Nemesis: The Death Star

Richard Muller's "Nemesis: The Death Star" is one of the most fascinating works on the subject. With 17 chapters and 185 pages, this book is easy to read and certainly a food for thought to which the author proposes the theory that our Sun has an unseen companion star. And, if there's an unseen companion star orbiting the Sun periodically, it would mostly likely to be passing through the Oort cloud (clouds of comets) surrounding our system, knocking off comets in the direction of the Earth and other planets, as it would leads to a periodic cosmic bombardment. It is often a wonder on why comet impacts are not seen as frequent or so we have been told. Most scientists nowadays are focusing on asteroids, not comets. Why? Comets are generally known to be unstable yet they are being ignored. Some individuals would of course say that the Earth is pretty safe from the cosmic bombardment. No worry. Let's all relax and live our lives as normally. But, that is the sort of a wrong attitude to take now. Muller said that "we are in the 'eye' of the comet storm, and, just like the eye of a hurricane, it is quiet" (p. 107). In other words, we are in a "calm before the storm" phase. Will we ever be prepared? Muller's book reads like a scientific autobiography, even though it is not, but it is a book that reveals an intellectual journey of discovery. It is very informative, eye-opening, and insightful. I would very much recommend it as I sincerely hope that the author would re-publish this work. Along with Muller's book, I would also recommend other works relating to cosmic bombardment: Victor Clube's The Cosmic Serpent and The Cosmic Winter, as well Mike Baillie's New Light on the Black Death.

Nemesis is a true account of a scientist's journey in trying to solve one of the most fascinating puzzles in modern science... what is the cause of mass extinctions on Earth? Upon reading a paper by two other scientists who showed that there was an unexplained periodicity of mass extinctions on planet Earth every 26 million years coupled with the discovery of iridium deposits at all of the extinction boundaries, Richard Muller comes up with a rough idea that it might be related to a companion star with our Sun which somehow causes a spike in comet or meteor impacts. Muller gives amazing insight into the scientific process while telling this great story of discovery. Highly recommended to anyone, especially students.

"Nemesis: The Death Star" is the story of a possible explanation for periodic comet and asteroid impacts on Earth and other members of the Solar System. In brief, Dr. Richard Muller of Cal-Berkley believes that our Sun may have an as yet undetermined companion star (remember, many stars are part of binary systems). There are about 3,000 stars which meet the basic qualifications for our Sun's binary companion: visual magnitude of 7 to 12, probably a Red Dwarf, and probably between 1-3 light-years orbital distance from the Sun. The distances for the stars which could possibly be the Nemesis star have NOT been measured, though the stars themselves have been catalogued. This is a tedious, time-consuming and, unfortunately, not very pressing matter for most astronomers. Hence, despite the widespread debates on the Nemesis Theory over all these years, it still has been left unresolved, indeed, the basic scientific measurements have not been done (though Muller and others are re-starting the effort).If our Sun has a Nemesis companion, then every few million years it would come into contact with our Solar System by impacting the Ort Cloud. The Ort Cloud is the outer halo of objects tied to our Sun and the Solar System, and includes comets and other fragmentary matter which often have long, elliptical orbits. The Ort Cloud extends out almost to a light-year, or some 50,000 AU (astronomical unit = 93 million miles, the distance from the Sun to Earth). By comparison, Pluto, the most distant planet, is only about 50 AU distant from the Sun.Nemesis would alter the route of some of those objects, throwing them "inward" towards the Solar System and causing the cratering so visible on our Moon and the planet Mercury. These impacts are less visible on Earth (erosion, plate tectonics, continental changes) but we have several "smoking guns" coinciding with some well-known impacts from Earth's history, most noticeably the impacts at the time of the dinosaur extinction (Cretaceous, 65 million years ago) and The Great Dying (Permian-Triassic, 251 million years ago). You can see updates on Muller's Nemesis Theory on his website, which also includes interesting essays on scientific topics of current interest, like terrorism and climate change. Lately, Muller's research has included models on the potential long-period stability of an assumed Nemesis orbit.Muller's book goes into details on the various scientific methods they used to determine possible impact time-lines and the causes of extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Era. It is pretty easy reading, you do not need to be an expert on astronomy or physics to understand or enjoy the story (it reads like a novel, as other reviewers have noted) and Richard Muller is a very good storyteller.The only negative is that the book is out-of-print and might be tough to come by. On the other hand, if the search for Nemesis pans out, I am sure Dr. Muller will do the long-awaited 2nd Edition of the book and it will

THis is both a scientific and a detective novel. But then again, all science involves searching for the unknown or the missing. Luis Alvarez and his son are both cosmologists of that old school - those who both theorize and journey beyond the walls of academia. It was an insight, something totally unforseen, that caused them to think of a "death star" that routinely visits the Earth bringing with it asteroids of death and destruction. This new knowledge along with all the evidence of other, non-Nemesis destructive events makes one suddenly aware of how precious and fragile is our existence. Through journeys to all parts of the globe, collecting samples, months of analysis, back to the field and back to the labs, writing, formulating....this was a task of momentous proportions.Particularly difficult was the disclaim received when their theory was first proposed. The scientific community is a jealous one and those announcing new or revisionist views are rarely applauded and even less accepted. When other scientists joined the fray and computer simulations began agreeing with the theory, attitudes began to change. One particular problem was synthesizing the known extinctions with the alleged serial ones - and once this was done they were home free. Because we cannot "see" a Nemesis star, this will always have to be based on strong, circumstancial evidence (periodic mass extinctions, the layers of irridium, the computer-generated hypothese). Great book and great writing.

Dr. Muller is my Physics professor here at U.C. Berkeley, and he is quite an exceptional man. This book reads very easy, often explaining the most complicated scientific ideas and theories in easy to understand ways. The accumulated knowledge that this book provides is almost as spectacular as the description of the journey through that knowledge. I did not buy this book, it was actually given to our class by Dr. Muller himself, but if you have even an inkling of interest in not only science, but also in exploration and discovery, then I would sincerely encourage you to try to find it, if not thru a used bookstore then perhaps at a local public library. It's a relatively short and quickly read work, and is well worth the time you put into it. I can't recommend it highly enough.