Do you think the sun is part of a binary system.

pred racer

As we know, single stars are quite rare. do you think the sun has a companion star out there somewhere? or maybe more than one.

If we did we probably wouldnt be able to see it unless it was quite a bit brighter than our sun, (at pluto the sun isnt even the brightest star in the sky)

I know there is no way to prove or disprove this, im just wondering what everybody thinks?

aequinoctium

an interesting idea. but surely it would have been discovered by now and we would all be sick from hearing about it. but, feel free to prove me wrong

Flukey

I'd doubt it too. We know the stars in the so-called "local group" and we have no stronger an association with any of them than that.

artanevilla

Surely it would have some gravitational effect on the earth?

pred racer

Thats the whole point guys, if it was only barely on the main sequence we wouldnt be able to see it, a brown dwarf at 4-5 times pluto's distance we wouldnt have a hope, maybe it could be detected by gravitational influence, but if at a large distance, jupiter's gravitational influence would be stronger, (and that doesn't really affect us compared to the sun)
We also think that passing stars are the reason kuiper belt/oort cloud objects get launched inwards as long period comets, why not our own companion star?

BTW I dont 'believe' one way or the other its just somethin that interests me.
you know, the hubble can see 95%(I just made that up by the way) across the visible universe but it can barely see pluto or a kuiper belt object( even without the angular velocities being a problem)

what do ye think?

Mahatma coat

maybe what happens is that all stars start out a wantin to be binary, but they maynot be big enough to supportthe formation of 2 stars so ya get one and a few Gas Giants scattered around the orbit instead and so yu have a solar system instead of a binary star, dunno, might be

User45701

sorry i dont get it.

I thought there WAS another star or some sort of singularity near (space terms near, not real world near) i thought that we knew something else was there either soemthing big or else small and dense that was exerting a gravitational effect on our soler system

CiDeRmAn

Yup, we are in all likelyhood a part of a binary with a dull old Brown Dwarf as our dancing partner. As said this wouldn't be easily seen at all but its gravitational effects on the Oort cloud, for example, would be, an examination of it and disturbances in its structure is needed but then, unfortunately, its an awfully long way away, 20,00-50,000 AU distant.
The other way would be to watch the Sun really closely and, discounting the effects of all other known influences, see if she wobbles, this is a dead giveaway for a body, hitherto unknown, dragging our star about.

The Hill Billy

Begs the question whether the presence of a binary companion may be the cause of the anomolies in the velocities of Voyager-1 & Voyager-2?

stakey

There is 'some' scientific interest in the possibility of our sun being in a binary star system, the nickname for such a star is Nemesis and it's currently being used to explain mass extinctions on Earth.

There's an interesting article on it over at Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_%28star%29

Rented Mule

The 'Nemesis' hypotheses is always a very interesting conversation . I ws going to post it before I saw that stakey had already beaten me to it.

Excellent topic !!

stakey

space.com has a good article on it as well with the theorized orbit of the second star.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/nemesis_010320-1.html