Sun Likely Has a Long-Lost Twin

By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | June 14, 2017 06:57am ET


- click for image -

https://img.purch.com/h/1400/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGFjZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA2Ni85MTcvb3JpZ2luYWwvdHJpcGxlLXN0YXItc3lzdGVtLWZvcm1hdGlvbi5qcGc=


A radio image of a triple-star system forming within a dusty disk in the Perseus molecular cloud obtained by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile.
Credit: Bill Saxton, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NRAO/AUI/NSF


Nemesis is apparently real, even if its bad reputation is undeserved.

For decades, some scientists have speculated that the sun has a companion whose gravitational tug periodically jostles comets out of their normal orbits, sending them careening toward Earth. The resulting impacts have caused mass extinctions, the thinking goes, which explains the putative star's nickname: Nemesis.

Now, a new study reports that almost all sun-like stars are likely born with companions, bolstering the case for the existence of Nemesis. [Solar Quiz: How Well Do You Know the Sun?]

"We are saying, yes, there probably was a Nemesis, a long time ago," study co-author Steven Stahler, a research astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement.

More:
https://www.space.com/37186-sun-long-lost-twin-nemesis.html

Science:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/122852417