by Andy Lloyd
Cruttenden and Dayes advocate an orbital period of about 24,000 years, close to the known precessional cycle. They would presumably argue that for the body to have evaded discovery it must be near to aphelion, and so many thousands of astronomical units away, which is on the order of John Matese’s brown dwarf. Except that Matese’s small brown dwarf took a few million years to orbit the sun at that distance.18
To be able to cover that amount of ground in a mere 12,000 years, seems nothing short of miraculous. Unfortunately, such a break-neck trajectory would send their binary star into a hyperbolic orbit, and thus fling it out of the entire solar system. Which presents a bit of a problem.
A massive object large enough to affect the sun’s own movement cannot lie close by at the present time, and must be located in the outer Oort cloud, in order to have evaded detection. But, such a distance implies an orbit substantially greater than 24,000 years, or else the object is lost through achieving an escape velocity from the sun. I faced this same dilemma. The only answer is to have a smaller body or a recent change in its orbit. Neither of these would be consistent with the proposed explanation for the Precession of the Equinoxes put forward by the Binary Research Institute.
Nevertheless, the authors do have some very interesting things to say about the angular momentum of the solar system24, and describe the importance of the "sheer edge" within the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. But, like John Bagby before them, their final proposal seems too ambitious to be viable. So, like Bagby, I would recommend their work for its originality and thought-provoking material, but I would be wary about their implied conclusions.
Another previous advocate of the Binary Theory is the author Joseph H. Cater. He argues in his book “The Ultimate Reality,” that Mars is partially warmed by the rays of a binary star.25 This is quite impossible, of course; at least insofar as no solar binary is sufficiently close or bright enough to affect the climate of one of the sun’s inner planets. At least, according to the physical laws of the Universe as we currently understand them.
These latter examples are simply two of the myriad sets of theories offered concerning Planet X and binary star companions. The apparent lack of interest in this subject displayed by actual astronomers doesn’t seem to be because they don’t think about these ideas; it’s just that they don’t particularly want to be seen thinking about them. A vacuum has emerged within this particular niche of science, which allows independent thinkers to propose sometimes radical ideas.
I am one of those independent-minded researchers as well, of course. I am acutely aware of how many others are rolling similar ideas around in their minds. The result has been an explosion of speculation about Planet X over the Internet, and a confusing, often mystifying set of theories. One of the aims of this book is to bring some greater focus upon the subject.
The Binary Theory
It is as clear as there is day and night that we are not living in a ‘real’ binary star system. If we talk in terms of a ‘binary’ companion to the sun, then we are at best discussing a dwarf star at a very considerable distance; or a ‘failed’ star; or small brown dwarf, residing among the comets. As we have seen, many people have advocated such a view over the last few decades, from esteemed university professors, to those often labeled as ‘crank’ alternative theorists.
As far as I can see, there is a wide spectrum of possibilities, and some of those possibilities are quite plausible. Given the results of various deep-space analytical data, I don’t think anyone should entirely dismiss the possibility of a substantial Planet X object awaiting discovery.
Over the next few chapters, we will explore various pieces of scientific evidence which have emerged in the last few years that considerably strengthen the case for the existence of a binary companion of some description, awaiting actual discovery. Some of that evidence is actually compelling, taking the form of anomalous data which flies in the face of our orthodox understanding of the solar system. Other pieces of evidence are from other star systems, where precedents exist for the kind of models that I am proposing.
For example, the Epsilon Indi B object is a clear example of a reasonably large brown dwarf orbiting its parent star at the kind of distance which I would advocate for our Dark Star around the sun. This testifies to the potential for such an object to be found at about 1500 AU, because whatever arguments may be put forward theoretically for questioning how that could have come about, it clearly already has; elsewhere.
