– Large ‘Planet X’ May Lurk Beyond Pluto
NASA scientists are searching for an invisible ‘Death Star’ that circles the Sun, which catapults potentially catastrophic comets at the Earth.
This diagram shows a brown dwarf in relation to Earth, Jupiter, a low-mass star and the sun. Photo: NASA
The star, also known as Nemesis, is five times the size of Jupiter and could be to blame for the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
The bombardment of icy missiles is being blamed by some scientists for mass extinctions of life that they say happen every 26 million years.
Nemesis is predicted to lie at a distance equal to 25,000 times that of the Earth from the Sun, or a third of a light-year.
Astronomers believe it is of a type called a red or brown dwarf – a “failed star” that has not managed to generate enough energy to burn like the Sun.
But it should be detectable by a heat-sensitive space telescope called WISE, the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer.
Launched last year, WISE began surveying the skies in January. It is expected to discover a 1000 brown dwarfs within 25 light-years of the Sun – right on our cosmic doorstep – before its coolant runs out in October.