Nemesis - Is the Sun a Double Star?

To write this message, I was prompted by an ITAR-TASS report, terrifying in its stupidity and unscientificity , which, in particular, states: “Scientists at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration / NASA / came close to discovering one of the most intriguing mysteries of our Solar systems - they were able to calculate the location and orbit of an invisible planet, the existence of which was previously predicted by a number of leading physicists . "

Where does the footprint of this publication come from, what is Nemesis and what have scientists really discovered / are trying to discover?



First of all, I would like to point out the original NASA post where the illiterate "journalist" got "information" - Getting WISE About Nemesis. Immediately indicate all the incorrectness in the paragraph above:

1. Nemesis is not an intriguing mystery
2. They are not looking for a planet, but a brown dwarf
3. Orbit not calculated
4. Existence is not proven
5. “Leading” physicists are a very limited list of people who have been very cautious about the possible existence of a brown dwarf or planetoid, based on statistics and some anomalies (see below)

Brown dwarfs

Where do the legs grow from? A number of stars (for example, Gliese 229) are double, while the second star is not quite a star, but the so-called brown dwarf. A brown dwarf is a small star within which thermonuclear reactions take place, but there are few of them, so the star quickly loses energy and eventually turns into a planet-like object. On average, the masses of brown dwarfs vary from 0.01 to 0.1 solar masses. In connection with the improvement of observational technology and the appearance of space telescopes, astronomers noticed that many stars have similar "companions", after which it was suggested that the Sun does not have such a neighbor?

WISE and Nemesis Project

Actually, the story of Nemesis begins with this. As we see, in addition to the hypothetical statistical assumption, there was initially no physics. If the brown dwarf still exists, it should exert a gravitational influence on the celestial bodies. In particular, on the Oort cloud , since the space up to the Kuiper belt has already been studied quite well. Many comets appear just from this cloud, therefore the hypothetical Nemesis should give deviations in the orbit of these same "tailed" ones.

There is also another interesting effect, mentioned in a NASA article, on a periodic change in the mass of the Earth (or more precisely - the gravitational field). It can be caused both by internal processes, and external. Actually, in order to deal with the orbits of comets, which are sometimes very, very difficult to predict, and with the “mass defect” of the Earth, as well as with a number of other tasks, NASA launched the WISE project last year . Nemesis - as a popular addition to it, which is not the main goal of the project.

Anomalies in the Solar System

Recently, the dwarf planet Sedna was discovered, whose orbit is strangely “elongated”. According to a number of astronomers, this does not make sense, since Sedna's proximity to the Sun is very rare (Sedna’s orbit in the image below, the lower right square). Based on this, it was suggested that there is another gravitational source in the region of the Oort cloud, due to the influence of which the eccentricity of the orbit is close to 0.9 (elongated ellipse).



Professor John Matese of the University of Louisiana considers the existence of Nemesis possible for other reasons. It is known that comets from the Oort cloud come to us from the same area, which indicates a possible gravitational cause of this anomaly. According to his calculations, the size of the celestial body for the proper effect should be about 3-5 masses of Jupiter. Some of his colleagues, for example, the “creator” of the term and ideas of Nemesis, Richard Muller of Berkeley, point to greater distances (1.5 light-years) and masses (from 13 masses of Jupiter).

Instead of a conclusion

As we see, there are reasons for the existence of a mysterious planet. But they still exist "on paper", in the form of hypotheses that need to be checked. And the WISE project is the first step towards a further understanding of the structure of the solar system. Recently, however, publications of pseudoscientific information presented as scientific have become more frequent. These are the "famous" Petrik filters, and the reviving "torsion fields", and the denials of Darwin's theory in the lessons of the foundations of Orthodox culture. All this contributes to the emergence of almost state charlatans, because they want to spend billions on unfortunate filters. The first “bells” are already there: more than 70% of the population believes in astrology and occultism. If we want to continue to move towards technological progress, it's time to learn how to separate the grains from the chaff. And above all, do not trustpopular science media publications .

ps
And the journalist who wrote a similar article in ITAR-TASS must be fired with a “wolf ticket”.

Acknowledgments

1. NASA
2. Astrobiology Journal
3. Images taken from Astrobiology magazine website and wikipedia