"The failed star and its companion form a wide binary system, separated by more than 1,500 times the distance between the sun and the Earth...Astronomers estimate that Epsilon Indi B has a mass just 45 times that of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, and a surface temperature of only 1,000 Celsius".26
Other star systems also provide some wonderful precedents, and many of the new discoveries of extrasolar planets are wonderful and diverse, challenging astronomers to think again about accepted dogma. They require us to remain open-minded, and to remember that the unexpected is no stranger to scientific progress. There are no stranger planetary objects than brown dwarfs, of course, and their existence is no longer simply speculation, but hard scientific fact. In the next chapter we will explore the realm of these strange celestial characters.
References
1 J. d’Arc “Space Travelers and the Genesis of the Human Form” pp43-4, The Book Tree 2000
2 E. Plunket “Calendars and Constellations of the Ancient World” (1903) pp227-8, Random House 1997
3 A. Gilbert “Signs in the Sky” Corgi 2000
4 R. Bauval & A. Gilbert “The Orion Mystery” Mandarin 1995
5 E. C. Krupp “In Search of Ancient Astronomies” p218, Penguin 1984
6 W. Corliss “The Sun and Solar system Debris - A Catalog of Astronomical Anomalies” p172, 1986. With thanks to Greg Jenner
7 “Redfern, Martin, and Henbest, Nigel; "Has IRAS Found a Tenth Planet?" New Scientist, 10/11/1983
8 Z. Sitchin “Genesis Revisited” p326-8 Avon 1990
9 Enuma Elish Tablet VII, 125-133
10 Enuma Elish Tablet V, 1-10
11 R. Kerrod “The Illustrated Guide to the Night Sky” p88, Quarto 1993
12 J. Davis “Beyond Pluto” p63, Cambridge University Press 2001
13 J. Bagby “Evidence for a Tenth Planet or Massive Solar Companion beyond Uranus” 1982
14 Editorial Post-script, (F.B.J.), ‘Kronos’ Journal, Vol. IX, No 3, Summer 1984
15 J. Bagby “Further Speculations on Planet “X””, correspondence sent to the ‘Kronos’ Journal, Vol. IX, No 3, Summer 1984
16 B. Akins “Pioneer Home: Mission Status” http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/PNStat.html
Updated 22nd February 2001
17 J.B.Murray Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 309, 31-34 (1999)
18 J.J. Matese, P.G. Whitman and D.P. Whitmire, Icarus, 141, 354-336 (1999)
19 Correspondence from John Lee re: academic criticism, 17th March 2004
20 R. Britt "Mysterious Object Might be First Extrasolar Planet Photographed" http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/brown_dwarfs_020522.html
22 May 2002 Thanks to Theo
21 A. Lloyd “Winged Disc: The Dark Star Theory” 2001, Available from the author
22 Correspondence from John Lee, aka Maurice Devon, ‘The Real Deal’, 22nd March 2004
23 W. Cruttenden and V. Dayes “Understanding Precession of the Equinox: Evidence our Sun may be part of a Long Cycle Binary system” Fall 2003 http://newfrontiersinscience.com/Members/v02n01/a/NFS0201a.shtml
24 Binary Research Institute “Evidence: Angular Momentum” http://www.binaryresearchinstitute.org/evidence/angular.shtml
25 J. Cater “The Ultimate Reality”, with thanks to Dean from the ‘Cosmic Conspiracies’ post-board.
26 D. Whitehouse "'Failed star' found nearby" 15th January 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2660953.stm
9. Brown Dwarfs
In the last chapter, we loo
ked at various types of binary bodies that have been proposed over the years. Some of these are dwarf stars, the 'black' and 'red' versions of which are quite large, and generate light independently. To be circling around the sun and yet to have evaded detection, these types of dwarf stars would have to be located practically halfway to the nearest star - light years away.
So, we looked at arguments for a smaller body, and I advocated a smaller, darker body which is several times the mass of Jupiter and orbits the sun in an eccentric manner. This body is similar to the type of planet proposed by John Matese and John Murray. Currently, this massive planet is remarkably faint, and has probably not been detected directly (although there is always the possibility that it has been spotted, but misunderstood to be a more distant star). The tenth planet is a dark, distant body which reflects very little light back to us from the sun at the sorts of distance we are talking, despite its size.
