Is Precession of the Equinoxes caused by our Sun having a twin?

[Dover]

Author brings theory about a ‘lost’ star

By THERESA HOGUE
Gazette-Times reporter

We have certain assumptions about the world, ones that are so concrete, so obvious, that we never question them. For instance, the Earth revolves around the sun.

That was established as scientific fact centuries ago. Any kindergartner’s depiction of the world clearly indicates one bright sun hovering over the landscape.

But author Walter Cruttenden would argue that not so long ago, most people assumed that the world was flat, and that at some point we could sail right off the edge, into a land of terrible monsters. And according to Cruttenden, the idea that not one, but two suns, exist in our solar system, actually makes scientific sense.


His research is nothing if not controversial, but in his book “Lost Star of Myth and Time” Cruttenden looks at something called the Precession of the Equinox, which is the gradual backward movement of the constellations in the sky over the centuries.

Ancient astronomers were particularly aware of this phenomenon and calculated that it would take about 24,000 years for the constellations to return to their original point.

Cruttenden argues that the precession is not caused by a wobble in the Earth’s rotation, as is commonly taught, but may actually be caused by a companion star to our sun, one which currently is far away from the Earth but which would eventually rotate closer to the sun...>

http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2006/02/03/news/community/friloc04.txt

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Now where is that enormous ball of nuclear fusion?

I know I had it around here somewhere, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. Maybe I left it in my other suit...

[Hokie]

2. My BS radar gage is on full scale (nt)

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. The real reason was explained in great depth in the 1860's by E. J. Routh

"Advanced Dynamics of a System of Rigid Bodies" Basically it is caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon & Sun on the slightly ellipsoidal shape of the earth. The argument uses straight forward Newtonian Mechanics and gyroscopic theory. The 26,000 Years falls right out of even the most idealized model.
The original work was done by Euler in the 1700's.

Goldstein "Classical Mechanics" offers it up as a homework problem!

[sam sarrha]

4. no, procession is cause by earths wobble, ancient people have left us a

message in several places in the world in the form of mathematical ratios of large structures that describe Procession and pinpoint their position relative to the constellations.. as a message to people in the future.

these cultures existed about 10,500 BC... like the Sumerians from which the stories of Genesis come from only in bits and pieces of he original.. the actual story is not so cosmic or mystical.. it is only mystical because the bits and pieces leave out so much it appears to be the work of the gods.. not who actually did it..

[rman]

7. precession = earths wobble. Question is,

what causes the wobble. A companion star is a somewhat plausible explanation. And i'm not so sure ie a red dwarf or perhaps a large gas giant at an orbit outside the Oort cloud would be easy to detect.

[sam sarrha]

9. the earth is not round, very much not round, the spin isn not effected by

orbit, the article i linked explains why it wobbles.. if we had a twin star, i think you would see it.

think of a tire that is out of ballance, the heavy part throws itself out from a rotating center draging the center with it. except in a sphere the line thru the poles draws a circle above each pole. the apes of the two cones drawn is in the center of the earth, see the article

[rman]

10. Double stars are not necessarily "twins"

In fact most are not.

If the sun has a companion star it may well be a red dwarf in an orbit outside the oort cloud, in which case it would not be easily detectable (and certainly not visible to the unaided eye).

Because the earth is not round (its mass not distributed evenly), a companion star may very well be the cause or one the the causes of the wobble.

[sam sarrha]

13. I have a friend in Napal... does his motion effect how i walk, he has more

gravitational effect on me than a burnt out star billions of miles from here, undetectable from even Hubble...

Corporate Fascist Running Dog Capitalists have a whole lot more effect on you than a gas bag in the Deep Black that would be moving so slowly relative to the earth, if it did exist, it in effect would not really be moving at all in you life time, relatively

[qazplm]

19. once again

if we can see and find red dwarfs several light years or more away, what makes you think it simply being "outside the Oort Cloud" makes it more difficult to detect??!!

[rayofreason]

12. What nonsense!

[Freedom_from_Chains]

5. I don't know

Einstein established the validity of the Progression of the Equinoxes which exactly matched Newtons time difference in the orbit or either Mercury or Venus. At least that is how they taught physics when I went to school.

[rayofreason]

6. What B.S.

The observed precession is well-understood. There is no need of magic or myths (nix one post #4 as well).

[qazplm]

8. We can find individual asteroids

the size of a small city, we can find earth sized planets across the light years, but apparently we have missed a companion star?
I dont think so.

[rman]

11. Only a few earthsized extrasolar planets have been discovered -

which are in orbit around a pulsar. These were discovered quite some time ago when the advanced methods used today were not available. The article i found does not mention the detection method but i suspect the fact that these planets orbit a pulsar is why these planets could be detected back then.

Extrasolar planets discovered these days (using recent advancements in detection methods) are all gas giants in orbit around 'normal' stars.

http://www.novacelestia.com/space_art_extrasolar_planets/earthsized_planets.html

Finding earth sized extrasolar planets is anything but trivial.


Asteroids that have been discovered are all well within the solar system.

A companion star to our sun can be a red dwarf or a brown dwarf in orbit outside the Oort Cloud, in which case it would not be easily detectable. It can also be in an elongated orbit, in which case it would be very far away for most of its orbit, making it even harder to detect.

[Bill McBlueState]

14. that's the beauty of these "Sun has a companion" speculations

It's very easy to imagine a body that is small enough and faint enough to be undetectable now, but is massive enough and has an orbit eccentric enough to have affected the inner solar system at some unspecified point in the past.

So even in the absence of a bona fide physical reason to hypothesize a companion to the sun, people can sound all mysterious by saying one just might be out there.

[qazplm]

15. absolute baloney

a red dwarf or brown dwarf would be many times the size of Jupiter. If we can find Pluto, Sedna, Zena, and the like, we can absolutely find a dwarf star. Heck Wolf 359 is a red dwarf that is four light years away and we can find that one. There is absolutely no dwarf star in our oort cloud or anywhere else in a 4 light year radius.

[rman]

16. brown dwarf size similar to jupiter

http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_sources/browndwarf_fg.html

"The approximate size of a brown dwarf (center) compared to Jupiter left) and the Sun (right). Although brown dwarfs are similar in size to Jupiter, they are much more dense and produce their own light whereas Jupiter shines with reflected light from the Sun."

I do acknowledge that the sun having a companion is speculative.

[qazplm]

17. i was speaking more of red dwarfs but

if you really think a jupiter sized or bigger object is "hiding" in the Oort cloud, respectfully you are just plain wrong. It may have the same radius but its mass is from 5-90 times more than Jupiter. An object of that mass would gravitationally clear out a pretty noticeable area in the Oort Cloud and would wreck havoc on the movement of the objects in the cloud and would be a lot more likely to be found than Pluto-sized objects like Sedna and Xena.

Speculative? No, its just plain not based on any evidence whatsoever and is completely in contradiction to all evidence we already have.
There is no companion to the Sun.

[depakid]

18. Sounds like Velikovsky

Worlds in Collision. It was all the rage back in the 1950's.

http://skepdic.com/velikov.html

One quote from the website really stands out (and man, is it relevant to America today):

"Reading something they can understand, that seems to make sense, that presents itself as technically competent, non-scientists are easily gulled by fake science." --Henry H. Bauer

Looks like the Gazette Times was just doing a little puff piece for the guy's appearance in town.