[meteorite-list] Nemesis-The Death Star

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:20:48 -0500
Message-ID: <3FBF323D86C54566A0ECD9559C38C7D2_at_ATARIENGINE2>

Hi, All.

Despite the Nibiru Nuttery (and the clips of Muller in it),
there is a continuing misunderstanding of the Nemesis
hypothesis as regards the proposed orbit, its stability,
and lifetime.

Here's a quote from the abstract of Muller's last paper
in Nature in 2002. (The entire paper is downloadable.)
http://muller.lbl.gov/papers/Lunar_impacts_Nemesis.pdf
    "...the Nemesis theory, which postulated a solar companion
star. A sudden change in the orbit of that star at 0.4 Ga transformed
a circular orbit (which does not trigger comet showers) into an
eccentric orbit (which does). The Nemesis theory is speculative
but viable; contrary to prior assertions, the orbit is sufficiently
stable to account for the data."

In other words, Muller proposes an original circular orbit
with a radius of 90,000-ish AU and in or very close to the
galactic plane. Such an orbit is stable for a very long time.
It doesn't kick comets out of Oortville or do much of
anything.

Then, about half-billion years ago, something (probably
a passing star) greatly perturbed that circular orbit into
one with an eccentricity of ~0.7 and a "short" lifetime.
By short here, we mean a billion years, more or less.

The problem is that people keep assuming (without reason)
that the Nemesis proposal is for an eccentric orbit since
the beginning of the solar system. It's hard for such an orbit
to last that long. But the proposal is not for such an orbit
since the beginning of the solar system, but only the last
half-billion years.

No Problemo (to quote a well-known governor and cyborg).

The original papers on the Nemesis hypothesis appeared
in NATURE in 1984. There were dynamic analyses by others
(not Muller, but Davis and Hut). No URL, can't get to it free...
Muller's (busy) webpage will get to this outline of the
hypothesis and its history (and changes):
http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/lbl-nem.htm

If you go from that page to the free chapter of Muller's
(out-of-print) book you will find him "firing up" his
calculator (an HP 11-C) for the same calculation as
in the posting on the Minor Planet Mailing List
(in an argument with Luis Alvarez).

Time (and a lot of fantastic astrometry) will tell. All that
is needed is the ability to detect proper motion in the
sub-arcsecond range. Good luck.


Sterling K. Webb
----------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shawn Alan" <photophlow at yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2010 2:28 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Nemesis-The Death Star


