Word: muller
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Among the various astronomers who considered and promptly rejected the galactic carrousel notion was California's Muller, a scientist obsessed by periodicity. If a familiar cosmic mechanism could not account for the cyclic nature of extinctions, he decided, something completely different would have to do. During Christmas break in 1983, Muller and fellow Astronomers Marc Davis of Berkeley and Piet Hut of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton were brainstorming about stars and periodicity, when Muller noted that more than half the stars in the galaxy are thought to be binaries (pairs of stars that orbit a common center...
...four centuries since astronomers began using telescopes, it must be very small and dim, perhaps a red dwarf with one-third the mass and only one one-thousandth the brilliance of the sun. When it passed through the Oort cloud, it would dislodge a billion or more comets. Muller, searching for an appropriate name for the lethal companion, considered several. But the one that stuck was Nemesis, the Greek goddess who punishes the proud...
...Before publishing their report, Muller decided to get a second opinion from the fathers of the impact theory, Luis and Walter Alvarez. Neither conferred his benediction on the hypothetical star, but Walter recommended one way that its existence might be tested. He knew that if comets cyclically pelted the planet, they must have left behind craters in chronologically distinct batches. Water, wind and continental drift have eroded most of the earth's impact craters, but 100 of the largest survive in some form and have been roughly dated. Muller and Walter Alvarez examined the data on 13 of the best...
...warrior star, however, has captured the imagination of many others. Says Tom Gehrels, an astronomer with the University of Arizona: "When I heard the theory, I knew in my heart it was right." Indeed, Gehrels immediately hopped on a westbound plane to try to persuade Muller to let him help search for the companion. But Muller's own telescopic dissection of 5,000 stars in the Northern Hemisphere that are candidates for being Nemesis was already under way, and there was no need for Gehrels' help. So far, Muller has photographed nearly all the target stars once and is preparing...
...from other quarters as well. Jordin Kare, a physicist with Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, has suggested that a 24-in. Schmidt telescope in Australia be used with a computer scanning system called the Star Cruncher to survey the Southern Hemisphere skies. If these approaches turn up a blank, Kare and Muller will launch a Star Cruncher search in the north. And at JPL, Astrophysicist Thomas Chester, chief of the I.R.A.S. data team, is sifting through recorded I.R.A.S. transmissions looking for Nemesis and other unusual objects. Although I.R.A.S. operated for only ten months in 1983 before dying, it managed to chug...