Talk:Nemesis (hypothetical star)/Archive 1

Dating of theory

Does this theory predate or postdate Isaac Asimov's book Nemesis? In either case, should a reference to it be made? — Jor (Talk) 14:56, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The theory came first. --Dragons flight 23:30, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)

But star wars came even before that. so perhaps the "death star" mentioning is incorrect?

A reference to the book is probably not needed, although it is about a planetary system around a red dwarf star called nemesis the star is not a companion star to our own. Allywilson 17:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't we have found it already?

I'm little initiated in astronomy, but I am interested. I have a question: If Nemesis exists, it is the second closest star to Earth, and however small, much bigger than any planet, and however weak, emitting at least some light itself. How is it then possible that we can't see it with the most advanced telescopes we have got? --Caesarion 10:09, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We don't know the movements of about 3,000 nearby dwarf stars (it takes special parallax studies to know star movement). So if Nemesis exists, we probably have seen it, but wouldn't know (yet) that it is orbiting our sun.

69.171.160.244 (talk) 15:12, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I checked it out myself: If Nemesis exists we can see it with even a small telescope; we just have to identify a star (of 3,000 candidates), e.g. by checking its distance to Earth with the parallax method. --Caesarion 10:23, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Some people have also proposed that it could be a brown dwarf, which would make it much harder to detect. --bob rulz 08:54, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Professor Muller says that it could be hidden behind a cloud or something...

I have this question: what rules out the possibility that Nemesis is a black hole? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.183.57.98 (talk) 13:34, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Well... if there was a black hole in the Solar System, we would have to ask what the hell created it and why it hasn't been sucking in matterial, black holes don't throw things out, it brings them in.--Jakezing (talk) 01:22, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, black holes would kick things out just as well as red dwarfs. Also, they don't just suck everything in, if you're far away they act just like any other object of their mass. For example, if you magically replaced the sun with a solar mass black hole, the Earth wouldn't be sucked it, it would still orbit just fine. However, the question of how it got there would be a rather big one. --Falcorian ^(talk) 02:49, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Mass

What is the supposed mass of Nemesis? And where would the Sun-Nemesis barycenter be located and why we haven't noticed the movement of the Sun yet?

That would depend on its exact orbit, but it would have to be an order of magnitude less massive than the sun. The effects of gravity quickly decline over distance, so the barycentre can't be very far from the sun (I'd guess within the orbit of Mercury, but I haven't done any calculations). More importantly, the wobble must have a period equal to that of Nemesis' orbit (i.e. 27 Ma). Add in the movement caused by the all the other objects orbiting the sun and it becomes nearly impossible to measure something like that. Emilius V (talk) 10:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

magnitude

The magnitude estimates don't make sense and are best omitted. Any object between magnitudes 7 and 12 anywhere in the sky would have been discovered a long time ago already (through proper motion surveys or ongoing asteroid searches). And by the way, "at least magnitude 7" is understood to mean 7th magnitude or brighter (ie, 7 or 6 or 5, etc). --Curps 15:45, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

The contention, and I have only Muller somewhat dated word on this, is not that it hasn't been observed, but rather that the distance surveys are incomplete over a significant fraction of the sky (especially far from the plane of the solar system) so that the fact that it is very close has not previously been recognized. It should have said magnitude 7 or dimmer. It is also worth noting that the thing would be moving much slower than asteroids or comets, so most of the surveys designed to see such objects would overlook Nemesis. --Dragons flight 16:57, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but anything of magnitude 7 anywhere in the sky would have been discovered more than a century ago. In astronomical terms, this would be an extremely bright object. Many very slow-moving stars have been discovered through proper motion surveys, for instance Barnard's Star is of magnitude 9.5. Most of the nearest stars to the solar system have been discovered through such proper-motion surveys.

This is incorrect. There are several thousand catalogued red dwarves which have never been parallaxed before. These dwarf stars tend to get shoved aside as small and boring, uninteresting nobodies. However, recently a red dwarf was discovered a little over 7 light years away, and is now the 3rd closest star system to our sun.

The distance to Teegarden's star has been corrected to 12.6 light years. Therefore, if Nemesis is similar (in brightness) to that star and its distance is 1 lightyear, it should be 12.6² = 158.76 times as bright. That results in a magnitude difference of 5.5, or a magnitude of 9.9 for Nemesis. Icek 12:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Muller speculates that Nemesis IS a red dwarf (not a brown dwarf). *IF* a dim red dwarf (similar to Teegarden's star) was at a perihelion of 3 ly (maximum distance from the Sun. Again unlikely and a very unstable orbit), it would be 12.58ly/3ly=4.19 times closer and thus 17.58 times brighter (square of the distance rule). It would have a magnitude of 15.4-(log 17.58*2.512)=12.3. This is why Muller assumes Nemesis IS a red dwarf between 7.3 (Hipparcos) and 12th magnitude. -- Kheider (talk) 16:56, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I can't say exactly what magnitude Nemesis would have to be to remain undiscovered until today, but it would undoubtedly have to be considerably fainter than 12th (probably around 15th magnitude or fainter, given the recent discovery of Teegarden's Star). -- Curps 17:44, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

To be clear, if it exists, it almost certainly is already in the catalogs and has been for a long time, but many stars in the catalogs have never had their distance measured. Of course, I would agree with you that it is mostly likely considerably dimmer. However without someone authoritative source to refer to, we can't really overturn Muller's statement that it is most likely a red dwarf between magnitude 7 and 12 [1]. --Dragons flight 18:35, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

If it exists at all, it's a brown dwarf IMO. If it were an actual star at a distance like that, even a red dwarf, I don't think we would have missed it so far. Even a red dwarf at one light-year is going to be exceptionally bright by red dwarf standards and likely to raise suspicion. (A 7th magnitude red dwarf? If there were such an object, you better believe the first thing I'd do is check it out.) On the other hand, an old brown dwarf at that distance might not be any brighter than a Kuiper Belt object is, and easy to miss.

A red dwarf at 1 light year could easily be 10th or 11th magnitude - probably lower - and there are various ways to potentially hide it. I'm sure that precovery images can find it well, well back, but there are lots of stars that are poorly studied or essentially unstudied. Brown dwarf? Or just planet? Also possible ~ I've heard it suggested that objects as small as mars can create the effect (they can, at least, create the Kuiper cliff). WilyD 14:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I checked with Celestia, running what the brightness of the M9V red dwarf star DEN 1048-3956 would be at a distance of one light-year. That star, which is probably a good match for what Nemesis would be like, would be magnitude 11.7 at that distance, and there's so many objects at that magnitude that we'd likely not notice it unless we measured its distance. Based on that, I'd say Muller's idea of what Nemesis is, is sound. -- user: Jsc1973

That assumes that there is a Nemesis, which is speculative to say the least. Note that a brown dwarf would be fainter still. However, Hipparcos is complete down to ~11 mag and parallax of three arcseconds would be obvious in current sky surveys, which routinely go down to 15th magnitude over the entire sky (similar to the case of Teegarden's star), so we have an additional three magnitudes, which push any Nemesis firmly into the L-dwarf category. We have verged into original research. Celestia is either a blessing or a curse. Michaelbusch 04:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I was assuming for the purposes of the check that there is a Nemesis. I had no idea than an M-dwarf so close would be quite that dim. Agree that it doesn't belong in the article though. Can't help but think we won't find it anytime soon if it's a brown dwarf. It would have been cooling for the last 4.5 billion years. Jsc1973 08:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The star(if it exists)I consider is unlikely to be of a magnitude as high as 7 but could be dimmer, the 12th magnitude seems reasonable. Saying that because it hasn't been discovered yet so must be very dim is innacurate many known stars have not had their distance measured as Dragons Flight points out. I also believe it is to be a brown dwarf, an M-type star would be highly unusual to go unnoticed at such close proximity. I guess the WISE mission will tell us for sure. Allywilson 17:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, without verifiable sources we can't speculate much, but yeah - there's no way such a thing burns Hydrogen. Deuterium, maybe, but even that seems unlikely. A few Jupiter masses or less, maybe as little as an earth or such ... WilyD 17:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes well but then that brings a bigger point, we wouldn't be here if the sun was a black hole... -- Jakezing (talk) 03:35, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Astronomers say that you need a parallax observation (measurement from two geographically separated telescopes at the same time) to tell if a nearby dwarf star is co-orbiting our sun. There are a number of candidates but more work needs to be done to prove or disprove it. Additionally if it is a brown dwarf (barely warm or even cold semi-star, also called a 'dark star'-- which is a failed star that was just a little too small to have fired up in the first place) then it would be harder to detect.