> Hi Richard and List,
>
> Thats a nice link you provided. Here is a video on you tube about
> Nemesis-The Death Star. Check it out its a good source on the death
> star hypothesis.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa1jp4EiOcA
>
> Shawn Alan
>
>
>
> [meteorite-list] Nemesis-The Death Star
> Richard Kowalski damoclid at yahoo.com
> Sat Mar 13 23:33:23 EST 2010
>
> Previous message: [meteorite-list] Nemesis-The Death Star
> Next message: [meteorite-list] Canadian lasers key to NASA asteroid
> landing project
> Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Alan,
>
> there has been several posts on the Minor Planet Mailing List
> (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/mpml/) today about this.
>
> A 26 million year orbit essentially extends into interstellar space
> and any object in such an orbit would rapidly be perturbed from it's
> orbit around the Sun. I his post today, Bill Gray, author of some
> excellent software including the freeware "Findorb", stated
>
> "...It presumably has an
> extremely high eccentricity, so the apohelion must be about 2.5
> light-years out, roughly at the point where stars will pass by
> on a reasonably regular basis. The orbit is about as stable as
> a pencil balanced on its point in a hurricane."
>
> IOW, it is highly unlikely any such object exists and if it did, it
> wouldn't remain in orbit for very long, astronomically speaking...
> That doesn't mean it doesn't, just don't hold your breath waiting for
> WISE to find it...
>
> --
> Richard Kowalski
> Full Moon Photography
> IMCA #1081
>
>
> --- On Sat, 3/13/10, Shawn Alan <photophlow at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>> From: Shawn Alan <photophlow at yahoo.com>
>
>> Subject: [meteorite-list] Nemesis-The Death Star
>
>> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>
>> Date: Saturday, March 13, 2010, 9:04 PM
>
>> Hello List,
>
>>
>
>> Last week a good topic was brought about the probability of
>
>> patterns with the places and amount of meteorites coming in
>
>> contact with Earth. I am not sure if this hypothesis was
>
>> suggested but I came across the Nemesis Hypothetical red
>
>> dwarf star hypotheses in Rocks from Space by O.Richard
>
>> Norton and Wikipedia. Here is what is on Wikipedia?..
>
>>
>
>> Nemesis is a hypothetical red dwarf star or brown dwarf,
>
>> orbiting the Sun at a distance of about 50,000 to 100,000
>
>> AU, somewhat beyond the Oort cloud. This star was originally
>
>> postulated to exist as part of a hypothesis to explain a
>
>> perceived cycle of mass extinctions in the geological
>
>> record, which seem to occur once every 26 million years or
>
>> so.
>
>>
>
>> Claimed periodicity of mass extinctions
>
>>
>
>> In 1984, paleontologists David Raup and Jack Sepkoski
>
>> published a paper claiming that they had identified a
>
>> statistical periodicity in extinction rates over the last
>
>> 250 million years using various forms of time series
>
>> analysis.[1] They focused on the extinction intensity of
>
>> fossil families of marine vertebrates, invertebrates, and
>
>> protozoans, identifying 12 extinction events over the time
>
>> period in question. The average time interval between
>
>> extinction events was determined as 26 million years. At the
>
>> time, two of the identified extinction events
>
>> (Cretaceous-Tertiary and Late Eocene) could be shown to
>
>> coincide with large impact events. Although Raup and
>
>> Sepkoski could not identify the cause of their supposed
>
>> periodicity, they suggested that there might be a
>
>> non-terrestrial connection. The challenge to propose a
>
>> mechanism was quickly addressed by several teams of
>
>> astronomers.
>
>>
>
>> Development of the Nemesis hypotheses
>
>>
>
>> Two teams of astronomers, Whitmire and Jackson, and Davis,
>
>> Hut, and Muller, independently published similar hypotheses
>
>> to explain Raup and Sepkoski's extinction periodicity in the
>
>> same issue of the journal Nature.[2][3] This hypothesis
>
>> proposes that the sun may have an as yet undetected
>
>> companion star in a highly elliptical orbit that
>
>> periodically disturbs comets in the Oort cloud, causing a
>
>> large increase in the number of comets visiting the inner
>
>> solar system with a consequential increase in impact events
>
>> on Earth. This became known as the Nemesis (or, more
>
>> colorfully, Death Star) hypothesis.
>
>>
>
>> If it does exist, the exact nature of Nemesis is uncertain.
>
>> Richard A. Muller suggests that the most likely object is a
>
>> red dwarf with magnitude between 7 and 12,[4] while Daniel
>
>> P. Whitmire and Albert A. Jackson argue for a brown dwarf.
>
>> If a red dwarf, it would undoubtedly already exist in star
>
>> catalogs, but its true nature would only be detectable by
>
>> measuring its parallax; due to orbiting the Sun it would
>
>> have a very low proper motion and would escape detection by
>
>> proper motion surveys that have found stars like the 9th
>
>> magnitude Barnard's star.
>
>>
>
>> The last major extinction event was about 5 million years
>
>> ago, so Muller posits that Nemesis is likely 1 to 1.5 light
>
>> years away at present, and even has ideas of what area of
>
>> the sky it might be in (supported by Yarris, 1987), near
>
>> Hydra, based on a hypothetical orbit derived from original
>
>> apogees of a number of atypical long-period comets that
>
>> describe an orbital arc meeting the specifications of
>
>> Muller's hypothesis.
>
>>
>
>> Looking for Nemesis
>
>>
>
>> If Nemesis exists, then it may be detected by the planned
>
>> Pan-STARRS or LSST astronomical surveys.
>
>> In particular, if Nemesis is a brown dwarf, then the WISE
>
>> mission should be able to find it. The hypothesis that the
>
>> Nemesis star is a brown dwarf was proposed by Dan Whitmire
>
>> and Albert A. Jackson, IV.[5]
>
>>
>
>> Also, if you own a copy of Rocks from Space I would look
>
>> towards the back of the book and read up on Nemesis. It is a
>
>> very good hypothesis and makes since that this could be
>
>> taking place in our solar system.
>
>>
>
>> ______________________________________________
>
>> Visit the Archives at
>> http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
>
>> Meteorite-list mailing list
>
>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Previous message: [meteorite-list] Nemesis-The Death Star
> Next message: [meteorite-list] Canadian lasers key to NASA asteroid
> landing project
> Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> More information about the Meteorite-list mailing list
>
> ______________________________________________
> Visit the Archives at
> http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>
Received on Sun 14 Mar 2010 05:20:48 AM PDT