Author Topic: Did our sun have a twin?  (Read 1154 times)

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Online Gefn

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Did our sun have a twin?
« on: June 14, 2017, 05:32:38 pm »
University of California Berkeley said on June 13, 2017 that our sun “almost certainly” was born in the company of at least one other star, a twin, though not an identical twin. What’s more, according to this new research study, every other sunlike star in the universe was born with a sibling, also. This assertion is based on a radio survey of the Perseus molecular cloud, which is a giant cloud in space known to be forming new stars, located 600 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Perseus. And it’s based on a mathematical model that can explain astronomers’ observations of the Perseus molecular cloud only if all sunlike stars are born with a companion.

Astronomers have searched for a companion to our sun. Along the way, this hypothetical companion was dubbed Nemesis – for the Greek goddess of retribution – because the sun’s sibling was supposed to have kicked an asteroid into Earth’s orbit that collided with our planet and exterminated the dinosaurs. A Nemesis-type star in our own solar system has never been found, however. In recent years, the name has popped up mostly doomsday conspiracy theories, where an unseen and undiscovered “death star” companion to our sun periodically rains comets down on Earth.

Meanwhile, Steven Stahler, a UC Berkeley research astronomer, and Sarah Sadavoy, a NASA Hubble fellow at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, have been collaborating on their ideas about star formation – using observations of the Perseus molecular cloud as a basis for comparison – and now, according to Staher:

We are saying, yes, there probably was a Nemesis, a long time ago.

We ran a series of statistical models to see if we could account for the relative populations of young single stars and binaries of all separations in the Perseus molecular cloud, and the only model that could reproduce the data was one in which all stars form initially as wide binaries. These systems then either shrink or break apart within a million years.

In this study, “wide” means that the two stars are separated by more than 500 astronomical units (AU), where one AU is the average distance between our sun and Earth (93 million miles,or 150 million km). They said a wide binary companion to our sun would have been 17 times farther from our sun than its most distant major planet, Neptune.

Based on their model, the sun’s young sibling – the star they’re called Nemesis – no longer resides in our solar system. Their statement explained it:

… most likely escaped and mixed with all the other stars in our region of the Milky Way galaxy, never to be seen again.

Stahler and Sadavoy posted their findings in April on the arXiv server. Their paper has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

First author Sarah Sadavoy added:

The idea that many stars form with a companion has been suggested before, but the question is: how many? Based on our simple model, we say that nearly all stars form with a companion. The Perseus cloud is generally considered a typical low-mass star-forming region, but our model needs to be checked in other clouds.

The idea that all stars are born in a litter has implications beyond star formation, including the very origins of galaxies, Stahler said.

Read more about this study from UC Berkeley

http://earthsky.org/space/did-our-sun-have-a-twin
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rangerrebew

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New evidence that all stars are born in pairs
« Reply #1 on: June 15, 2017, 12:12:00 pm »
New evidence that all stars are born in pairs
June 14, 2017 by Robert Sanders


Did our sun have a twin when it was born 4.5 billion years ago?

Almost certainly yes—though not an identical twin. And so did every other sunlike star in the universe, according to a new analysis by a theoretical physicist from UC Berkeley and a radio astronomer from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard University.

Many stars have companions, including our nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, a triplet system. Astronomers have long sought an explanation. Are binary and triplet star systems born that way? Did one star capture another? Do binary stars sometimes split up and become single stars?


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-evidence-stars-born-pairs.html#jCp

Offline driftdiver

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Re: New evidence that all stars are born in pairs
« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2017, 12:31:01 pm »
I think we have too many people sitting around soaking up tax dollars under the guise of 'science'.
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Offline Cripplecreek

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Re: Did our sun have a twin?
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2017, 12:49:09 pm »
Most stars are binaries and born in much larger groups.

There are a whole family of stars theorized to be "siblings" of our sun due to the fact that they're all moving in the same general direction and speed as our sun.

Offline Joe Wooten

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Re: Did our sun have a twin?
« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2017, 03:32:02 pm »
Most stars are binaries and born in much larger groups.

There are a whole family of stars theorized to be "siblings" of our sun due to the fact that they're all moving in the same general direction and speed as our sun.

Don't forget also about the same age too.

Offline Ghost Bear

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Re: Did our sun have a twin?
« Reply #5 on: June 15, 2017, 04:02:54 pm »
Actually, I remember reading about this theory a while back, and as I recall the main argument against it is that we've located the stars similar to our Sun that are close by to our solar system, and none of them show a trajectory that would have put them close to our Sun early in its history. So if there was a "twin", it would have to have been a small red dwarf that we haven't yet detected. Which is possible.  :shrug:
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Re: Did our sun have a twin?
« Reply #6 on: June 15, 2017, 04:40:04 pm »
Actually, I remember reading about this theory a while back, and as I recall the main argument against it is that we've located the stars similar to our Sun that are close by to our solar system, and none of them show a trajectory that would have put them close to our Sun early in its history. So if there was a "twin", it would have to have been a small red dwarf that we haven't yet detected. Which is possible.  :shrug:

Small Red Dwarf? Paging Dave Lister.... :silly:

(Sorry, one of my all time favorite TV shows)
« Last Edit: June 15, 2017, 04:40:59 pm by Freya »
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Offline the_doc

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Re: Did our sun have a twin?
« Reply #7 on: June 15, 2017, 05:00:27 pm »
Small Red Dwarf? Paging Dave Lister.... :silly:


Maybe it's brown/infrared--like the Niburu folks have been talking about.

I am beginning to suspect that a large percentage of the astronomical publicity we have been hearing in the past six months is just paving the way for a big disclosure in the relatively near future.

Offline Ghost Bear

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Re: Did our sun have a twin?
« Reply #8 on: June 16, 2017, 04:10:39 pm »
Small Red Dwarf? Paging Dave Lister.... :silly:

(Sorry, one of my all time favorite TV shows)

I kind of walked into that one...   :laugh:
Let it burn.