Astronomers: There Is a Second Sun!

With all the 2012 hype about a "planet x" or Nibiru, thought this relates a little. It's pretty far away still (200 light years), but astronomers are saying it could be one of three twin suns:

Somewhere out there, astronomers knew the sun had another long-lost relative aimlessly drifting through the Milky Way. Now they've found it.

The mid-sized star is one of many in the Draco the dragon constellation and may be a billion years older than the sun, which is middle-aged at 4.6 billion years.

Three other solar twins were previously proposed: 18 Scorpius, HD 98618 and HIP 100963. While similar to the sun in many ways, spectrographic analysis revealed that their lithium contents are dramatically higher.

www.space.com...

[edit on 9-11-2007 by anhinga]

So what does that mean that their lithim level is much higher? Hotter? Cooler? Is there a chance that it could be used to our benifit some how? If it were cooler we could perhaps study more about our own sun. Draco huh????

Another thing, though it's not mentioned in the article, this may shed light on stars with life bearing planets. If our sun were unique in the galaxy, then it might be that life, at least as we understand the term, would be unique.

Now we know that our neighborhood is just your basic urban subdivision. I find that heartening.

reply to post by antar


I assume the less lithium, the less warm the star is.... this is interesting, the 'same article, from about a month ago. Totally slipped through my radar, and I wonder why they're publishing it again...

space.newscientist.com...

That similarity might be important, since some studies have suggested that stars with less lithium are less active, experiencing fewer outbursts, or flares, that can bathe planets in deadly radiation, says Ramirez...

Sun-like stars are considered good hunting ground for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), says Margaret Turnbull of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, US. She helped draw up an existing list of about 17,000 high-priority targets for SETI called HabCat.

The Allen Telescope Array will likely begin observations in November 2007, Backus says, although it will initially be looking at broad swathes of the sky rather than focusing on individual stars in the catalogue.

So in our galaxy there are a few stars that are similar, thats interesting in itself.. but how many galaxies are there out there?

Millions


Think about it.

But it would be interesting if they could find out if they have any planets orbiting them.

Something I don't really understand is how they can make any sort of difinitive statements (such as lithium content etc...) about a sun that is 200 light years away, when they can't seem to be absolutely certain about everything in our own solar system. For example, 3 years ago they found a "new planet" in our solar system that they really know nothing about.

news.bbc.co.uk...

It just seems strange to me.

With all the 2012 hype about a "planet x" or Nibiru, thought this relates a little. It's pretty far away still (200 light years), but astronomers are saying it could be one of three twin suns:

There are many like ours - not just three.

A brief explanation is to be found here.

I quote from this source:

Solar twins stars are, broadly, stars with the same mass, temperature, surface gravity, luminosity, metal content and age as the Sun. Such objects are, presumably, privileged candidates to possess planetary systems similar to our own and also to be abodes for lifeforms based on carbon-chain chemistry and water oceans.

[edit on 13/11/2007 by Saurus]

reply to post by Karlhungis


For stars, it's a little bit easier to determine what elements they contain. This is because they use a technique called spectroscopy. Basically what happens is that they let the light pass through a prism and then they analyse the result. Different elements absorb light of different wavelengths and this is manifested by dark bands in the spectrum that results from letting the light through a prism. This method was how they discovered the presence of helium in the Sun before they found the element on Earth. Of course today the method has vastly improved.

When it comes to detecting new planets around stars however, it becomes a little bit trickier. Astronomers use various techniques for this. The most common technique is to detect 'wobbles' in the movement of the star over a period of time. Not too long ago, this method was only suitable for detecting large planets like gas giants, since they cause the stars to wobble considerably. This is why the early exoplanets discovered were mostly gas giants. Today with advances in adaptive optics, astronomers are able to detect more minute variations in a star's movement, allowing them to detect smaller planets.

You mentioned that three years ago they discovered a new, previously unknown object in our own solar system. You have to understand that the new objects are much much smaller than any of the exoplanets discovered thus far. It's not too absurd that it went undetected for so long -- these objects are usually quite far out from the Sun and are also much smaller than our own Moon. In essence, it's pretty much invisible. Detecting them requires a combination of various techniques AND a little bit of luck.

Edit: minor typo

[edit on 13-11-2007 by Beachcoma]

reply to post by Beachcoma


Thanks for the summary. Starred

This thread made me think.

Do we even know if there is anything behind the Sun, like planets maybe?