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Nemesis: The Death Star

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"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 be readily available.

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.

Dr. Muller is one of those rare scientists - he can write as well (or better) than he can think. When writing this book, he must have been awake on all counts, I think. The theory expounded upon in this book, the idea that our Sun has a dim companion that we have not yet found, is both fascinating and controversial. The evidence is very well presented, with only an occasional lapse into inpenetrable scispeak, and the idea is one that is compelling to anyone who studies evolutionary theory. What if this dim companion that we have not seen yet does exist? It means that we have quite possibly stumbled upon a way to predict the end of the world as we know it (assuming we don't lend a helping hand of our own, of course...). This dim companion of Muller's, which he names Nemesis, supposedly perturbs the orbits of enough comets and meteoric material that the "hit rate" on our little ball of gas goes up considerably - thus inducing the same symptoms which now are considered to have contributed greatly to the last hurrah of the dinosaurs, i.e., large impacts on the surface of the earth. This phenomenon, which causes nuclear winter-like symptoms, can also be seen in the past geological record and seems to be somewhat cyclical. The real problem here is that the cycle proposed is so bloody long and our dating methods so bloody inaccurate that you can't really prove anything no matter how much arguement is put forth in writing. But as absurd as Muller's arguements may sound to the layman, the bottom line is that he has just as much chance of being right about this as anyone else has. The other bottom line here is that this book is well-written and intelligent, though I would say that anyone who got lost in science classes in high school would probably get lost in this book, too. So, if you want to know what you need to worry about in the next billion years or so, find a copy of this book and start figuring ways to get off this mudball.

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.

I enjoyed this book and had read other takes on this same or a similar concept. His style of writing is better than many scientists but it seemed to me while reading it that he could, by being so selective of the evidence he chooses to research, make just about any scenario seem plausible. I did not like the way he put down all non-scientists with theories as "nut cases" and then goes on to express a need for being open-minded to new ideas. Since I am sure he hoped his book would be bought and read by many people with interest but no credentials in astronomy,physics, and geology it seemed to me he was rather insulting to our intelligence. All in all, I did like the book and the theory and think it goes a long way toward reminding us all how little we really know or understand of our place in the universe. I hope to find an update on this theory as I would guess a lot of research has been done since publication of this book. Any suggestions Dr. Muller??

This book is very well written and worth the time to read to see how the scientific process worked in the mind of the author. Since the book was written it seems that the search for Nemisis has gone from looking for a red dwarf star to looking for a brown dwarf as a source of cosmic castastrophe (ie. what kill the dinosaurs was multiple cometary strikes). No the less it is an interesting book that at time moves fast if you are not acquainted to physics, geology and other specialties listed in the book. Another avenue to this theory is that the ouiji board conscious channel source the Cassiopaeans have also said that a brown dwarf star is a 'dark companion' of the sun that is or has smashed through the Oort cloud throwing comets our way. [...] Laura Knight Jadczyk's book 'The Secret History of the World' has a section detailing some of the evidence behind past cosmic catastrophes. A couple of good books to read along the lines of comic catastrophe are 'New Light on the Black Death' and 'Exodus to Arthur: : Catastrophic Encounters with Comets' by Mike Baillie. Both go into detail that the earth was hit by either meteorites or cometary fragments. Another good book to read is 'The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: How a Stone-Age Comet Changed the Course of World Culture' that details how a comet hit the earth around 13,000 years ago, which is interesting and packed full of information on how they determined that the comet hit and what it did to the world. Next on my list to read on the topic is 'The Diluvian Impact' by Heinrich P. Koch.

Explores not only the controversial "Nemesis" theory, but the human side of scientific research in this enthralling book. Excellent read for the science-minded.

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.