Dark stars have been detected co-orbiting other stars but they are not easy to detect (they have to be caught passing in front of a live star and temporarily dimming it's light). Such occurrences are rare, but have been observed and verified by astronomers watching thousands of other star systems, so we know there are some dark stars out there. -- 69.171.160.183 (talk) 18:27, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

You measure parallax by making observations 6 months apart so that you can use the width of Earth's orbit to measure the parallax. Brown dwarfs are also detected by direct observation in the infrared spectrum as well as the same way as exoplanets. They are detected through the doppler spectroscopy (pulling on the host star) and the transit method. -- Kheider (talk) 22:23, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

There are hundreds of nearby (within a few hundred light years) mapped stars (especially red dwarf stars) where astronomers haven't yet tracked their trajectory (path through space). There may be even more as yet undiscovered brown dwarfs in our stellar neighborhood. So it's very possible that we haven't found it yet, but couold in the near future. -- 198.59.46.5 (talk) 22:42, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Death Star

Star Wars came out in 1977 and this article reports that Nemesis was first proposed in 1984. If Star Wars came first, and it was already huge by 1984, how could the Death Star nickname have "fallen out of usage due to its fictional use in the Star Wars universe." --[User:SimonP|SimonP]] 20:53, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

You probably need to ask User:L. who is the one that added that material, but if I were to make a random guess, perhaps some people wanted to refer to it as the Death Star and did for a while, but that it never caught on because the public at large had already equated Death Star to Star Wars. --Dragons flight 21:52, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Why does the phrase "Nemesis (Death Star)" refer/link to the Star Wars Space Station? 122.2.111.174 (talk) 10:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe the term "dark star" is correct and from what I gather "death star" as part of a conversation concerning Nemesis is a joke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.111.134.2 (talk) 02:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Not for either of our definitions of "Dark star" WilyD 04:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

abrupt outer bound for Kuiper Belt as evidence

The shape of Saturn's rings, the abrupt outer bound for the Kuiper Belt and observations of two nearby stars are offered as possible evidence for the existence of Nemesis. [2]

Said evidence is sketchy at best.Michaelbusch 20:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• There is certainly a much more widely accepted explaination, anyhow. WilyD 17:08, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Discussion regarding competing theory

I have removed all of your changes to the Nemesis (star) article. While the Binary Research Institute proposes the existence of a companion to the sun they do so in a much shallower orbit and do not identify it with Muller's Nemesis (a name that never even appears on their website). Hence their theories don't really belong in the Nemesis article, but perhaps you could start an article about the BRI? Dragons flight 17:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

• I didn't even know they existed until something on Slashdot showed up this morning. They however did cite Muller regarding his comet work. If you feel it all needs to be explained under a new article, that would make some sense.
  • That's actually a weird place to cite Muller since he actually doesn't believe in the "belt of comets", as he generally chalks that result up to observational bias and statistical error in judging the significance of the enhancement. I do think though that any discussion of a companion with ~20 kyr orbit needs to happen in a different article since Muller's Nemesis proposal has a 26 Myr orbit, and hence is a very different object. Dragons flight 18:54, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I'll copy-paste this to Nemesis discussion for future guidance & I or someone else will work on this later. Cwolfsheep 19:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
      • It appears from their website that the founders are some form of crypto-danikenites, attempting to link a companion star with ancient mythologies of 'golden ages' and 'gods' from the sky who walked among men. At best, they are pseudo-scientists or creationists, at worst, UFO cargo-cultists. The problem is that this sort of topic is likely to attract many fringe elements due to its tones of chiliasm and millenialism. The 26 million year time frame doesn't meet their ideas of recent "hidden" human history, so they need a shorter orbital period to make it work. If they knew their science, they'd know how relatively easy it would be for a technological civilization to travel a mere 1-1.5 light years (the estimated current distance of Nemesis, according to Muller) via fission or fusion pulse detonation propulsion (aka Project Orion and Daedalus) in 20 years. Entirely attainable. If humanity knew how close the nearest star was (if Nemesis exists), the space program would become a major global priority, so there are also political undertones to this topic as well.

Page name

Disambiguation should be kept as simple as is necessary to distinguish the topic from related topics with which it might be confused. As far as I know there are no other stars (real or hypothetical) that bear the name Nemesis, and hence labelling it (hypothetical star) rather than (star) is unnecessary. Dragons flight 20:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps. It must be distinguished from the asteroid, however.

Requested move

Nemesis (hypothetical star) → Nemesis (star) – As above, parenthetical names should be as simple as is necessary to avoid existing conflicts. They are not intended as a form of categorization. In this case, (star) is more than sufficient to the distinguish the topic, and Nemesis (star) is the title it has had since its inception. I tried to move it back, but another user reverted, so I am listing this at RM. Dragons flight 18:54, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

Discussion

Add any additional comments

I disagree with both names. The hypothesis is for Nemesis to be a brown dwarf. By definition, a brown dwarf is substellar and should not be called a "star." By analogy, a dwarf planet is not a planet. Consider the name "Nemesis (hypothesis)" or something like that.Teply (talk) 02:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Some more info

Can there be more information added about this hypothesis' reception by the broader astonomical community, and any objection to the hypothesis be added. Basejumper2 21:51, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

General Astronomical community has agreed Nemesis is a load of Bullshit.--Jakezing (talk) 15:27, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggested change to introduction

I suggest that

"The existence of this star was originally postulated in an attempt to explain an inferred periodicity in the rate of biological extinction in the geological record."

be replaced with:

"This star was originally postulated to exist as part of a hypothesis to explain a perceived cycle of mass extinctions in the geological record."

-- 65.78.13.238 (talk) 05:34, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Criticism

There is no criticism section. The periodicity of extinctions itself is contested in the literature. Granting periodicity, it is further contested that the Nemesis hypothesis is an adequate explanation. The geological and astronomical evidence in favor of the hypothesis are virtually nonexistent. There should be a criticism section. I'll add one once time permits, but I'd appreciate it if someone could start on that now. Auspex1729 (talk) 20:15, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I removed the balance tag. I don't see anything in the article insisting that this hypothesis is true, or that anyone takes it seriously. Viriditas (talk) 22:11, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Science or Nature recently (2001-3, I believe) ran an article on spheroidal objects on the moon that seemed to be well associated with the nemesis theory. They were supposed to have been created following asteroid pummelings. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 23:18, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

ETA to next theorized effect on Earth?

Has anyone in the scientific community (including Muller by chance?) given any estimated timeframe in which we could be due for another volley of asteroids? If so, perhaps someone could construct a timeline chart showing the spans between extinction events & where we currently rest before the next proposed event? I believe such a visual representation will greatly aid some readers in understanding the timeframes between events and where we are currently estimated to be. Obviously "Nemesis" is neither proven nor disproven, however I believe it is generally accepted that there exists a pattern within the timeline of extinction events here on Earth. What say you? ~User:Rayne Nov. 10th, 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.30.80.161 (talk) 22:35, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

21 million years is the ETA mentioned in the article. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 23:15, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

That's hardly enough time for me to do all the things I want to do. Very depressing.

98.245.148.9 (talk) 19:30, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Similar theory

Should a link to the Nibiru, Hopi Blue Star, and the Egyptian "Destroyer" be added here? Perhaps there's a place to discuss these theories as 1 in the same? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.34.188.237 (talk) 19:05, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Except that none of these are scientific theories. Nemesis is a hypothetical object whose existence is supported by some data (and even that is questionable) but which has never been observed. Nibiru and those other "theories" are pseudoscience at best, based on no evidence, are untestable, etc. It would be like adding a section on homeopathy to the article on medicine. Wyatt Riot (talk) 20:35, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is a very important distinction. There is science and data behind the Nemesis theory (correct or not), whereas the other theories have no science behind them.

