Re: Challenge to Jim Scotti

Article: <[email protected]> 
Subject: Re: Challenge to Jim Scotti
Date: 3 May 1998 17:17:43 GMT

In article <[email protected]> Jim Scotti writes:
> an object can orbit the barycenter of a binary system if it is 
> far enough out.  

(Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
Pardon?  What happened to GRAVITY!!  This is so absurd as to be
ridiculous!  How can you say that with a straight face!  Binary suns
have a planet so far out that it treats the two suns as a single
element?  You are placing the planet at a distance equivalent to
another star system!  Binary suns are at a great distance from each
other, and their planets are snug about each of them.  Would you expect
your Earth to orbit your Sun if placed several thousand AU out?  What
you are describing is several million AU out!
(End ZetaTalk[TM])

In article <[email protected]> Jim Scotti writes:
> Of course, there are also orbits that resemble figure 8s, but they
> aren't elliptical anymore. 

(Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
Are these orbits you have seen, or speculated upon?  Please
differentiate.  There are NO such orbits!
(End ZetaTalk[TM])