Re: Challenge to Jim Scotti

Article: <[email protected]> 
Subject: Re: Challenge to Jim Scotti
Date: 28 Apr 1998 12:06:17 GMT

In article <[email protected]> M.C.
Harrison wrote:
>> Remember, Jim Scotti stated that a planet CAN orbit BOTH 
>> suns in a binary system.
>
> Well he was wrong, if he was suggesting the case you are 
> pushing, whoever he is. Are you sure he didn't mean a large 
> orbit round a close binary?

We don't know WHAT he meant by that, as he's not explaining himself,
whoever he is.

.........
220 230896 <[email protected]> article
Path: ix.netcom.com!news
From: [email protected](Nancy)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Re: Planet X/12th Planet Long Elliptical Orbit
Date: 6 Apr 1998 14:11:41 GMT
Organization: Netcom
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In article <[email protected]> Jim Scotti writes:
>> It's a fact that most suns are binaries, and some so close at 
>> to give : the appearance of barely keeping each other at arms 
>> length.  Why should : it be astonishing that a planet would 
>> institute an orbit around BOTH? Are you saying it is impossible
>> for a planet to orbit two suns? Impossible?
>
> A planet can orbit both suns in a binary star system.  

(Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
You went through an elaborate statement to say you base your theories
on orbits upon what you have OBSERVED - inverse square on Gravity and
momentum conservation of energy rules.  Bearing in mind that you have
not OBSERVED a planet orbiting two suns, both suns in a binary system,
what would that orbit look like?  For the sake of moving this argument
forward, we will assume for the moment that your orbital mechanics are
correct, and not under challenge.  Just paint for us what that orbit
would look like.  Not the several pages of math, but just something
simple, in the manner you are so very skilled at employing.  A simple
verbal description of what such an orbit would look like.  

You have a head start in that your astronomy computer programs already
ASSUME a second foci in elliptical orbits.  Just put that foci out
there, WAY out there, some 18.724 times as far as Pluto is from your
Sun.  Assume the same factors published prior to the search for Planet
X, Van Flandern's statement that the perterbations observed in the
outer planets would require a planet or brown dwarf 2 to 5 times as
large as Earth.  We are requesting for this discussion that you assume
a planet 4 times as large as Earth, as this is our statement.  Grant us
this assumption in return for our granting you that YOUR assumption on
orbital mechanics is correct, tit for tat, one concession for another,
and since both assumptions as based on human assumption, you should
have no objections.  This hypothetical discussion would be no different
from any other occuring on sci.astro in that regard, applying known
physics, as you say, to a hypothetical situation.

What would such an orbit, where a planet orbited both suns in a binary
system, look like?
(End ZetaTalk[TM])