Science, not creative and sensational blogging, should be the reason for inclusion in a serious astronomy article.

75.166.172.10 (talk) 12:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Seriously, guys, it's done. The WISE results are out. Go see for yourself. It was a fun theory while it lasted. 67.1.65.124 (talk) 10:35, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

New Article

There was a new good article on the subject in Space Daily on March 12, 2010: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Getting_WISE_About_Nemesis_999.html

Volkermonterey (talk) 18:43, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Gliese 710

Does anyone know the trajectory or the orbital parameters of Gliese 710? Could that star actually be Nemesis? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kharri1073 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Did you not read the infobox for Gliese? It's only, what, 70ly away.... TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 03:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe that he's getting at this: Gliese is currently ~63ly away, but (according to the article) within 1.4mil years it will be a mere 1.1ly away, and this could possibly be something regular rather than a "fly by". In any case, there's nothing in the article on Gliese 710 suggesting that it's the real culprit, if there even is one. Wyatt Riot (talk) 04:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Huh. Appears I need to do more than a flyby. :( My understanding of stellar dynamics, tho, suggests Gliese is still a real longshot, since it would be on a loooong orbit away; a "death star" would have to be a local object. (IIRC, Isaac postulated a brown dwarf.) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 09:19, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, even if Gliese were the culprit, it would probably require a fairly large black hole (or some other massive object) in the Local Bubble that Gliese could rotate around in order to cause the (supposed) periodicity needed to cause these extinctions. Of course, I've never heard of such an object, and I'm sure we'd know about it as it would affect us just as much. I'm calling this myth busted.  :) Wyatt Riot (talk) 17:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Objects farther from the sun than about a light year are certainly not bound, at least on multi-orbit timescales. Anything at 50+ lightyears is a certainty not to be bound. If something at that distance were bound, interactions with other stars, or even the galactic tide, would unbind it. Typically, the distance between stars is a parsec, any bound objects are going to be substantially closer than that (i.e. look at the extent of the Oort Cloud, which goes to ~10000 AU (or maybe less). If you want to speculate, run wild, but the obvious constraint is this: If there's a Nemesis, Hipparcos doesn't have a parallax for it, so it's dimmer than v = 11.5. WilyD 04:48, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, I was clear right up to that answer. ;D "certainly not bound"? And v<=11.5? Do you rule out a dim brown dwarf beyond c 10KAU? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 06:19, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I mean, anything farther than ~100 000 AU from the sun isn't gravitationally bound to the sun, it's orbit is going to be a hyperbola, and we shan't see it again for a long time (i.e. never). I don't know brown dwarf evolutionary tracks, so I can't say anything to what the v band magnitude of a brown dwarf at 10^5 AU is going to be. It might be low, and then you might need to worry about whether it'd show up in other surveys at longer wavelengths. But yeah, anything with v >= 11.5 at a distance of less than a parsec would be obvious in Hipparcos data. WilyD 21:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Thx. ;D Given v =briteness (in one form/another), I would expect a brown dwarf would be spotted that close, too. (IIRC, Hipparcos hadn't flown when Isaac wrote Nemesis, & he'd certainly have known about a negative result: i.e, he'd never have placed a brown dwarf close if he'd known as a fact there couldn't be one so close.) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 21:55, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

If the periodicity of those extinction events according to the most recent calculations being on the order of every ~36 million years (or more) is any guide, you wouldn't even need something orbitally bound to the Sun to have said effect ― doesn't the Sun take just as long to orbit Sagittarius A*, at the very most? Something bound to the Sun, orbitally speaking, would perturb the Oort cloud much more frequently than that. Has anyone calculated the orbital direction of Gliese 710? Because there's a good chance that, if the Sun is orbiting the galaxy in one direction and Gl710 orbits the galaxy in the opposite direction (e.g. head-on orbits), there's a good chance that Gl710 might, whenever those orbits result in near-head-on collisions, perturb the Oort cloud just as frequently as the scientists claim. ―2602:306:BCA6:8300:497E:9870:8E3B:A287 (talk) 04:45, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Comments

"Nemesis a red star or brown dwarf orbiting the sun"? If there was a star moving around our sun, our sun would be moving too. But if it was, we'd notice it by now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CondensedOcean (talk • contribs) 07:32, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Not if it was in a wide orbit (the suns wobble would be extremely slow then). Only close-in objects, or super-massive stars would otherwise cause an easily detectable wobble.

98.245.148.9 (talk) 19:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

hey wikipedia, check out this link with new evidence from the WISE infrared monitoring system: Persistent Evidence of a Jovian Mass Solar Companion in the Oort Cloud —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.31.22.43 (talk) 10:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Image

The new image looks like bad! The previous one also wasn't the greatest image, but it did look much better. tildetildetildetilde—Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.84.100 (talk • contribs) 18:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Article suffers from misinformation, no references, bad math

This article lacks references that are outside the realm of the researchers who are forwarding these hypotheses. If this was in fact verifiable, I want to see verifiable sources, as in actual, reputable scientific sources, not just from the guys that thought it up.

Also, the line "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" is wrong, as the last major extinction event was not 5 million years ago, it was 65 million years ago. (the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event) This sentence, if allowed to continue existing on Wikipedia, should also be edited for clarity.

...Which also puts to rest the unverified claim that "The average time interval between extinction events was determined as 26 million years." earlier in the article. The last major extinction prior to the most recent was the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event, 205 million years ago, and before that, 251 million years ago, and then 375 million years ago, so it's impossible that this article's data is correct.We undergo many small-scale extinctions that are calculated in the 10-100 thousand year range, which also means this article is faulty.

There are 5 things taken from reference #5, which is a magazine article. That's not wikipedia worthy. The author, Leslie Mullen, seems to write a lot of bull**** articles, this one being no exception.

Reference 6 is just some guy spouting junk.

Basically, for a scientific article, it's lacking science. Although not surprising, as this is a heated topic in the conspiracy theory world, and I smell trouble afoot. I think this article is tinged in the favor of conspiracy theorists, and I move for it's deletion, or a heavy edit until real proof is available and referenced.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ghettosauce (talk • contribs) 14:08, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Here is the reference you were asking for--

Persistent Evidence of a Jovian Mass Solar Companion in the Oort Cloud (Tyche) 98.245.171.33 (talk) 03:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Do not confuse the 2010 Tyche (hypothetical planet) with the unsupported 1984 theory that an undiscovered star/brown dwarf is on a 26 million year orbit that causes predictable mass extinctions. -- Kheider (talk) 11:30, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

The article has many science references. It's never too late to learn how to read carefully instead of reacting. -- 75.166.172.10 (talk) 16:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Many of the references come from Space.com and that is not of the same quality as a peer-reviewed paper. -- Kheider (talk) 11:30, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Biblioteca Pleyades

The edit where I removed reference to the unreliable source Biblioteca Pleyades was removed and flagged as vandalism. Ignoring the failure on the part of Trekphiler to assume good faith, I still think this edit should be reinstated.

For the unreliability of the source, observe that their home page contains the text "Everything on this Site has been obtained on the Internet," and that the article linked at no point actually cites anything that it claims. Browsing around, one can find various conspiracy theory articles on Biblioteca Pleyades. Its credibility is highly suspect at best.

Given that the linked passage seems to essentially exist for no purpose other than to cast doubt on the theory that the hypothesized star Nemesis (a popular astronomical source of crackpot theories) doesn't exist, and the propensity of Biblioteca Pleyades to publish crackpot theories, I removed the edit based on the assumption that Wikipedia generally doesn't make itself the home of crackpot theories and unreliable sources. But since my edit was reverted and flagged as vandalism, I felt I should post an explanation before I go ahead and remove the reference again--unless someone can find an actual, reliable source, of course. 24.18.187.152 (talk) 05:18, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to Rothorpe's edit, which was reverting the removal of (what appeared to be) referenced material without any sort of indication why. I'm glad that you brought this to the Talk page, however, because you were absolutely right in removing it. I just took out the whole section, because it's really unsupported by anything remotely resembling a reliable source. This article is fringy enough without us relying on the "evidence" of quasi-astrology sites. Wyatt Riot (talk) 06:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, an edit summary such as 'rm fringe theory' was lacking. Rothorpe (talk) 00:42, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Nemesis in shows?