Is This Dark Star, As I Call It, A 'Brown Dwarf'?
Brown dwarfs are neither stars nor planets, but something in between. For a long time, their existence was just theoretical. This was because they don't shine with the intensity of stars and are, for the most part, 'dark' objects in the sky. Stars and planets form through the accretion, or clumping together of matter. Stars form in stellar nurseries, alongside other sibling stars, often in quite close proximity.
This is why there are so many binary star systems. They then spread out, like young birds leaving the nest. They carry with them immense discs of material which swirl around the star, gradually clumping into planets and other bodies. These planets can be very diverse, in terms of both size and properties.
It makes sense that there should exist a huge range of different shaped objects in the galaxy, from the smallest comets, through the range of planets, through a range of these 'brown dwarfs' and on through an equally large range of different sized stars. In the galaxy, variety is the spice of life.
Until fairly recently, our knowledge of stars and planets was pretty straightforward. Stars shone, emitting light by hydrogen fusion processes, and planets were dark objects orbiting them. This was simply common sense. No one spent too many sleepless nights worrying about what would happen when an object, undergoing the process of gas accretion to form a star or planet, would end up with mass somewhere in between.
Brown dwarfs are those bodies which have insufficient mass to begin the internal nuclear processes that fire stars. The smallest are about 12 times the size of Jupiter, the largest about 80 times, which is still less than a tenth of the mass of our sun. The more massive the dwarf, the brighter it will appear.
They are capable of emitting their own light and heat, even though via by a different set of processes as compared to the sun's nuclear fission. Also, their ability to create light and heat depends very much on their age. Even very small brown dwarfs are quite bright to begin with, but their luminosity quickly drops away with advancing age. One could say that they age quickly; the flower of their youth is dissipated through intense activity early on.
It is thought that there is a "50:50" chance that a brown dwarf might exist between us and our nearest star.1 Brown dwarfs tend to be about the same size as Jupiter, despite being many times heavier. They are denser, and also hotter and more active. They have hydrogen cores, like the gas giants, and can spin as quickly as once per hour. They radiate most of their energy in infrared light.
There are still many gaps in our knowledge about these objects, because their inherent dark properties make them difficult to observe directly, particularly the older ones that have used up their light-emitting fuels. There is some debate as to whether brown dwarfs form more or less like stars, or whether they are more characteristic of planets ejected from emerging star systems in dense stellar nurseries. The current thinking is that they form like stars do, but tend to get pushed about before they accrete enough matter to become proper stars.
There is a critical size of about 80 Jupiter masses, where such a body can sustain hydrogen fusion by the action of temperatures and pressures generated by its own gravity.1 Then a star is born. The formation of planets is less well understood, and the emerging discoveries of extrasolar planets are challenging astrophysicists to revise their theories. Nevertheless, when a planet is forming, up to several Jupiter masses in size, then it remains simply that: a planet. As the object's mass increases further, things start to get more complicated.
The History of Brown Dwarfs
The concept of brown dwarfs has been bandied about for some time, although no reliable astronomical data has been available until quite recently. Carl Sagan once wrote about Harlow Shapley, an astronomer working in the 1950s. Shapley had suggested that brown dwarfs (or 'Lilliputian stars, as he called them) would have warm surfaces upon which astronauts could survive and explore.2 We now know this to be quite untrue: Brown dwarfs are warm versions of Jupiter. This massive planet has no surface, only an immense gaseous atmosphere, full of clouds and storms. I discussed this with an expert on brown dwarfs some years ago, who stated in passing that “while brown dwarfs are not inhabitable, they might have moons that might be habitable.”3 These mini failed stars might harbour life on their own systems of planets.
