Nemesis is my Nemesis

[robnissen]

I have always thought that the Nemesis theory is complete crap. But it appears that there are some mainstream scientists that still believe it is possible. The good news is, according to this article, that we should know for sure by 2013.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/n ... 00311.html

Of course, even if nothing is found, that won't be good enough for the woo-woo crowd. But hopefully it will be enough for serious scientists. There is one thing I find contacdictory in the article, however, here it says:

"WISE began scanning the sky on January 14, and NASA recently released the mission's first images. The mission will map the entire sky until October, when the spacecraft's coolant runs out."

but then it says here:

"We may not have an answer to the Nemesis question until mid-2013. WISE needs to scan the sky twice in order to generate the time-lapsed images astronomers use to detect objects in the outer solar system."

Either I'm missing something, or one of thos two statement is incorrect.

 

[bdewoody]

Maybe they plan to refuel it? Somehow without a space shuttle.

 

[ramparts]

Well, I never put bad reporting beyond the SDC staff, but you did miss this right after your second quote:

"I don't suspect we'll have completed the search for candidate objects until mid-2012, and then we may need up to a year of time to complete telescopic follow-up of those objects," said Kirkpatrick.

It's entirely conceivable that reducing the data (a big endeavor) and looking through all of those images for objects which have motion consistent with a solar companion (a huge endeavor) would take that long. Bear in mind that this is likely going to come up nil so, given the huge science potential WISE has, is going to be pretty low on the WISE team's priority list, and being a fairly in-depth project (one of the scientists interviewed in that article has described the Nemesis search to me as "digging through the muck," or something along those lines), it might be a while before it actually gets done. And it will be only the WISE team which will be able to look at these data until the data are released to the public (between April 2011 and March 2012). Then, as Dr. Kirkpatrick suggests in the quote above, any candidate Nemeses will have to be followed up by telescope observations to find out exactly what they are, and that takes proposals, then waiting for telescope time...

So all things considered, mid-2013 is entirely reasonable for a definitive yes-no to the Nemesis question if WISE runs down this October. It's not nearly as simple as getting an answer as soon as the telescope has taken the pictures. Quite a bit goes into astronomy before the results come out

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

Good day all,

Sorry I haven't been on much for quite a while. I have been working, family life and trying to upgrade myself by taking a political course. I have however had the oppurtunity to read that Nemesis article in one of my quick visits to SDC. If I understood previous articles regarding extinction periods, I thought there were very definative periods and that's what led to the possibility that the sun may have a close companion. However the article states there is no definitive periods of extinction. I thought that part was already sorted out and was not in question, only if whether or not the sun had a companion that was the contribitor to the increased comet activity during these periods.

 

[MeteorWayne]

No, there is no definitive evidence for periodicity in mass extinctions. Besides, measuring mass extinctions is inherently a difficult and noisy process.

 

[Fallingstar1971]

I think that we should at least consider the following statement:

Just because something is capable of doing something, doesnt mean that it will do something.

If there is a binary companion, then perhaps each orbit it does shower things into the inner solar system. That doesn't mean that they have to hit anything, granted, the odds are higher, but there is no guarantee that Earth, or any other planet will be struck.

Assuming that each and every orbit causes ELEs is just that, an assumption. As others have pointed out, there should be a regular pattern in the fossil records, but there isnt. There doesnt have to be. Not if on some orbits it missed.

Also, how many encounters before most of the "contact areas" of both stars Kuiper belts are worn away. After enough orbits, these areas would be worn away with less and less comets being kicked in per orbit, lessening the odds of terrestrial impacts. This is not to say there would be no comets, just fewer of them.

It would explain much. It would greatly simplify the Precession of the Equinoxes, Put the whole solar system in motion and Newtons Lunisolar theory fly's right out the window.

Star

 

[MeteorWayne]

It would explain much. It would greatly simplify the Precession of the Equinoxes, Put the whole solar system in motion and Newtons Lunisolar theory fly's right out the window.

Star

Was that supposed to make sense? The precession of the equinoxes is well understood without a need for Nemesis

And you're buying that...uhhh...stuff from the binary reserach institute?

 

[Calrissian]

...for the woo-woo crowd.