Nemesis was in the show Sailor Moon and dragon ball z both show Nemesis was doing chaos on earth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.252.39.109 (talk) 19:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Distance units

Surely, you mean 24 billion kilometers? --Anon

Richard Muller has postulated an orbit around the sun that extends from 1-3 light-years. One light year is approx. 10 trillion kilometers.

Note: US citisens often mess billions and milliards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dragnik (talk • contribs) 19:14, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

US Citizens don't use milliards. It's not in our language.

98.245.148.9 (talk) 08:37, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

big problom in the nemesis page

50% of pepol says Tyche is not nemesis but the oter hafe says it is so is nemesis & Tyche the same ting, if not wee need a new page for the new hypothetical Tyche. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.252.39.109 (talk) 20:25, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

It's evident this refers to a different body than the Nemesis proposal. Do us a favor & desist from adding it here? (I'm also not sure the Tehran Times is reliable....) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 23:35, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The Oort cloud is hypothetical; Sedna is not fixed in space

"observations by astronomers of the sharp edges of Oort clouds, similar to that of the Solar System"

This sentence is misleading as it implies that both the Oort cloud existence and its edge sharpness are fact.

The http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Oort_cloud article states:

only four currently known trans-Neptunian objects—90377 Sedna, 2000 CR105, 2006 SQ372, and 2008 KV42—are considered possible members of the inner Oort cloud.

Even if this was to be confirmed, it is far too small a sample to show any sign of an edge.

"Brown postulates that perhaps it is responsible for Sedna’s mystifying orbit, its gravitational influence keeping Sedna fixed in that far-distant portion of space."

This is of course completely wrong: Sedna is not in a fixed position, and even stretching the meaning as gravitational influence keeping Sedna's orbit fixed would be just as wrong. Brown's idea is that a hypothetical massive unseen object could have disrupted Sedna's orbit into what it is today, in a one-time event. More about that here.

These two points need to be corrected, sorry that I don't feel my English is good enough to do it myself. -- 84.100.26.41 (talk) 21:17, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

nasa pioneer probe nemesis

can some one add this.Looks interesting http://www.nepanewsletter.com/pioneer.html

also astronomers are getting confident to discover this in 2 years via wmap probe http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/up-telescope-search-begins-for-giant-new-planet-2213119.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.200.35.254 (talk) 12:00, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

new planet in ar solar system and it's up to four times the size of Jupiter?

link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1356748/Search-Tyche-believed-largest-planet-solar-system.html link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/up-telescope-search-begins-for-giant-new-planet-2213119.html link: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/137587/addition-solar-system-may-four.html can any one tell me that the new planet is nemesis? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.82.230.90 (talk) 14:32, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Those links are about a completely different, also conjectured object. You can find the article about it at Tyche (planet), which is also linked in the See also section. Wyatt Riot (talk) 05:52, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Nemesis is not Tyche (at least as far as we know)

This article is about the hypothetical companion dwarf star existing outside the Oort cloud as theorized by Raup and Sepkoski. There is another article, Tyche (planet), about a hypothetical gas giant existing somewhere within or on the outer edge of the Oort cloud as theorized by Matese and Whitmire. These objects, if they do exist, could potentially be the same object (either a low-mass star or a high-mass planet), or they could be different objects, though we're probably not going to know for several months, if not years. What we do know, however, is that they have different names, are different types of objects, have different supposed locations, and also have different articles on Wikipedia. Please confine material specifically about Nemesis to this article and material specifically about Tyche to that article. Cheers! Wyatt Riot (talk) 20:25, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

If that's true, & since my head hurts with the number of times it's been added & removed, ;p "(also called "Tyche" by some scientists)" is probably not true & should be removed. I'm also highly skeptical this is a reliable source on astronomy news... It ain't exactly Scientific American. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 21:09 & 21:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Eighteen Stars Have ‘Nemesis Orbit’ Around Our Sun...but what one is nemesis?

http://www.gearfuse.com/eighteen-stars-have-nemesis-orbit-around-our-sun/ so wee have 18 red dwarf stars orbiting ar sun...— Preceding unsigned comment added by Freiza667 (talk • contribs) 12:43, 18 February 2011

I reverted your change. Gearfuse is, quite honestly, a poor-quality source with unnecessary and amateurish commentary. It's especially unneeded since it's based on the space.com article which is already referenced in the article. Wyatt Riot (talk) 18:56, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

It looks like two poorly written articles (both the blog and the space.com article). The researcher was actually describing red dwarves in non-solar orbits (around other stars), and also the long-term movements of exo-solar systems, that may pass near our solar system (although these are over, in reality, vast periods of time, in some cases billion-year stretches).

So no they are not orbiting our sun, as far as I can tell (so far) from other sources I am reading on the research.

173.246.35.185 (talk) 12:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 2011

Nemesis (star) → Nemesis (hypothetical star) — Nemesis is a hypothetical 1984 explanation to mass extinctions every 27 million years and the article should be named accordingly. -- Kheider (talk) 14:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Those interested also might consult the opinions expressed (in 2006) in the sections #Page name and #Requested move supra.

• Support makes sense, and per Talk:Tyche (planet)#Requested move. -- 65.95.15.144 (talk) 05:10, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support. User:Dragons flight five years ago argued against this, essentially stating that a page title should be as short as possible, without inducing ambiguity. I agree with the opinion that a title preferrably should be short, ceteris paribus; but it should not be as short as to give a false description. Since there are lots of factual stars, whose existence is acknowledged by a very clear consensus, the shorter name Nemesis (star) misleads the reader to believe that Nemesis is one of these. Similarly, we have an article named 9/11 conspiracy theories; it is not named 9/11 conspiracies (although that name is shorter and would not lead to amiguity), simply because that title in itself would convey the misleading impression that there is a consensus of a factual existence of such conspiracies.

In brief, a title should not be grossly misleading, even if this restriction forces it to be a bit longer. JoergenB (talk) 14:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Since WP is supposed to be for the general reader, who probably doesn't know about the hypothetical nature of Nemesis (just the name), starting with that seems like a good idea. I'd presume "Nemesis (star)" redirects. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 18:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Ruslik_Zero 20:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Rothorpe (talk) 00:03, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

   Done Ruslik_Zero 20:10, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Although the vote is over I'd like to add my agreement. It's a hypothetical star and that should be reflected in the title.

173.246.35.185 (talk) 13:05, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Rogue brown dwarfs

If "dark matter" is really a reservoir, of as-yet-unobserved "dim matter" Brown Dwarfs, then our star system would fairly frequently (geologically speaking) interact with such substars. Thus, close encounters, not with a single such substar, but with dozens of different Brown Dwarfs, over the past 4.5 Gyr, could consistently account, for the Nemesis theory, and the observations underlying the same. -- 24.143.65.75 (talk) 08:20, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

You would need to prove that a rogue brown dwarf has interacted with the planetary region of the Solar System since about the stone age. But a brown dwarf passing near the inner solar system would have perturbed the dominant planets and left a clue. Scientifically, it is much more likely that any real Nemesis stories are based off of a close encounter(s) with a extinct comet that had a 3,500yr orbital period. Nemesis is suppose to have a ~28 million year orbit. -- Kheider (talk) 14:35, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Tone needs work

I'm concerned that the tone of this article makes it seem like astronomers actually consider the search for Nemesis to be a credible pursuit, which is not the case at all.AstroCog (talk) 11:58, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm concerned about scientists who want to shut down all speculation and discussion on "out of bounds topics" (in other words, scientists who act like religious clerics, protecting the "sacred dogma" from any questioning). 74.205.145.75 (talk) 03:19, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Please see WP:Assume good faith. I don't see in what way Astrocog has offended you - he is merely saying that, at the moment, there is no solid proof of Nemesis' existence and so the tone of the article must reflect this, rather than a tone that is biased and violates WP:Point of view by suggesting this is credible with no sources for this or no proof whatsoever. Astrocog does not intend to stop the growth of science or to limit any view, he is only saying that it is bad to be too ambitious, too early, as is shown by the tone of this article. We must keep it real - although Nemesis could exist, and we're not saying that it doesn't and that there's no point trying to find it, at the moment the existence of Nemesis has not been proven, nor is it's existence likely due to this, so we have to keep this in mind. I hope I have cleared things up and that Astrocog did not intend his comment in a bad way. Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 16:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

The title of the article includes the word "Hypothetical", so it makes no such false claims. You also claim that the article has "no sources" for the theory, and yet it is has numerous scientific citations. That doesn't mean that the theory is correct, but it does mean that it has merited close attention and examination by a number of scientists (cited in numerous places in the article).