The term “brown dwarf” was first used by Jill Tarter of the SETI institute, in her 1975 PhD thesis. She used it in order to correct the use of the previous term “black dwarf” which was deemed inappropriate because it had already been used to describe the end phase of a fully evolved star as it cooled from the white dwarf stage.1
Brown dwarfs are very difficult to find. They glow only faintly, emitting most of their radiation in the infrared bands. This is because they are below the 0.08 solar-mass stellar limit, and fail to ignite as stars in their own right. Instead, they emit radiation from energy left over from their formation.
During the life-span of a brown dwarf, the younger they are, the brighter they appear. So, we have a better chance of discovering brown dwarfs that have just formed. As they get older, they start to appear more like Jupiter, only much more massive. In general, a brown dwarf's luminosity is expected to be about a hundred thousandth of the sun's.4 Its spectral characteristics are different than those of very cool stars, unusually showing an absorption line of the short-lived element lithium.
Contrary to the description implied by its name, brown dwarfs appear red, actually very red. A brown dwarf was discovered in the Solar vicinity by Maria Theresa Ruiz of the European Southern Observatory in 1997, a discovery which offered the potential for much better study of these elusive objects. She called it KELU-1, the term for 'red' in the language of the indigenous population of central Chile.
Although it is located at a distance of 33 light-years, its visual magnitude is 22.3, which is the sort of brightness projected for Murray's proposed brown dwarf in the Oort cloud. This sets a precedent for discovery of an Oort cloud planet/brown dwarf.5 If my thesis is correct, however, and Murray's planet is now more closely bound to the sun, then it should be significantly brighter than this object.
Gliese 229B
The best known brown dwarf, and one which we can actually look at through an Earth-bound 60-inch telescope, is Gliese 229B, discovered in 1995. This one is in a binary system along with the low-mass red dwarf Gliese 229A, at a distance of just 19 light-years from the sun. The separation between the brown dwarf and its companion star is about the same as that between the sun and Pluto. Its luminosity is about one-tenth of the faintest star. Its spectrum has large amounts of methane and water vapor.
Methane could not exist if the surface temperature were above 1500K.
Astronomers consider its temperature to be about 900K (compared to Jupiter's 130K), its mass to be between 20 and 55 Jupiters, and the age of the binary system to be between 1 and 5 billion years old. It has a smoggy haze layer deep within its atmosphere, essentially making it “much fainter in visible light than it would otherwise be”. It is possible that the ultra-violet light from its companion star changes its atmospheric properties fr
om those of an isolated brown dwarf, such as KELU-1.1
Our Closest Known Brown Dwarf
In November 2000, a team of scientists analyzed a dim object of 60-90 Jupiter masses, which has been found at just 13 light years distance from the sun.6 Depending on its actual mass, it might be a high-mass brown dwarf or a low-mass star. The lack of a lithium signature indicates the latter.
This star/brown dwarf lies alone in space, and is the nearest such object spotted so far. Scientists have speculated that more such objects probably await discovery, perhaps even closer to us than this one. Our knowledge of our own backyard with respect to its resident stars is still very much incomplete.
So brown dwarfs emit visible light, albeit faintly, but are cool enough to retain a planet like atmosphere! Stars and planets no longer appear to be entirely different entities. Imagine living on a moon of a brown dwarf: the 'dark star' which your moon is orbiting around would be emitting red light and heat, yet it would appear like Jupiter as far as its size and atmospheric consistency went. Rather like Jupiter on fire, perhaps!
Your moon would not only be warmed by the intense infrared emitted from the brown dwarf, but also by its tidal effects (like Io and Europa are warmed by the otherwise cool Jupiter), and by its ambient red light. If your moon was terrestrial, in other words had aqueous oceans and a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, might the emergence of life there be entirely possible? Without the dangerous ultra-violet radiation and cosmic rays emitted by the sun, one could argue that this sort of environment is actually preferable to the environment on Earth!
