by Terrence Aym

Created on: December 10, 2010

A team of Spanish astronomers claim they've discovered evidence of a significant object on the outskirts of the solar system. The object is so big it may have large satellites orbiting it. Officially it's named "G1.9."

What the team believes it has discovered is a brown dwarf star. If true, that would make our solar system a binary star system.

Binary star systems are not unusual. But the discovery comes after almost a decade of fevered speculation feeding conspiracy theories of a giant star named Nemesis or a Planet X that swings around the sun every 13,500, 27,000 or 55,000 years—take your pick.

Serious investigation of large objects long thought to be part of our system, yet well past the orbit of Pluto, have been dampened by the frenzy of true believers that are convinced a gigantic object will presage massive earth changes for either good or bad.

Now some new evidence has revealed there may well be such an object—or something similar—so the volume of the conspiracy enthusiasts will no doubt ratchet up.

While that might be beneficial for web traffic and late night talk show ratings, it doesn't help good science (or the knowledge that comes from it) move forward.

The Oort Cloud

Many star systems in the galaxy are binary (double) stars. Theoretically, binaries can be formed one of two ways: simultaneously from one collapsing mass of superheated gaseous matter; or they bifurcate and split apart creating two stars.

Data from hundreds of years of observations has revealed that binary stars sometimes both fully ignite and nuclear fusion takes place. Other times a smaller partner does not have enough critical mass to ignite fusion and so remains dim, burning only as a red or brown dwarf.

A dwarf star, while dim, still emits heat.

Two stars in the same system orbit about each other, the orbital point is known as the barycenter. A telltale wobble of the large companion star reveals the presence of the often all but invisible dwarf.

According to the Spanish astronomers' data, it appears that G1.9 is orbiting in a long elliptical loop between Pluto and the edge of the Oort Cloud.

The size of the brown dwarf is larger than Jupiter but smaller than a low mass star.

G1.9 is currently approximately 60 to 66 Astronomical Units from Earth. (1 AU = the distance from the Sun to Earth). In the sky it can be located in the vicinity of the Sagittarius constellation. The discovery seems to have occurred at G1.9's closest approach to us.

The solar systems 'belts'

Almost any

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