Furthermore, the fact that you could claim that the article has "no sources" (when it is actually loaded with scientific citations and references on the topic), also means that you never even bothered to read the article before you posted all of this. -- 69.171.160.225 (talk) 06:06, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

• I never said the article had no sources for the theory of Nemesis' existence. I only said that the article had no sources that prove the theory of Nemesis' existence is correct. Therefore, we must keep the correct tone. Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 20:09, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

• Furthermore, the article has to reflect the title, which I believe wasn't true in this case - the tone did not suggest Nemess' existence as being 'hypothetical' - it suggested that it's existence has been proven when, of course, it hasn't! Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 20:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I have adjusted the tone and synth of this article because other than the original promoters of the Nemesis theory, I can not find any "other scientists" that support it. The proper reference to Mike Brown's 2006 Discover magazine comments is here. Sedna could have been placed onto its orbit by a random passing star early in the solar system. The 2MASS astronomical survey failed to detect a star or brown dwarf in the solar system. Preliminary results from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer have NOT detected Nemesis. -- Kheider (talk) 10:07, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I have re-added some templates removed by 69.171.etc. for now as the article still needs work, but you've done a good job. Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 20:16, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Kheider can not have BOTH, as you just said, "done a good job" correcting any "tone issues" AND yet, as you then stated, the article still requires a tone banner. --69.171.160.140 (talk) 02:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Kheider did do a good job but the article still needs work. What's wrong about that? Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 10:10, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

• WP:NPOV clearly states, in it's opening sentence, that different views must be treated proportionately. This means that the more likely point of view, in terms of evidence behind that view, should be treated as the main view, with other views also added alongside. In this case, the most likely view due to lack of evidence is that Nemesis does not exist. Therefore, this should be the main view of the article, with the view that it could exist written in a seperate section, rather than distributing the views equally, which is what has happened to this article. WP:NPOV also states that views cannot contradict each other, therefore the two views must be seperated into two sections, the main view first and alternate views afterwards. This makes it easier for readers to understand what the general view is, and also about the other views as they are not 'jumbled up' (see WP:Layout for more information). These are the reasons why I have replaced the tone banner - it is not because I want to downgrade the article, it is because I want other users to see the banner and, consequently, attempt to improve the tone of the article. Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 10:20, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, I never said that Kheider had done a good job correcting the tone issues, I said simply that he had done a good job. I meant by this that he had done a good job improving, but not yet eradicating, the tone issues that the article has. Therefore, the article still needs the tone banner. Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 10:24, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

• I'm sorry to have caused such a brouhaha with my tone comment. I certainly didn't mean to offend the article's editors, though I can see how I might have. Of course, I also don't appreciate being attacked on my talk page, but notice that my comments here are not going to take that particlar troll bait. That's the problem with internet comments..but as my GoldRock23 points out, always assume good faith on WP before jumping to conclusions. Anyway, I think the tone issues have largely been taken care of. Nemesis is a notable hypothesis, albeit one that is only given serious consideration by a handle of scientists, and a much larger group of enthusiastic amateurs. I don't think the article needs the "tone" tag anymore, although probably a few more words could change to reflect the unlikely nature of its subject. AstroCog (talk) 11:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The only reason I left the tag on was to encourage users to make changes to "those few more words". Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 13:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I fear this article now uses excessive weasel words and requires cleaning up. -- Kheider (talk) 00:01, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Kheider's personal notes for this article:

• Melott and Bambach argue their findings suggest Nemesis couldn't possibly exist. (Space2010-07)
• The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) failed to discover Nemesis in the 1980s.
• The 2MASS astronomical survey failed to detect a star or brown browf in the solar system. (Space2010-03)
• Preliminary results from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer have not detected Nemesis. (Kirkpatrick2011v1)
• A non-companion star passing near the Sun could have placed Sedna on its current orbit. (Kenyon)
• The theory of periodic extinctions itself is still debated (Space2010-03)
• Scientists no longer think an object like Nemesis could exist because if it did it would have been detected long ago in infrared sky surveys. (Morrison)
  • (April 9, 2010)
  • However, we have known for a couple of decades, as a result of previous infrared sky searches, that this hypothetical Nemesis does not exist. (November 25, 2010)
• As of 2011, over 1300 brown dwarfs have been identified and none of them are inside of the Solar System. (DwarfArchives.org)
• Recent scientific analysis no longer supports the idea that extinctions on Earth happen at regular, repeating intervals. Thus, the Nemesis hypothesis is no longer needed. (Mullen2010)
• Keck opinion on Nemesis 2011-Nov-09 (@6:00 into the video)
• The Tycho-2 Catalogue of the proper motions of more than 2.5 million of the brightest stars was published in 2000, and did not detect Nemesis.

-- Kheider (talk) 05:58, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Proper motion surveys such as that which found Barnard's Star would not be expected to turn it up - it's another dimension to the needle-in-a-haystack problem. In the case of independent systems we can generally expect fast proper motion to indicate a nearby object. However, Nemesis (if it exists) is part of our own system and therefore presumably moving with it. All you're left with is the orbital motion of the star, which for a 26 million year orbit averages out at just under 5mas per year - 2,000 times lower than Barnard's Star. That is also close to the accuracy of Tycho's proper motion figures, and it certainly isn't high enough to make it a stand out figure on any basis. Crispmuncher (talk) 20:00, 28 November 2011 (UTC).

I agree. But the fact is, a red dwarf within 1.5 ly of the Sun did not pop-out. If I thought the Tycho-2 Catalogue was significant it would already be in the article. But as you noted, with an accuracy of around 5mas per year, there is still a chance Tycho's proper motion figures could have detected an eccentric red dwarf orbiting the Sun. The Tycho-2 Catalogue is certainly no worse than the pro-Nemesis argument, "Since a red dwarf has not been detected orbiting the Sun, it might still exist." -- Kheider (talk) 20:29, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Please read current revisions and citations carefully before posting. A number of changes in the opening were made today. Thanks, 69.171.160.150 (talk) 00:40, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I have re-worked the tone to reflect the scientific consensus that Nemesis is not expected to exist. The article had suffered from Wikipedia:NPOV/Due and undue weight. -- Kheider (talk) 09:30, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the misleading SYNTH that 2MASS could not detect a brown dwarf cooler than 750 Kelvin. The closer something is, the easier it is to detect. With WISE we will be able to see 450-K brown dwarfs out to a distance of 75 light-years (ly), 300-K brown dwarfs out to 20 ly, and 150-K brown dwarfs out to 10 ly. A brown dwarf in the Solar System should have been detected by IRAS and 2MASS. -- Kheider (talk) 15:31, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Tyche is not a substitute for Nemesis

The section on Tyche either needs to be deleted or rephrased, as right now it reads as if Tyche were a "Nemesis alternative", which it is not. Tyche is proposed to explain an entirely different set of data. Nemesis is drawn from mass extinctions, Tyche from long-period comet frequencies. To suggest that Tyche is somehow theoretically connected to Nemesis is misleading. Yes Tyche owes its name to Nemesis, but nothing else. Serendi^podous 18:59, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, & done. Also, AFAIK, Tyche hasn't been found, either... TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 19:59, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Scientist(s)

