Give me a million dollars and I'll find it," Muller said in a recent telephone interview. Brave words for a bold theory that if proven true would shake up everything we know about the formation and evolution of our solar system. Genesis of Nemesis Muller's idea for Nemesis came to him 1983. Luis Alvarez, then an emeritus professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, and his son Walter had recently put forth the theory that a giant impact had wiped out the dinosaurs. (This idea, like so many others that are now widely accepted, met with staunch criticism when it was introduced because it, too, was not mainstream). Around the same time, two other researchers had suggested yet another controversial idea, that mass extinctions occurred at regular intervals -- every 26 million years or so. Scientists immediately folded the ideas into a new and breathtaking possibility: Impacts by space rocks were causing massive global species destruction every 26 million years. Luis Alvarez was Richard Muller's mentor, and he suggested that Muller try to debunk the periodicity argument. Pondering this, Muller dreamed up the fanciful companion to the Sun as a possible cause, and with Berkeley's Piet Hut and Marc Davis of Princeton, worked out the details. Muller gave the object the name of the Greek goddess of retribution -- fitting for a killer star that roamed stealthily beyond the solar system flicking comets at dinosaurs. In the end, the idea looked surprisingly plausible to Muller and his colleagues, and the results of their work were ultimately published in the journal Nature in 1984. Muller then wrote a book about Nemesis, and he has pursued the companion star, while also doing other research, ever since. Tossing comets at us Nemesis, as Muller sees it, is a common red dwarf star that would be visible through binoculars or a small telescope, if only we knew which of some 3,000 stars to look at. These are stars that have been cataloged, but their distances are not known. Any one of them could be the Death Star, as Nemesis has come to be called by some. Red dwarfs are the most common stars in the galaxy. They are small and relatively cool, dimmer than our Sun. The notion of companion stars is also exceedingly common -- more than half of all stars are part of such a binary system, in which two stars are thought to form out of a single cloud of gas and dust. Binary stars settle into a gravitational dance around a common point in space. The smaller of the two stars does most of the orbiting, whereas the larger one is much closer to the center of the dance routine. It's like two kids on a seesaw. For the thing to work properly, the heavier child must sit closer to the center of the apparatus. Muller figures Nemesis' orbit ranges from 1 to 3 light-years away from the Sun. On its closest approach, the lethal companion would pass through a vast, but sparsely populated halo of primitive comets called the Oort Cloud, which surrounds our solar system from beyond Neptune's orbit out to nearly a light-year away. (The Sun's nearest known star, Proxima Centauri, is about 4.25 light-years away). During this passage through or near the Oort Cloud, the gravity of Nemesis would scatter a furious storm of primordial comets that had been relatively undisturbed for 4.5 billion years, since the solar system came into being. Dislodged from their once-stable orbits, millions or billions of these comets would travel to the inner solar system over millions of years, pulled toward the Sun by its gravity. A handful would run into Earth along the way, and the flurry of would result in mass extinctions. Simple enough. But Nemesis has for years been dogged by a misunderstanding, Muller says. Most researchers think the theory was long ago dismissed by competing data that claimed its orbit was not possible. Next page: A far-out orbit, and questions about periodicity
Very interesting, indeed. Ever heard of Zeta Reticuli? Under hypnosis, Betty Hill drew a star map of the binary stars that her alien abductors showed her, during her abduction with her husband, Barney. The aliens claimed that is where they are from. Now, Zeta 1 & 2 are definitely not the only binary stars in our immense universe. That means, there are many more living species living in different binary stars and they could be visiting us.
THE map closely matches the pattern of Zeta reticuli but it has NOT yet been confirmed...meanwhile betty says that she developed imense interest in astronomy after her experience...is'nt it possible that it might have affected her under hypnosis too,because she was already aware of Zeta system and had heard a lot of stories about UFOs and aliens. she termed her incident as abduction by aliens possibly because to her there seemed no plausible other explaination,about her missing time stuff,well,well,during hallucinations also we experience such things.AND btw after Betty and Barney hill case the Abduction experiences reports increased multiple folds,does that really mean something to you?
Far be it from to to call a guy with a PhD a nutcase, but if his theory was correct, shouldn't the sun's orbit around the center of mass be even more affected then? Stars are MASSIVE. Even the smallest is more than twice as big as jupiter, which is more massive than the rest of the planets combined. In fact it was belived that jupiter just missed becoming a star. How many trinary systems are there? If every 26 million years it knocks something loose, why would it barrel-roll into earth like a sidwinder missle? Just because an idea isn't mainstream doesn't make it right. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Serious work being carried out by John J. Matese Mateses' web site is here. He does present a good case. But a debunking of nemesis can be found here