I find it shear arrogance to dismiss ANY theory just because its not mainstream. It is a sad truth that science is just as orthodox as any major religion.

I guess you'd have touted those who believed in 'night clouds', or 'explosions into space from thunderstorms' as part of the woo-woo crowd in the 70s and 80s.

Both were finally proved to be right.
-

As for Nemesis...I didn't much care for that movie :lol:

 

[Fallingstar1971]

Of course it makes sense. With the solar system in motion many things fall into place.
As long as NASA scientists are with me in the woohoo crowd, I have no problems being there.
The only fault with the Binary Institute is that they are not using their data for science, but personal gain. Sound familiar?

They are trying to sell a book. Thats no worse then other people trying to sell a movie based on bad science to the schools. At least they are not running around saying the sky is falling and waving doctored charts to sucker as many people into it as possible. They put up the site, and there data, AND they hid nothing. Its just there.


I could list all the things wrong with Newtons theory, however, you should be familiar with the source material already. You have seen the site, you have seen everything they point out, and the binary model fits very well, with no seasonal reversal. Just because it hasn't been seen, doesn't mean that its not there. Dark matter, Dark Energy, Black holes, heck, even the wind would have to be dismissed if that were true.

(And your thinking right now, "But we can see the effects of all these things" and you would be right.)
(And if this star does exist, we should be seeing the effects of that as well.....perhaps we already are.)

Many questions about mass distribution and Angular momentum are rendered moot. A binary model causes everything to fall into line.

Scientists know this, which is why they are now investigating this. They may be slow, but they are persistent.

So as far as I am concerned.............

WhooHooo

Its about time this was settled, once and for all.

Good luck NASA. Even if you find nothing, at least your trying.

Of course, lets not forget the obvious. If the Sun is/was part of a binary, it may not have stayed that way. I look up into the sky at night and there are some stars inside of a ten light year radius of Earth. All of these stars in a gravitational dance that could have kicked a companion right out of the system a long time ago. Proxima is only 4 lys away. Thats not very far. Something passing between it and us could very well be knocked off course due to the gravities of these bodies. Even if this "something" was in a long term binary orbit, well, the longer the term, the closer to Proxima it gets, the greater the likely hood of ejection. See, I can be reasonable!!!!

Now, with all that Nemesis stuff out of my system, I have a serious question you may have the answer to.

I was wondering if you knew of any filters or techniques that I could use to tease out the asteroids a bit. They are just so small and so faint. As far as I know, the only thing I can do is look for darker skies. But you have observed many meteors, I figure your probably into asteroids as well, and I figure that if there was a way, you may just know it. I spent a good amount of time in Leo the other night searching for these elusive objects. I just want to see one. To really see one with my OWN eyes. And my OWN equipment. Somehow, I think you, of all people, understand this desire.

Star

 

[ramparts]

Just FYI, it's not "NASA" who's trying. It's astronomers (probably Davy Kirkpatrick, who's quoted in the article, or more likely his students) who are using data from a NASA spacecraft which was launched for completely different reasons than finding Nemesis.

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

No, there is no definitive evidence for periodicity in mass extinctions. Besides, measuring mass extinctions is inherently a difficult and noisy process.

There was a (I believe History Channel) show on a few years ago that interviewed a group of archeologists & geologists who had seemed to have discovered a definitive increase in comet & asteroid impacts on specific cycles and linked it to the extintion of certain species. If I remember correctly, Discovery Channel also ran this show for a while. Their research was not initially pointing towards any "Nemesis" sister star, however they did mention that if this was the case it would explain a lot of what they were seeing in the research. There were a few very distinctive periods of increased activity in earth's history that caused mass extinctions that the researchers could not explain without involving another large body distrupting the Oort Cloud. I am wondering if it was from this show the whole Nemesis idea originated. But yes Wayne, they seemed to show evidence for these regular increases of impact activity via research. Not saying their work would prove 100% a Nemesis existed, or even close to that fact. However, I am just saying some research has been done in the field that the "most fitting" explanation for the results in the research were to involve another Star distrupting some point of the Oort Cloud. It was because of the required size the object had to be to cause their estimated amount of Oort Cloud distruption resulting in the amount of impact activity on earth during these periods why they believed only another star could be massive enough to cause this sort of increase. If I find it on Youtube or elsewhere, I will post a link to it here.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Please take anything seen on the DIscovery channel with a skeptical eye. Remember they show Nostrodomas, 2012 crap and other such high quality fare as serious science.