Can anyone name any recent scientist(s) that believe Nemesis is a brown dwarf in the solar system? (And no, I am not talking about references to the original authors and 1984 when the hypothesis was thought up.) Without a reference to a reputable scientist, the modern scientific consensus has to be that Nemesis does not exist. -- Kheider (talk) 14:53, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The scientific consensus is that there's little to no evidence to support the existence of Nemesis. We're still waiting for the WISE results, but until there's a positive result, it's like believing in Russell's teapot. (That's my understanding of the most current evidence, at least.) That being said, I wouldn't use the words "does not exist" in the article. The technology we're using is still rather new and the search technically still ongoing, plus it's difficult to rule these things out until you've actually got satellites in the area. That seems to be the general trend in other articles as well. The articles linked from List of hypothetical Solar System objects essentially say "no evidence to support belief" because they're in difficult-to-reach or difficult-to-measure areas. Articles like Martian canals, on the other hand, say "this doesn't exist" because we've done plenty of flyovers and surface mapping to know the truth. Unfortunately, this is probably going to be one of those "no evidence" situations until we start sending more satellites towards the edge of our solar system. Wyatt Riot (talk) 15:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The ability to detect red dwarfs of magnitude 7-12 and measure parallax has been around since the use of computers became commonplace in the 1980s. (Fail #1) Our ability to detect sizable brown dwarfs has been around since the 1980s. (Fail #2) The less massive a brown dwarf is, the less likely it is to even be close the 1984 definition of Nemesis as red dwarf star. It is just as easy to detect a (warm) brown dwarf from Earth orbit (using parallax measurements every 6 months) as it is to detect the same brown dwarf with a spacecraft near the edge of the Solar System. Nearby brown dwarfs are very bright in the infrared. I am still waiting for the name of one recent scientist that supports the very-dated Nemesis hypothesis. -- Kheider (talk) 18:41, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

There some places near the galactic plane where a brown dwarf can hide even from WISE. Ruslik_Zero 10:53, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Noted that a brown dwarf might hide there, but a red dwarf would be fairly obvious. "There will be some regions such as the Galactic Plane where the observations are less sensitive or fields more crowded, but we'll search those areas too." -- Kheider (talk) 14:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes the Discovery Channel (or the History Chabnnel) ran a new segment that aired for the first time last week. There are still professional scientists who believe the theory is possible (interviewed in the recent segment). However the segment did also interview scientists (including Mike Brown, who once was more sympathetic to the theory) who do not currently support the theory. Claiming, as was recently added to the article, that "no scientists support the theory" anymore is very biased, and smacks of using the article to push one's personal opinion instead of a belief in, or understanding of, what neutral writing really is.

Neutral writing is not "getting your way by playing the Wikipedia game better", neutral writing is a detached (distant and unconcerneed) approach to writing where no point of view is being pushed, and all of the facts are being evaluated (regardless of where they may lead).

Simply swinging the article from it's previous (somewhat) pro-Nemesis bias to it's current anti-Nemesis bias isn't neutral writing, it is gamesmanship. The only problem with that is that the truth is not revealed through playing Wikipedia rules like a chess game. The truth is often ambiguous, or unknown, rather than being simply "true" or "false" (similar to "win" or "lose" in a chess game). -- 161.98.13.100 (talk) 00:26, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

The article still needs the name of a recent scientist that believes the theory. Quoting the scientists that created the theory back in 1984 creates no modern support for the theory. Until you can name a recent scientist, the current consensus is that it does not exist. -- Kheider (talk) 14:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

A recent scientist, how could Mueller, who is still a scientist, not count? Your sentence does not make sense. Did he stop being scientist at some point?

It is also true that there was a new science show on last week, I think on the Discovery channel, that did very recent interviews of scientists who do believe that the theory could still be valid. Other Scientists were interviewed who didn't see the theory as valid, and still others were not sure. That means that a sentence like "Scientists no longer believe [the Nemesis theory]", that you added to the article, can not be correct. The only accurate thing you can say is that there are a number of scientists who are doubtful about the theory, and more do seem to be against it than for it. But you seem to be pushing the article to absolute statements, without sufficient grounds, and that is not what Wikipedia is for.129.82.30.193 (talk) 03:55, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Mueller proposed the original idea of Nemesis. He is not what would create a consensus. -- Kheider (talk) 04:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

You might want to watch for the recent Discovery channel segment on Nemesis, I'm sure it will be replayed, where a number of scientists where recently interviewed on the subject. Your point about consensus does not, at this point, hold water.129.82.30.193 (talk) 04:12, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

You have failed to provide the name of recent scientist that supports the theory and yet did not propose the original idea. -- Kheider (talk) 04:18, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Failed? You sound like a lawyer. I just told you about a recent media source that interviews a few scientists who support the theory and/or feel that it can not yet be ruled out. Just because I didn't write down their names on the spot doesn't mean that I have "failed" at anything.129.82.30.193 (talk) 04:22, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

"I just told you about a recent media source" Unless I'm mistaken, TV docs fail verifiability, & may fail reliability, too. In either case, removing a cited claim smells to me like POV pushing. To be clear, I don't care either way; NPOV says balanced coverage, & no undue weight to fringe theories, which this is increasingly looking like. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 08:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll admit that I don't understand the need to name additional scientists who support the existence of this object. It's already a rather fringy subject and we're not likely to get more data unless WISE or some other future mission reports back a positive result (and I think the article does a good job at communicating this). Noteworthy astronomers aren't just going to start supporting this theory unless there's more data to back it up.

For what it's worth, I watched the episode of The Universe that the IP editor is referencing. There are, indeed, interviews with notable astronomers such as Alexei Filippenko, but they're all careful to couch their discussion as "if Nemesis did exist, then..." and so on. Muller comes across as the crazy man in the room. Wyatt Riot (talk) 16:10, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

This is exactly why the scientific consensus has to be that Nemesis is not expected to exist. There is not even one recent scientist quoted in the Wikipedia article (we go by our sources) to claim that they suspect there is a brown dwarf (~13 $M_{J}$ )in the Solar System. (Tyche would be a massive planet with 1-4 Jupiter masses.) -- Kheider (talk) 16:25, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I understand how Wikipedia works. What I don't understand is why this discussion is happening, and why right now. Why the demand to name current scientists who believe in Nemesis? I may have missed something, but this seems to be coming out of nowhere. Wyatt Riot (talk) 17:13, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I think it was just a general question that came up in response to editors who wanted to push less neutral language about the subject into the article. Some editors objected to language in the article saying that the scientific consensus is that Nemesis is unlikely to exist. The onus is then on those editors to provide credible support from reliable sources. The question could perhaps have been asked more diplomatically, but that's what I think it came down to. And it is a relevant question - if no researchers, independent of Muller, etc, can be found in the literature as uncovering evidence for Nemesis, then we shouldn't have language in this article that makes it seem like this is a seriously considered hypothesis in current astrophysics. AstroCog (talk) 17:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. I hadn't noticed any persistent vandalism or POV pushing, but I've been focusing on other articles lately so I'm sure it slipped under my radar. But I agree that it comes down to WP:DUE. Cheers! Wyatt Riot (talk) 15:20, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

If you read the history of this talk page, many people have claimed that this article was biased in favor of the theory without enough supporting evidence. This is why I commented to the recent TONE section. Yes, I have been bold editing , but not without references. I have asked several times for recent scientists/researchers supporting the Nemesis theory and have received ZERO reliable sources to work with. Obviously, WP:DUE has come into play. -- Kheider (talk) 16:24, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Making a subjective evaluation of the recent "The Universe" segment on the Nemesis theory is not appropriate in Wikipedia discussions.

The fact is that several noted scientists where willing to speculate that Nemesis may exist, therefore there is no scientific "consensus" that it does not exist.

Quote from extremely baised, forum-discussion-like comment by WyattRiott (posted a few comments back)--

"There are, indeed, interviews with notable astronomers such as Alexei Filippenko, but they're all careful to couch their discussion as "if Nemesis did exist, then..." and so on. Muller comes across as the crazy man in the room. (Posted by WyattRiott)"

129.82.30.140 (talk) 21:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

So far, WyattRiott's done what he should: ask for sources confirming this remains a credible proposition. In 1999, it might have been; not anymore. Furthermore, you're the one deleting cited statements it's unlikely to exist. If anybody's wrong, it's you. Show me the evidence this is a serious proposal now, not 10 years ago, by more than one scientist, or quit it. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 01:34, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll freely admit that I'm biased in this case, but I don't feel that Muller did much to advance his position on The Universe. I also don't recall any of the astronomers actually saying they believed in Nemesis, only giving "what if" situations. Hell, I think it would be awesome if Nemesis or Tyche were found, but it's still a "what if" at this point and, from the lack of evidence for and increasing evidence against, it appears that it will always be a "what if" situation. (I'm not as convinced of its non-existence as, say, Kheider is, but I'm an amateur here and I also haven't reviewed any of the current scholarship. I'll defer to his greater experience when it comes to the actual science.) Now, because of the technology involved and the nature of the object(s) we're looking for, it's possible that we'll find something out there, but we can't (and won't) write an article based on speculation. Wyatt Riot (talk) 04:13, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Three-revert rule

Warning IP 129.82.30.193 (Colorado State University): your 3 edits (all removing a valid reference):[3][4][5] are sufficient to have you blocked from editing Wikipedia for violating The three-revert rule, not to mention undue weight, fringe theories, and WP:IDHT. -- Kheider (talk) 14:02, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

From what I am reading here and in the history section, you, Kheider, are clearly the one who is edit warring. You are also editing in a biased manner. Your edits in the opening are unnecessarily absolutist. -- 205.169.70.175 (talk) 23:45, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Dear "Educational institution" (Aims Community College "aims.edu" in Greeley, Colorado), I have clear and recent reference(s) for all of my editions to this fringe article. Can you name one recent researcher/scientist, independent of Muller, that supports the theory of Nemesis? Some how I doubt it. Many of the anon-IPs editing this article seem to be committing WP:IDHT. -- Kheider (talk) 00:02, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I only list "EDIT WAR" when material has already been removed twice. The reference to Dr David Morrison is perfectly valid, and someone can attempt to reword it. But blatantly removing the reference to astrophysicist Dr David Morrison is an indication of Vandalism and should be reverted. -- Kheider (talk) 00:02, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

205.169.70.x, I see we have met before. -- Kheider (talk) 14:49, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Yet more consensus that Nemesis probably does not exist: Keck opinion on Nemesis 2011-Nov-09 (@6:00 into the video) -- Kheider (talk) 14:59, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Yet more spin and willful omission of comments by any scientists who do not jive with your opinions. -- 129.82.30.140 (talk) 21:46, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The article reads the way it does because editors have failed to provide reliable sources (other than Muller back in 2002) that say otherwise. -- Kheider (talk) 22:36, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The following sentence is rife with biased language and has no neutrality: Confidence (a subjective global term with no referenced basis) in the existence of an object like Nemesis has drastically diminished (a completely subjective description reflecting opinion, not verifiable fact), since it is expected it should have been detected in infrared sky surveys before now.[10][11]

129.82.30.153 (talk) 06:09, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

"The following sentence " was in preference to "This crackpot idea has no basis in fact, but the ignorant continue to cling to it", which would have been even more POV. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 11:42, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Dear 129.82.30.x (Colorado State University), If we were to go by the wording of the source, the sentence would read, Scientists no longer think an object like Nemesis could exist because if it did it would have been detected long ago in infrared sky surveys. -- Kheider (talk) 16:06, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Over-referenced

Given that Nemesis is becoming a fringe theory subject to anon-IP disruptive editing and undue weight, were the sections "Orbit of Sedna" and "searches for Nemesis" over referenced? -- Kheider (talk) 23:11, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

No, they weren't over-referenced, which is why I didn't remove any references. It is a matter of reference style: when a number of statements following one after the other all depend on the same reference normal reference style is to use a single citation to cover the set: you don't need an identical reference after each and every sentence. To do so does not lend any greater authority to the section but introduces a lot of extraneous clutter.

You also need to be careful of the term "fringe theory" here on Wikipedia, where it is used exclusively for pseudoscience. It is true the hypothesis has not gained widespread acceptance but it is regarded as a legitimate theory rather than quackery. Even if it is somehow conclusively disproved it would become an interesting historical footnote rather than junk science. Were Newton's corpuscles junk science simply because the theory turned out to be wide of the mark? No: it was a legitimate theory which turned out to be incorrect. That does not make it junk.

If anything the current drafting leans too far in the anti direction in any case. A lot of the "evidence" advanced, implying that it cannot exist because we haven't detected it is directly countered by the proponents of the hypothesis: the chief problem with proving or disproving Nemesis is not that we haven't found it, but that we may already have. If it is a red dwarf of ~12th magnitude it is going to be in multiple stellar catalogues. The problem is distinguishing it from all the other equally insignificant twelfth magnitude stars out there. You can scan entire fields for stars of the right sort of temperature with a pair of filtered exposures, but without full, time consuming and costly spectroscopic analysis for each individual candidate there is no way to distinguish a nearby red dwarf from a distant red giant.

Yes, theories like Nemesis always do attract the tin foil hat brigade and to be quite honest I'm dubious myself, but that doesn't mean normal standards of scientific rigour are suspended when considering the hypothesis. Crispmuncher (talk) 00:25, 27 November 2011 (UTC).

Nemesis is a fringe theory by definition. It is treated with the scientific method, but the scientific consensus is that there is not a red dwarf orbiting the Sun. -- Kheider (talk) 21:05, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, if Nemesis (the red dwarf) existed it would be a very bright object in the J band infrared because cooler stars shine in infrared light. Relative to the visible light spectrum, the carbon star CW Leo is very bright in the infrared because it is hot, even though it is embedded in a thick dust envelope 400+ ly away. The red dwarf star Proxima Centauri (4.2 ly away; vmag 11) has a J-Band magnitude of 5.3, and gets brighter the deeper into the infrared you go. But infrared surveys did not start until the 1980s, and there is zero evidence that a bright J-band object is orbiting the Sun. -- Kheider (talk) 01:26, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

But so would a red giant. The basic emission curve of each is virtually identical across the EM spectrum. The only way to distinguish them is via Fraunhofer lines. To observe those is a time consuming process of spectroscopy for each individual star. I haven't checked exactly how many 12th magnitude stars there are but it will be on the order of a million or so. Even if you can narrow the possibilities down to 1% of those you're left with 10,000 stars. Checking those will tie up an 8m research scope for a decade. Crispmuncher (talk) 02:13, 27 November 2011 (UTC).

A red giant within 3 ly of the Sun would be the brightest star in the night sky. A red giant is around 10000 times brighter than a red dwarf, and I doubt there will be many red giants within 100 ly of the Sun. You only need a 8-inch scope to search for a mag 7-12 red dwarf orbiting the Sun. -- Kheider (talk) 02:32, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

A more distant red giant as I have already said above. In any case this discussion is getting increasingly sidetracke from the central point of referencing. Crispmuncher (talk) 13:05, 27 November 2011 (UTC).

Thanks for your comments. Your conversion beats many of anon-IPs that come here with no reliable references and claim a red dwarf star (~75 Jupiter masses) might be orbiting the Sun, even though all of the recent evidence suggests nothing over about 20 Jupiter masses could be. -- Kheider (talk) 14:02, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Unreferenced material

How long should the following section be left in the article given that it is completely unreferenced in regards to searches for a red dwarf star orbiting the Sun? Does anyone have a reliable reference (preferably written in the last 5 years or so) for this statement or are we just suppose to accept unreferenced hearsay passed down from the 1990s? Should this statement be modified and moved down as a lead-in for the "Past, current and pending searches for Nemesis" section?:

• However other scientists have observed that there are hundreds of red stars recorded in sky surveys with no parallax information on their actual distance from the solar system. Until parallax and proper motion and measurements are completed, there is no way to ascertain the distance of these red stars (whether they are nearby red dwarfs or distant red giants).

-- Kheider (talk) 08:47, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

That is one of the points that Muller highlighted in the 1980s, i.e. that the distances to most red stars were unknown and hence a nearby red dwarf could already exist in the star catalogs without anyone having become aware that it was actually the nearest star to the sun. I don't know if other people repeated / reconsidered that claim since the 1980s. At the time, most nearby objects were noticed due to high proper motion. As a gravitationally bound object, Nemesis would have a relatively low proper motion and so could escape detection by that means. However, the amount of parallax data has grown immensely since the 1980s, so the star catalogs are far more comprehensive today, and making the possibility of a Nemesis hiding in plain sight much lower than it might have appeared decades ago. As to whether people still make this argument today (or even in the last decade), I don't know. Dragons flight (talk) 09:08, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Information about searches of nearby stars can be found on [6]. Ruslik_Zero 18:53, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

White dwarf?

I know that in 2010 Space.com claimed that Nemesis could be a white dwarf, but are there ANY peer-reviewed papers that make that claim? It seems like a mistake on the part of Space.com. -- Kheider (talk) 20:28, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I fully agree with you. The notion that the hypothetical Nemesis would be a "hard-to-detect" white dwarf is rather hard to accept without further basis given the RECONS data of the 100 nearest start systems, http://www.chara.gsu.edu/RECONS/TOP100.posted.htm, which includes 7 white dwarfs (col. 8, types starting with D). It seems very much like a mistake in The Space.com article, especially since the link Nemesis immediately following the white dwarf claim brings up an article which describes the postulated Sol's companion as "a red or brown dwarf star, or an even darker presence," and then proceeds to the Matese (Whitman, & Whitmire)'s "lite" alternative of a planet 3-5x Jupiter's mass. (To a naïve reader, the original paper of Whitmire and Jackson (Nature 1984 doi:10.1038/308713a0) may indirectly appear as a peer-reviewed support for the white dwarf idea, since it claims "[t]he companion probably has a mass in the black dwarf range" and nowadays a black dwarf is considered a white dwarf that has cooled down enough that it no longer emits light; but what Whitmire & Jackson called a black dwarf in 1984 is called a brown dwarf today, so there is no peer-reviewed support.)

The white-dwarf claim in this Wikipedia article ought to be be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BbBrox (talk • contribs) 02:23, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done. -- Kheider (talk) 08:25, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe a "white dwarf" type of star has been given insufficient shrift. If the "end life" of almost ALL stars is collapsars, maybe dark matter is just collapsars. If there is roughly 10X the number of invisible star mass per visible star mass, statistically there should be an invisible approximately solar mass collapsar within 2 LY of our sun. 72.69.60.186 (talk) 17:47, 27 June 2016 (UTC)BG

The Nemesis hypothesis is no longer needed.

Right now, the last line of the article states the above, citing a JPL website. If the Nemesis premise is no longer needed, then this article should become much shorter. If there is debate, that should be reflected in more than a single sentence linked to a JPL web page. Fotoguzzi (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Why make the article shorter? It should describe the history and status of Nemesis theory. Nemesis as it was proposed in 1984 is unlikely to exist. -- Kheider (talk) 20:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Artist's conception

Why do Artist's conceptions of Nemesis always have to include a dubious "thick" debris field around it? It is worse speculation than Nemesis itself. -- Kheider (talk) 16:28, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Because they need something in the foreground to give it scale, and rocks are a lot less speculative than habitable planets and/or space stations. Serendi^podous 17:20, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

A boulder 2 feet from me will look bigger than an asteroid 100 miles away. There is no useful debris field scale in the images. I suspect the debris field just re-enforces the Nibiru propaganda. Nibiru is suppose to be followed by a tail of dangerous debris. We need a better image. Perhaps we should revert to the original version. -- Kheider (talk) 19:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

The original had a debris disk too. Serendi^podous 19:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I am saying the debris disk is too fictitious. Any objects orbiting the star should be so subtle that you really would not notice them. -- Kheider (talk) 22:09, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we should make a new one. A simple diagram with planetary distances so that it actually imparts information. Serendi^podous 22:18, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

If we don't get a new image we need to drop this one. 216.246.130.20 (talk) 06:16, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

2015

Do we want any image of Nemesis, when Nemesis is not real? Depicting Nemesis as a generic star seems worthless to me. -- Kheider (talk) 15:37, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

No we don't; an image of Nemesis's orbit set against the Solar System would be far more useful. Serendi^podous 16:17, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

HD 107914

HD 107914 should not be confused with a legitimate Nemesis candidate. At 78.3 parsecs (255 ly) from the Solar System, HD 107914 would not be a companion to the Sun. It just sounds like a candidate to pass near the Solar System in the distant future. Potemine2010 is just using the Nemesis name for marketing. -- Kheider (talk) 11:21, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Alternative explanations for phenomena

My understanding is as follows:

• The Nemesis hypothesis (our sun having a companion red dwarf or brown dwarf) developed as a way of explaining periodic mass extinctions on earth. The theory that mass extinctions on earth are periodic is out of favour.
• It also explains a well-defined edge to the Oort cloud. I don't see this addressed in the article, and perhaps the view that the Oort cloud has a well-defined edge is too controversial to include.

As the phenomena explained by the Nemesis hypothesis are themselves out of favour, and no companion red dwarf or brown dwarf has been observed to date, even with better equipment, the Nemesis hypothesis seems out of favour, and its continuing popularity lies more in New Age thinking.

More recently observed phenomena, such as the highly elliptical orbit of Sedna, and that comets appear to originate from a band running through the Oort cloud, have let to a less radical hypothesis - a gas giant up to twice the size of Jupiter (or even a brown dwarf) on the outer edges of the Oort cloud - the Tyche hypothesis. There is also an attempt to explain Sedna's orbit by reference to the gravitational influence of a non-companion star at some time in the past.

For me, the difference between the Nemesis hypothesis and the Tyche hypothesis is one of scale, and to some extent, the Tyche hypothesis hasn't yet been conflated with New Age beliefs relating to Nibiru and Planet X. I appreciate they have different roots, but a river can have several sources.

It would be good if the alternative hypotheses explaining related phenomenon (including those that are out of favour) could be discussed in one article, but I suppose that would be asking for too much. I suppose it is human nature to get caught up with labels. Or am I missing something?

Rainjar (talk) 01:56, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

You've pretty much nailed it. We do have an overview article at Planets beyond Neptune that discusses Nemesis and Tyche and a few other hypotheses which have since been thrown aside. Nemesis and Tyche have separate articles simply because they were proposed by different people to explain different phenomena. If they were independently suggested to explain extinction events, we could have an article called Hypothetical extinction-causing large bodies beyond the Kuiper belt—which would be ridiculous—but Tyche's "evidence" isn't based on extinction events but relatively benign comets. Just my $0.02. Woodroar (talk) 02:10, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Since we can not see objects in the Oort cloud, we do not know if there is a "well-defined edge to the Oort cloud". -- Kheider (talk) 02:27, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I suppose Planets beyond Neptune is what I should have been looking at. It's not under "See also" (although it is under the Tyche article). It also addresses other phenomena such as the Kuiper cliff. And I wonder if using "Planets" in the title is some limiting, but that is a discussion for that page I guess. Rainjar (talk) 04:22, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Nemesis, if it existed, would be too massive to qualify as a planet. -- Kheider (talk) 06:03, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Names of people

It is poor style to refer to people by only their last name the first time you mention them in an article, particularly when they are not notable enough to have their own wikipedia article. Lay readers, the intended audience of wikipedia, do not know who Melott and/or Bambach are, and without any explanation, or at least a full name, we are unlikely to learn who they are or what context their support of a position provide.

Please provide first names and/or links to articles of these individuals if they exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.131.244.186 (talk) 11:09, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Good point. Fixed. Knowing where they worked would be good, too. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 11:47, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Red dwarf found 20ly from the solar system

On the BBC they found a dim star, a brown dwarf that crossed the path of our solar system about 70,000 years ago. Could that be the basis of the Nemesis star? Orion Blastar (talk) 02:25, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

They found a red dwarf star (Scholz's star) currently 20 light-years from the Sun that has nothing to do with Nemesis. There are about 100 known stars within 21 light-years of the Sun. -- Kheider (talk) 06:23, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Muller's Book

Nemesis - The Death Star

Dr Richard Muller C 1988

ISBN - 7493 0465 0

The story of the research process up to that date. 203.87.98.193 (talk) 23:58, 22 December 2015 (UTC)