Always try and check out the peer reviewed material if you can.

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

lol, most understood. I always take research shown on there with a grain of salt. They also did a show on the Yetti, so.... lol. I just happen to remember them doing this segment about increases in impact activity and linking it to mass extinctions. I didn't think it was true... though it sounded very plausible when they put everything together the way they did.

Here is one link discussion the extinction periods which explains the link between the events and the extinctions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

I have to run out, but when I get some more time I will try to pull some research papers on this discussion.

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

This link goes into a bit more detail of why the theory of Nemesis originated by measurement comparisons between extinction rates vs Time (26 millions yr intervals). It also shows many diagrams that were included in a variety of submitted papers that were published in a few journals:

http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/lbl-nem.htm

 

[MeteorWayne]

Note that the paper it's based on is about 8 years old. Since then I've read a number of journal articles in Science and Nature that have found no evidence for the periodicity. In any case, this all fits in the "hypothesis" area, as research and analysis goes on. An interesting subject for discussion, but not enough evidence and evaluation for any firmer conclusions.

MW

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

I did find the topic quite interesting, though I myself did not believe Nemesis exists. The reason for my interest was that having read these topics, the research seemed very plausible; just to me unlikely. If you don't mind me asking Wayne, did Science & Nature completely disprove the articles hypothesis, or find another likely reason to explain mass extinctions? I know the next upcoming sky survey is supposed to be the best we ever had. I'm sure IF Nemesis were to exist, it would be that sky survey that would detect it. From reading wikipedia on mass extinctions, there has been a wide variety of theories thrown out to explain mass extinction events. Since I'm not totally up-to-date on the subject, I'm just curious to know if Science & nature now favors one over the other.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Basically they showed the periodicity that is the linchpin of the Nemisis hypothesis was shown to not be robust enough statistics wise.

I'll see if I can dig up some, but going through 8 years of weekly Science and Nature journals looking for a few specific articles ain't so easy

 

[ramparts]

Raven, while this isn't a knock against the science content of that paper (which I haven't read, and can't judge), you should be aware of the inherent bias. The paper's by the original author of the Nemesis theory (and one of the only people to devote much time to it), and it shouldn't be surprising that he claims to find evidence in support of his own theory. Science shouldn't work that way but unfortunately it often does. If you're trying to defend a theory, citing a paper from someone without personal investment in it is almost always going to look more credible.

MW, I'm sure a quick search for "Nemesis" on the arXiv would turn those papers up pretty quickly? Most Nature and Science papers get cross-posted.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Yeah, I know that, just haven't had the time. We've had power outages, flooding, and other stuff going on here in my neck of the woods, so I don't have too much research time right now. One unfortunate aspect of being a mod is that you really need to spend some time looking at all the new posts before you can address specific responses to subjects you are interested in.

That's why we are promised all the cheese sammiches we can eat (which never seem to arrive...which ain't necessarily a bad thing )

 

[ramparts]

In the Northeast by any chance, MW? We just had the same things!

 

[MeteorWayne]

Yes, northwestern NJ

 

[ramparts]

Yeah, that storm was brutal. Maybe Nemesis' gravitational pull caused the high tides and flooding?

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

LMAO, Ironically enough I was watching the History Channel last night and they were talking about The Book of Revolations and how some believes think some of the events in the book had already come to pass. lol, one of the events they thought pointed to a future encounter with Nemesis. So ya, the History Channel can air some far fetched stories. It was good for evening amusement since there was nothing else on.

I know all about how busy a Mod can be Wayne, and I don't much blame you if you can't respond right away. I am the Admin of my own site, and the only Mod. I hope the weather improves for you. Your not in any danger of being flooded out of house and home, are you?

 

[ramparts]

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/sc ... es_to_dumb

 

[MeteorWayne]

:lol: :lol: